By DLSA Head Coach Tay de Joux

Learning to swim as a child or an adult can lay the groundwork for a happy and healthy life. Swimming can also help establish great life qualities from a young age.

DISCIPLINE Self-discipline is not something that is gifted to us, it is a skill, just like any skill the more you work on it, the more you practice, then the easier it will be to carry this skill through all aspects of life. There will be days as a swimming athlete where you don’t want to go to training, you don’t want to get out of bed at 5am on a cold morning, you don’t want to do those last few laps of drill work, you don’t want to keep pushing through the main set because you’re exhausted or the pain is too uncomfortable for you. When the athlete can learn to push through and ignore that voice in the back of their head telling them to take the easy option out, that’s where discipline and positive self-control is developed.

PERSISTENCE There are no short cuts in life. If you want to achieve something, you are more than likely going to have to display effort, consistency and persistence time and time again to achieve those goals. Swimming is a sport that is heavily focused on technique, this means learning new skills, unlearning old habits, repeating drills over and over again.

Learning to swim can be hard and sometimes it can feel like you’ve hit a wall with progression. Learning to continue to be positive and committed despite feeling like you have failed in some way is an invaluable skill to learn, this will improve your life in and out of the water.

GOAL SETTING Having big goals is necessary for achieving success in the pool. A clear and specific vision is needed to understand what direction you’re heading, it’s also a great way to understand what level of commitment is really needed to achieve these goals that you’re wanting to chase.

If a swimmer identifies they want to compete at the Olympic Games they have a good understanding of the level of commitment that is needed to achieve this. Small milestones are just as important as the big goals. This keeps the athlete focused and positive in their journey. Celebrating milestones and the small wins is a lesson not many people really incorporate into their lives. For a swimmer each PB is a milestone celebrated.