The Biggest Adventure Is The One To Be Ourselves With Kristine Goad

Jo & JJ Go Mental

This week, we welcome Kristine Goad, author of Surfing Your Edge and personal transformation coach. We talk with her about embarking on the biggest adventure in life, finding out who we really are and having the courage to embrace it and show it off to the world. Kristine feels most alive when doing something out of her comfort zone, and now helps facilitate people throughout their big events in life. Kristine talks with us about embracing her own so-called failures and turning them into life lessons, and advice for trusting your gut and just enjoying the process without having an attachment to a certain outcome. Whether it’s participating in a 48 day cross country bike ride, plunging herself into the ocean for a triathlon or just having the courage to get to know herself better, if there is a fear, Kristine is going to conquer it.

Takeaway:

[1:56] Kristine helps her clients see themselves for who they truly are and figure out what they want in life. She shares a bit about her own story and how she wasn’t diagnosed properly with depression until there was a crisis. If there is one thing the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us, it’s that we shouldn’t wait until there is a crisis to have a plan and work on our own emotional health.

[5:50] To Kristine, Surfing on the Edge means doing something you have no clue how to do, and trusting yourself that either you will figure it out during the process, or at the very least you will learn along the way. She shares examples of diving into what scares her the most, whether it’s a surf retreat in Panama or the ocean as part of a triathlon to get over her aversion to swimming in water. To her, if you are living and breathing, you still have time to conquer your fear, or at least get comfortable with the uncomfortability of it.

[13:08] The worst case scenario that we play in our minds is usually less terrible than what happens in actuality. Jo discusses how there are scary things that she has done in her life that others might have found really overwhelming - like moving to a different country at 18, or leaping off a 20 foot high platform onto, basically, an inflatable mattress; and then there are other things - like publishing a blog post - that sent her off into a spiral of fear outside her comfort zone, things that pretty much anyone else would have thought to be a walk in the park. Fear is relative, and it’s personal to each of us.

[18:02] Kristine talks about a bike ride she did for the American Lung Association that lasted 48 days and saw her riding across the US. She didn’t ride every mile on the cross country trip, and that triggered some people and made them feel as though their accomplishments were diminished. This is a perfect example of perfectionism and how it kills our potential for joy when we are just attached to one outcome. One of the reasons that Kristine did the bike ride was that she hoped that somewhere along the way, she would work out what it was that she was meant to do in her life. Much to her annoyance, Kristine got to the end of the bike ride none the wiser - the universe hadn’t sent her any clues at all (at least, so she thought). Jo quickly notices that perhaps the universe had been sending her messages - that all she needed to do was be herself. Just try and stay on the bike, and not worry about anything else. Kristine explains that over the twenty years following the bike ride she finally came to exactly the same conclusion.

[27:44] It is common for people to do “big” things and feel depressed after, because they don’t feel as happy or complete as they thought they would once they got there. Using her own experience of feeling depressed after the bike ride and not knowing what to do next, Kristine is able to connect with her Surfing On the Edge participants to coach them through their own adventures with compassion and wisdom.

[30:45] Jo talks about how when she realized that the only way to survive was by being fully herself, she felt both a joy and sadness. When we can fully be ourselves, it gives permission to others to do the same.

[35:22] Kristine had a fruitful and productive 2020, and then at the start of 2021, she set herself up for 75 Hard, a very rigorous 75 day challenge. This challenge calls for a lot of discipline and consistency, and while those are two attributes Kristine desired more of, she found herself beating herself up for not completing the rigorous tasks. J.J. says that in DBT, we would look at the emotions that were leading to her beating herself up.

[40:42] Sometimes things happen so organically that we don’t trust it, but we should. Trust the process, and your gut.

Connect With Us:

Joanna Denton | Dr. J.J. Kelly

Surfing Your Edge

Kristine Goad | LinkedIn

Flip Your Happy Switch

75 Hard