There’s no shortage of great books and thought leadership on the science of habit change (think James Clear’s “Atomic Habits,” Charles Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit,” and Gretchen Rubin’s “Better than Before,” just to name a few). Why? Because changing a habit is HARD.
We all know this all-too-common example: we set an intention to be healthier, so we join a new gym and start a new diet. And then what happens? If my own experience is representative, we start off gung-ho and go “all in” for a few weeks or even months. But then we eat the brownie we’d vowed to skip, or we blow off the gym “just this once” so we can sleep late. Eventually, the slip-ups multiply and we get discouraged. So we quit, our intention goes unfulfilled, and we feel even worse about ourselves than before we started. Common scenario, right?
In my case, I think about a personal experience I had a few years ago. I’d decided to train for a triathlon to honor my dad — my hero — who had recently passed away after a long illness. Until the very end of his life, my dad intentionally chose to remain one of the most positive, magnetic, “good feelings- and happiness-distributing”-people I have ever known, causing hundreds of his friends, family, acquaintances, clients and business associates to share that my dad was a hero to them as well. So I decided that, if my dad had managed to inspire so many people despite the daily hardships and indignities he faced, I also wanted to try to be an inspiration (even if only to myself….) by tackling a feat that would be really difficult for me. For reasons that now elude me (perhaps my brain has blocked it out in an act of self-protection…), I chose triathlon.
First, a triathlon swim takes place in “open water” (i.e., an ocean or lake), as opposed to the relatively calm and predictable conditions of a pool. Second, I’d need to learn a whole new swimming technique. (Unlike “regular” swimming in which speed is paramount, the key to a successful triathlon is to conserve and ration your energy sufficiently to be able to last through the end of the run (the last event).)
So I decided to take Tri-focused swimming lessons. “How tough can it be?,” I – naively, and in retrospect arrogantly — thought. I quickly learned…um, pretty tough! In fact, I essentially had to “un-learn” everything I’d ever been taught about swimming as a kid — how to kick my feet, how to move my arms, etc. I now had to replace those habits and techniques with new ones that relied on core strength and mechanics instead of physical effort.
Except that “effortless” is the opposite of how I’d describe my experience. I basically spent the first several lessons either sinking (i.e., nearly drowning), or swallowing so much water that I nearly threw up. Or – despite the whole point being for me not to become fatigued – exhausting myself so much that I could barely drag myself out of the water at the end of each lesson. And those physical indignities were merely a precurser to the mental beat-up that inevitably followed, as my Inner Critic taunted me and asked why I couldn’t “Just Do It” when the technique was so straightforward. Yadda, Yadda, Yadda. Sigh…
I would swim, and she would run alongside me, screaming things at me like “laser forehead,” for several lessons, until I’d internalized that command enough to commit it to both my mental memory and my muscle memory. Next, she’d move onto a different Focal Point (“Fish” and “Shoulder Roll” being a couple that remain imprinted in my brain years later). Each time I mastered one Focal Point fully, I’d add another. And then another. Until suddenly I was actually swimming this new way with great form and it felt – wait for it — EASY. In fact, in both triathlons I did that year, the swim was my best event, beating both my expectations and my run/bike times.
I try to incorporate these lessons into my daily life, and they’re often on my mind when I coach other people. (I’m also reminded of them when I witness my kids struggle to learn something new, though that’s a parenting post for another day…)
But my biggest takeaway from my Tri experience is The Power of the Focal Point. So many of us (especially high-achieving or perfectionistic types like most of my clientele) think that we “should” miraculously be able to ditch a lifelong habit — whether that’s a swim technique, an ingrained way of thinking, or a longstanding way of operating in the world or relating to others – as soon as we decide that our old habit no longer serves us. But that ignores the fact that the things we’re doing have actually WORKED for us in the past (at least to some extent). Otherwise, we wouldn’t have done them in the first place, much less have converted them into habits.
By focusing on only one Focal Point at a time – and adding a healthy dose of patience and self-compassion into the mix — we can create a new habit and also ensure that it will “stick” for the long term. This holds true whether someone is working on executive presence or confidence, business development, leadership, communication, time management, or anything else.
The bottom line is that, while I deeply respect and appreciate all the newly published science and research about goals and habit change, at least for me personally, there’s nothing more compelling than building on my own personal experiences. For me, the confidence I felt swimming in the ocean during that first Tri — especially when compared with the torture of my early swimming lessons — is all the “evidence” I need. And now, as a professional coach, I love partnering with other people to help them identify and master their own Focal Points so they can create their own victories…and then hopefully go on to inspire others.
I hope you’ll consider thinking about your own tough experiences and eventual triumphs, and that those lessons serve you as well. Humbling? For sure. Frustrating? Definitely. But ultimately incredibly empowering? You betcha.