61. Want More Waves? The Mindset Shift That Changed Everything

Do you ever tell yourself, “I’m just grateful to be out here,” when deep down, you’re frustrated by how your sessions are going? That was me—not catching as many waves as I wanted, quietly comparing myself to others in the lineup, and telling myself it was okay to just enjoy the sunshine. But the truth was, I wanted more.

In this episode, I’m sharing the moment I realized my “grateful” mindset was actually holding me back, the advice from Surf Société mentor Paul Spooner that completely changed my paddling technique, and how I started doubling my wave count in just one session. If you’ve been stuck in a cycle of shielding yourself from frustration instead of reaching for more, this is your reminder that it’s okay to want more out of your surfing—and your sessions.

Main Themes:

Recognizing Limiting Mindsets:
“I realized I was using gratitude to shield myself from disappointment, but deep down, I wanted more.” – Laura Day
The Power of Technique Over Fitness:
“Don’t ever let fitness be the reason you’re not catching waves—it’s all about technique.” – Paul Spooner
Balancing Gratitude with Ambition:
“You can be grateful for your surf sessions and still want more.” – Laura Day

Resources:

• ✨ Join Surf Société (7-Day Free Trial)
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• 📸 Follow Laura on Instagram
  Behind-the-scenes surf reflections, podcast updates, and community connection. 👉 @confessionsofasurflady
• 🌊 Surf Société on Instagram
  Our official community account — surf tips, expert events, and empowering women’s surf content. 👉 @surfsociete
• 🛍 Support the Podcast by Shopping Surf Société
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Chapters

• 0:00 The “Gratitude Mindset” Trap
• 1:20 Why Lowering Expectations Might Be Sabotaging Your Surf Progress
• 3:45 The Shift That Changed Everything for Me
• 6:30 What You Really Want vs. What You Say
• 8:50 A New Surf Intention: Bold, Clear, and Self-Honest
• 11:10 Confidence Isn’t Just Mental – It’s Cultural
• 13:35 Join Surf Société & Grow With Us

