Barrier Reef Australia Blog

Staying focused is the key to success on career choices, accomplishments to be reached, buying groceries at a supermarket, scuba diving on your vacation, etc. but, why are you doing it in the first place?

What I mean is, well, why do you want to be a lawyer, or become a great snowboarder or a professional scuba diving instructor,

It’s never easy to buy only what is on the grocery list at the super market, or keeping track of time and air levels under the water as you’re watching beautiful oceanic manta rays at 20m below.

When it comes to professional scuba diving, it’s easy for those in the dive industry to want to work their way up the corporate ladder.

However, for recreational divers, it’s not something most people think about until later.

Set goals for yourself and yes, there are many. But, what’s a realistic goal worth setting that a recreational scuba diver can aim for?

In the beginning, for most, it’s the small goals that make big differences. Improving air tank consumption, buoyancy, aquatic knowledge, diving techniques, etc. are the usual goals first set by new scuba divers.

And they are important goals to have as they will help one to become a good diver.

Air consumption alone, increases dive time and who does not want more of that?

Buoyancy is key to being in control and with better air consumption, as you learn to use your lungs, puts you in even more control when you no longer have to rely on your BCD.

Aquatic life and knowledge of the Great Barrier Reef and the world’s oceans as to how it all works, builds confidence as a scuba diver and the more you have, the better you’ll be for it.

Diving techniques, such as small tricks of the trade that they don’t always teach you in the beginning, come from experiences diving and scuba diving all over again and again.

Next scuba diving goal for me at least, was to go deeper! And to do that, I had to be a certified diver. So the advance open water course was the first step, followed by the deep diver speciality.

But then my problem was not being able to stay down longer at deeper depths due to the oxygen level in my tank.

To increase that, I had to do my enriched air course to dive with high percentages of oxygen as to have increased bottom time while I enjoy watching beauties such as oceanic manta rays at 20m below.

Those were my goals and each one helped me to be the diver I am today which just so happens to be a full time dive instructor travelling the world and living my dream life.

My goals got bigger and bigger and eventually lead me to a career in the dive industry, but that was only after hundreds and hundreds of recreational dives in tropical places such as the Great Barrier Reef while dreaming of a change in careers.

Goals are set for a reason. As to what that reason is, well it’s up to the individual or the group.

But goals help us to stay focused and when we lose focus, the goal may not be reached. On every scuba dive, I have a goal to see a blue whale.

But because our group may find a beautiful sea turtle sleeping inside a cave, the blue whale might swim pass us as we were looking at the reef and not into the blue.

However, I don’t give up that goal. I still, to this day, dive in search of seeing that blue whale.

Like I said, the goals you set will become bigger and bigger but the bigger they are, the harder they become.

Even if it is something as big as seeing a blue whale, it motivates us to do more.

Speaking of whales did you know you can swim with whales on the Great Barrier Reef or go on whale watching tours? 

Enough of me now... what are YOUR diving goals?

Let Barrier Reef Australia assist you in finding the right dive option for you - 1300 231 118

Bye for now!

PS: I have published quite a few blogs now for Barrier Reef Australia, read them all here.