Life Is Like Sailing a Boat Against the Current (Part 1 of 2)

Part One: If You Are Not Moving Forward, Are You Moving Backwards?

Dear Reader,

Today, I would like to introduce you to a remarkable woman, Xinhua Wu. She began life as a poor girl in the Chinese countryside, in a place and time where university offered a rare, life-changing opportunity. Through years of study and persistent effort, she entered university, earned a PhD and became a world-renowned scientist, highly respected within her field. Having already built a successful academic career, she then stepped away from the security of university life and entered an unfamiliar world: business. The distance between the girl she once was and the woman she became is profound. What enabled her to travel so far from where she began? Part of the answer may be found in a life motto given to her by a teacher who recognised her potential and encouraged her to keep studying:

“Life is like sailing a boat against the current. If you are not moving forward, you are moving backwards.”

This motto has stayed with her through several decades. Together, we will break down what it means for Xinhua and how it has helped her move forward despite all the hurdles she encounters.

Reflection: Do you have a life motto that keeps you moving forward when faced with difficulties?

Sailing through life, but not really

When life is defined as ‘sailing a boat against the current’, at the centre of this metaphor is the verb ‘sailing’, which suggests perpetual movement. For her, living means learning, changing, creating and moving towards the next challenge, with each challenge rising like another wave before her. After becoming an accomplished scientist, she did not remain within the comfort of a field she had already mastered. She chose to enter business because she wanted an adventure and an opportunity to learn something new. Even retirement, imagined as spending her days tending her garden, holds little appeal; without challenge and discovery, she believes she would become bored. This active orientation has helped her continually develop and adapt. Yet when life is understood primarily through movement, remaining still may begin to resemble stagnation, and what has already been achieved can become less important than whatever must be accomplished next.

Reflection: How is your relationship with change?

Adventuring on a boat

The boat places her inside the journey as an active participant. She is not standing on the shore, waiting for circumstances to change, nor is she floating helplessly wherever the water carries her. She has something she can steer. This sense of agency appears throughout her story: when difficulties arise, she looks for another product, another market, a stronger team or a different strategy. The boat also offers the possibility of travelling beyond familiar shores. Moving from science into business allowed her to enter a world she did not yet understand and discover what she could learn. Yet believing that she is responsible for steering can carry its own weight. When the journey goes off course, she readily examines her own decisions and what she should have done differently, sometimes assuming responsibility even for circumstances that no individual could completely control.

Reflection: How strong is your sense of agency and accountability?

Going against the current

To sail against the current is to travel in the direction of resistance and hardship. In her life, progress has repeatedly required her to move towards difficulty rather than away from it. She does not seek pain for its own sake; she seeks learning, achievement and the possibility of creating something valuable. Yet because these goals lie upstream, she is prepared to approach the discomfort that stands between her and them. This ability to move towards hardship has helped her persist through poverty, demanding study, cultural expectations and the unfamiliar challenges of business. However, she also appears to have formed a broader conclusion: “Success is hardship.” Here, hardship is no longer one possible feature of success but something success seems to require. The current therefore serves two purposes: it represents an obstacle she has the strength to confront, while also reinforcing her belief that a worthwhile journey should be difficult.

Reflection: Do you usually move towards hardship or away from it?

Forward or Backward

Forward movement gives the metaphor its hope. It suggests that somewhere ahead lies a destination worth reaching: new knowledge, a useful product, a successful company or a meaningful return for the people who trusted her. Even when she sees substantial risks, she continues to search for another route forward. Yet the metaphor allows only two directions. If she is not moving forward, she must be moving backwards. There is no place for maintaining her position, pausing to recover or deciding that progress might take a different form. This either/or thinking creates urgency and strengthens her determination, but it also makes rest resemble decline and mistakes feel increasingly dangerous. Her attention remains fixed on the distance still ahead, while the immense distance she has already travelled can easily be discounted. The belief that helped propel her beyond the circumstances of her childhood may therefore also prevent her from feeling that she has ever travelled far enough.

Reflection: When you are not moving forward, do you automatically assume that you are falling behind, or could pausing, maintaining your position or changing direction also be forms of progress?

What Keeps Her Sailing?

Her life motto has given her a powerful way to navigate the world. Sailing offers movement, agency, adventure and hope; the current gives her hardship to confront; and the direction ahead provides something meaningful to pursue. Together, these meanings have helped her remain active and resourceful through circumstances that might have caused someone else to turn back. Yet the metaphor also demands continual effort. It positions discomfort along the route to success and offers little space for pausing without interpreting the pause as regression. It helps explain how she continues to sail, but not entirely why she feels compelled to carry so much on the journey. To understand that, in the next part we will look more closely at the responsibility she learned to shoulder long before she entered either science or business.

If this resonates with you, click the Let’s Talk button on the top right to book a free 20-minute conversation and together we can explore what may be keeping you stuck, and see whether coaching is the right support for you.