Transcript

Laura Day: 0:04

I'm just grateful to be here. I have no expectations. It's okay if I don't catch any waves today, I'm just here to enjoy the sunshine and hang out with my friends. Do these phrases sound familiar to you? What if I told you that these phrases that are supposed to feel good and positive might actually be holding you back and could actually be a limiting mindset that you're using to protect yourself from being disappointed in this episode, I am going to share a limiting mindset I didn't even know I had, and how I overcame it to start catching more waves and actually start having more fun in each one of my sessions. Insert the introduction here. Okay, so let's talk about some of these mantras. I am just grateful to be here. It's okay if I don't catch any waves like I have no expectations, I'll be the first one to say I have used these mantras for my surf sessions. I have used these mindsets. I've advocated for these mindsets 100% and they are important. They do have their place. I am grateful to be out in the water, but recently, I realized that I was using this attitude to actually shield myself from being disappointed. Shield myself from frustrating surf sessions. Shield myself from feeling like I didn't catch enough waves while I see other people catching a ton of waves around me shield myself from then having to be like, am I even really a surfer? I didn't. I caught like, two waves today. So I would use these phrases to like, just enjoy the moment and be grateful. But deep down, I actually wanted more. Like, deep down I actually like, Well, I was grateful to be out there. I actually wanted to catch more waves, and I was pretty frustrated. It's like, if you are catching, even if you're catching waves and you're going down the line and you're like, this is cool. I catch waves, but deep down, you still want more. In this episode, I'm going to tell you, it's okay to want more. It's like, way it's it's very much okay to want more out of surfing, but if you are using these phrases, I do want you to listen to my story and see if any of it relates to you, and hopefully just reflect and see if those phrases are actually serving you in what you want. So let me tell you my experience with this. I've been surfing for like, 12 years. I feel that I'm pretty comfortable in different lineups most days, but I didn't really feel like I was catching that many waves. I often have attributed this to thinking that I'm not fit enough, which, which is kind of crazy. I work out a lot, but in my head, I'm just thinking I'm not light enough, I'm not fit enough. I don't have the right board, whatever it was, you know, I had these factors that made me believe that these are reasons why I'm probably not catching as many waves as I could be, or as I see other people catching. You know, they're on bigger boards. They look thinner and smaller, whatever. Lots of excuses going on, lots of stories going on, and me kind of synthesizing that to being like, you know what? I'm gonna find those spots that aren't as crowded, that don't have as much of that competition, and I'm gonna be grateful for the session that I had, meanwhile still carrying a little bit of that angst, a little that disappointment. Because I want more. I wanna surf better. I want to you know you really have to catch more waves to surf better. So I'm thinking here like, yeah, I guess I just got to get more fit, whatever it is. Well, I met up with one of our mentors at the surf society. His name is Paul Spooner. You've probably heard him on this heard about him on this podcast. He is a lifelong surfer, a backyard board builder and instructor at the UCSD craft center, teaching surfboard shaping, and also one of our mentors at the surf society here, bringing us his expert knowledge from things he's learned all over all you know through his life, things he's coached his sons on and other people on, and bringing that knowledge to the surf society. Part of the reason I love having people like Paul at the surf society is because they grew up surfing. You know, Paul is one of those people that he tells me all the time, we had nobody to teach us this. We figured that out ourselves. And in surfing, I think a lot of surfers that we see that are really good service. They have kind of like that. They have that generational connection. They might have a family member that that they go and surf with, and they've learned all this knowledge. And for someone like me and possibly, most likely, someone like you, you don't have anyone that has been around. That has this knowledge. So this is, this is Paul, essentially in the surf society, our women's community, where we get together to learn more surf butter and live happy. And here's he's here locally in San Diego. So I go and surf with him every once in a while. This is one of the first times I ever surfed with him. And he loves to give advice. So in this session that we were surfing together, he gave me, it's really important drill on something he saw in the way I was paddling that was preventing me from catching more waves. And I'm such a student mindset, I listen really intently. I'm going to analyze and ask questions and go and try to implement exactly what he's saying. And within one session, within that same session, just with this advice alone, I started to feel exactly what he said, notice the difference, and understand why I was missing a lot of waves that I was going for because that that has happened a lot. In some of my sessions in the past, I'll paddle for a wave, kind of get stuck at the top, and I just won't get into it. And that's the moment where I'm like, Well, I guess I could have had better positioning, but better positioning might have been difficult because there's other people in the water, so I might have been too far inside, or I guess I could have paddled harder, have been more fit, whatever it is, right? Had a better board, whatever the excuse is, but I'm just grateful to be here. So in this session alone, like this one drill, this one piece of advice that was really not like a huge explanation, but this little bit of advice changed how I paddled for waves. And actually, in the session alone, I was catching more waves than I usually do after this session. You know, I'd been implementing this in my future sessions, and I started noticing the difference. I was catching double the waves per session. I mean, we're talking like three to six or five to 10, depending on how good the waves are and how crowded it is out there. But my expectation for myself changed. I wasn't leaning on just wanting to be grateful for the session. I had this drill in mind. I had this thing that I wanted to focus on this thing that I wanted to get better at, and that's what I was working on. I wasn't just grateful to be out in the sunshine. I was getting more out of the session, right? Another time, you know, maybe a week or two later, I had met up with Paul, and we were just talking about the same stuff, and he said to me, don't ever let fitness be the reason why you're not catching more weights. It's all about technique, and that is something that just changed my mind about myself and about