Snapshots are the beginning of trends

Snapshots are the beginning of trends.

Single data points don’t mean much, but rationalizing them is also a slippery slope.

A single bad workout, a night of poor sleep, an achy joint for a day, a poorly managed interaction... none of these, by themselves, is a reason to change your strategy or program. As we often say, focus on trends, not snapshots. But, you also have to be careful not to rationalize too many poor data points in a row.

Most injuries feel like they come out of nowhere. Most people who quit feel like it happened all at once.

But most failures had warning signs long before their calamitous ending. Catastrophes are always preceded by normal operations.

It’s important not to be swayed to and fro by the normal fluctuations of life - especially those that occur when pursuing challenges. But we must temper that with honest self-reflection.

One of the best ways to avoid drifting into failure is to implement feedback loops at different time scales. We do this with all of our clients through weekly, monthly, and quarterly check-ins, where they reflect on how things are going across the major categories of their lives.

This helps us adjust our approach and educate our clients. But most importantly, our clients learn to see the relationships among all the variables in their lives, how they interact, and how to adjust. This gives them the tools to manage their lives more effectively, long after they are done working with us.

Like all behaviors, systems amplify consistency and effectiveness. Create a feedback loop, implement a system that makes it hard not to do, and be honest with your reflections, and you’ll not avoid the drift into calamity, but you’ll learn from the small setbacks that are inevitable when pursuing any challenging path.

Denial is a save now, pay later scheme

“Denial,” as Gavin de Becker wrote, “Is a save now, pay later scheme.”

One of the most critical factors in how well someone navigates challenges and setbacks is their ability to recognize, accept, and respond to unpleasant realities.

This doesn’t mean pessimism or interpreting everything in the most negative light possible. An accurate assessment is critical, including accounting for the strengths, opportunities, and privileges you have in a given situation. Even when things are tough, there’s a good chance that you’re doing a tough thing as part of the path you chose years ago.

It can be tempting to seek the comfort of a rosier interpretation of a difficult moment, to try to avoid facing the enormity of what’s in front of you. “Maybe this isn’t the kind of problem it appears to be, and if it is that kind of problem, maybe it’s not that bad, and if it is bad, maybe it’ll work itself out if I ignore it...”

That kind of reasoning, a form of arguing with reality or indulging in denial, costs time. It delays our ability to respond fully and effectively, and gives difficulties time to morph and expand.

Resilience, as popular a buzzword as it’s become, is only an outcome. It describes the result of a set of behaviors. While we can’t control the outcome, we can control the behaviors that are likely to support it. Those behaviors can be loosely clustered into the category of adaptability. The more adaptable we are, the better we can respond to and navigate an uncertain and rapidly changing world. And that adaptability requires accepting and working with the realities of our situations, regardless of how much we’d prefer they were different.

As Seneca wrote, “Fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling.”

The sooner you stop arguing with reality, the sooner you can start working with it.

Coaching wizardry

You can think of good coaching programs like wizards (thank Miguel for this one). There are different kinds of wizards, and a coaching program can only mimic the powers of some of them.

For instance, there’s the Wizard of Oz. The Wizard of Oz never gave anyone new abilities. He helped them recognize the ones they already had and stay on their path long enough to reach the goal.

Any good program can do that.

Or there’s Gandalf the White. He’s capable of great and powerful things, and can turn the tides of a battle.

A good program can kind of do that, too, by assessing your individual strengths and weaknesses, helping you focus on your leverage points, removing limiting factors, and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of your training.

And then there’s the Genie of the Lamp. Phenomenal cosmic powers, itty bitty living space. Can alter reality and grant wishes.

If you train like a professional and give yourself sufficient time to build the adaptations you need, the Wizard of Oz option is available via any good program. If you’re looking for one, check out anybody we’ve interviewed on our podcast, like @uphill_athlete, @drdancoaching, @themillgym, @terminator_training, @stewsmith50, @warfighterhp, and many others.

Coaches of their caliber can also be Gandalf types. Their expertise can help you make remarkable changes if you’re willing to put in the work and commit to the process. They can help you turn the tide if you can stay in the fight long enough.

But nobody is a magic genie.

No program can compress years of adaptation into a few weeks or grant you abilities you haven’t built. The real “magic” is time combined with consistent, focused effort. Give yourself enough of both, and good coaching can guide the process. Try to shortcut them, and even the best program in the world won’t save you.

Feeling isn't control

Avoidance, paradoxically, leads to being controlled by the thing you’re trying to circumvent. Because when you can’t stand something, it’s just a matter of time before repression fails, and it comes back stronger than before. And, when it does, your attention and perspective will be controlled by the very thing you couldn’t face.

Resilient people don’t ignore uncomfortable things; they accept and learn to move through them, feeling what they need to feel while still retaining control over how they want to interact and respond.

+ They decide if the pain they are feeling is a sign of physical harm or just another marker on the road to peak physical performance.

+ They feel the emotion and decide if expressing or using it for action is useful, or not.

+ They notice they are tired or unmotivated and have thoughts that make them want to give up, and then decide to keep going anyway.

Whether it’s pain, fatigue, or an emotion, if you can’t stand to feel it, you’re bound to be controlled by it.