my surfing. I've been carrying around this idea that I'm just not fit enough right now, that I don't know I'm too fat, I'm too heavy, whatever it is, I don't look like the people on Instagram that are catching a lot of waves and surfing Well, whatever that mindset back and forth was that thing that he said to me, just changed my mind, and I didn't even realize that I had been indulging in a thought pattern that was limiting me. I had been indulging and telling myself that I'm just grateful to be here and not acknowledging that I actually wanted more out of surfing. If you could relate and you've been using the same phrases, I'm just grateful to be here, you know, I don't have any expectations to catch any waves, or I'm just enjoying the sunshine with my friends, if you've been using these phrases, but deep down, you want more. I'm here to tell you it's okay to want more. It's 100% okay to want more. And part of wanting more will require you to open yourself up a little bit to disappointment that you might have been shielding yourself from. And I know that can be difficult, because if you only surf twice a week, or you only surf once a week because you work on the weekdays and the sun goes down too early, whatever it is, or the break is crowded and it's really frustrating, and you don't want this time to be, you know, sending you home frustrated or upset with your session, I totally understand why you would want to shield yourself from that. But if you want more, you also can't ignore that, and I want to encourage you to strive for more, to look for more, to look for that information, to look for the things that are going to help change your surf sessions and allow you to have both be grateful and have more. And I know that is easier said than done, right? Just hear me out. Follow me along for a second. There's this phrase that I learned from being an entrepreneur that I love, and it absolutely applies. Surfing. And the phrase is, you don't know what you don't know. So in my scenario, I just thought I just wasn't catching enough waves because I wasn't fit enough. Here comes Paul gives me this simple drill that actually he says, a lot of people make the mistake of doing and thing it changes for me. It changes the way I surf. It gives me an opportunity to catch more waves and have a better time. I feel that it is really imperative to have somebody who has that experience to come in and give you that knowledge. This is exactly why I created the surf society. I wanted to have a place where we could find out the things that we don't know, not just get the questions that we have answered, but have our knowledge of surfing be brought in. And that's what we've done. Over the last couple of years, we've provided workshops, events, Q and A's that have given women who surf an opportunity to open this Pandora's box of surfing. If you're kind of at that stage of wanting to catch more waves, like you can go out on your own and you want to catch more waves, or you're going down the line, but you don't know what's next, but you know you want more the surf society is such a good place for you. I'm sure you've heard about the surf society before, but let me give you a quick rundown. It is our digital women's surfing community, where we come together to learn more surf butter and live happy. We have virtual events Q and A's a library of resources, and it's just this tool and community that you can use to become a better surfer and connect with other women who are also striving to become better surfers. So it's just super great energy in there. This quarter, we have a program that's called the Visualize visualization blueprint. And what we're doing is we're laying the groundwork for your best surf season in 2025 we are working on defining our goals, visualizing success, and conquering mental obstacles and giving you the support that you need through our thriving sisterhood, one of the things that we're adding to the surf society, we didn't have this before, but we're doing technique development. We're doing these drills and this experience that I shared with you, with me, being out and surfing with Paul, is exactly it's gonna be the drill that we focus on this quarter, how to catch more waves with varying paddling speeds. And that is what he's gonna break down for us. I find it super interesting, because after he told me about this, he's like, Yeah, this is really common. This is something I see a lot of people do, and when someone says that to me, that's when I know that we can take that information and present it and like in online materials and online Q and A's, and you can get something out of it to then go and apply it to your next surf session, and hopefully feel like the same way that I felt, going from just feeling like, Oh, I'm so grateful to be out here in the sunshine with my friends to oh, I have this thing that I can focus on and work on in my session, and I can still be grateful while I'm moving towards my goals, while I'm moving towards getting the more that I want, I don't have to like, just shield myself from disappointment, I can focus on something that is going to make a difference and move the needle for me, and that is really, really exciting. So I want to invite you. I'm always inviting you to join us at the surf society, and if you're ready to step up for your surf skills in like a very female focused environment, if you love the podcast and the conversations here, essentially, it's really similar in the sense that it's the same attitude, it's the same vibe. I'm the one looking for the mentors to bring on, for the people that want to come on and share their knowledge and helping disseminate that into information that you can take to go out there and catch more wave. So I am so excited to share the visualization blueprint with you. If you were listening to this whole episode, wondering what Paul told me, the way to find out is she gotta be in the serve society. Of course, we have a special introductory offer right now, if you want to join us for this first quarter, and instead of paying a monthly it's $35 for the first quarter, for that three whole months of learning more surfing better and living happy at the surf society best $35 you will ever invest In your surfing. Side note, I had been doing this drill, this thing that Paul had told me, and like, a week or two later, I kind of mentioned it in in a conversation with a friend, and she's like, How long ago did he teach you that? And I'm like, I don't know, like a couple, like, a week ago or something, maybe two weeks. She's like, because I had been noticing you've been. Catching a lot more waves than you usually do. That was really satisfying to hear that. So come catch more waves with me. Come join us at the surf society. Come join our visualization blueprint program here in quarter one, I'll put a link in the show notes for you so you can join us for your first quarter, for three whole months for $35 all right, lady, So moral of the story, you can be grateful for your serve sessions and you can still want more. Okay, it's okay to want more. Hope to see you inside the serve society. Go hit that link in the show notes. You.