One Step Back, Two Steps Forward
I was confronted with a bit of a dilemma the other day. I was working out and reaching the limits of what I could lift. I could tell, because as I prepared for each lift, I was a little bit scared. I didn’t really know if I could do it or not. Then I would perform the lift, and barely, just barely, make it. It wasn’t pretty, but I did it. Afterward, as I lay on the floor hyperventilating, I had a lot of conflicting thoughts running through my mind. I’ve been working toward a lifting goal for a long time now. I’m getting tantalizingly close. I can’t stop now. I’m not getting any younger. Time is short. If I keep this up I’m going to seriously injure myself. This is really painful. It’s no fun being terrified of the weight. I can’t stop now. I don’t know if I can do it again. Dear God, I hurt.
I don’t want to make too much out of it, but suffice it to say that I was seriously conflicted. I’ve literally invested years in getting my lifts to where they are today. It’s hard to step back with that kind of investment behind me. On the other hand, that’s a lot of investment to waste by injuring myself. So it’s a real dilemma, especially when I feel like I’m so tantalizingly close to my goals. Part of me is screaming, you’re almost there! And the other part is begging, pleading to back off.
Where else do we see this kind of goal oriented struggle? Developing and releasing a product? Getting a promotion? Saving up for something big like a new house? We see it anywhere there is a large investment over time toward a meaningful goal. The danger is that if we over reach, we may lose the opportunity entirely.
In my case, I decided that the prudent thing to do would be to take a few steps back. So I rolled back the weights and the intensity a few notches and started over again. I was back to lifting weights that I had been lifting nearly 3 months earlier. Three months is a lot of time to lose! However, I noticed a few things:
It was so easy! I felt my confidence come roaring back.
I was so much stronger than I had been. Where before it had been a challenge, now it was second nature.
I was performing cleanly and confidently, not scrabbling to survive the experience.
I no longer feared injury.
The road has gotten a little longer, but now each step I take feels more confident and certain. This is where having a coach can make a really big difference. They can act as that voice of reason that will help to steer you through these decision points. They act as a relatively unbiased party that is invested in your success. They need to know the domain really well – I would never take a coach who didn’t know about weightlifting. They need to have an experimental mindset: everybody is different, things that work for one customer won’t work for another. And they need to be able to firmly give constructive advice for change, even when the customer really, really, really, doesn’t want to hear it. Perhaps then most of all.
I don’t have a coach right now (perhaps I should take my own advice). I know that if a coach had told me that I needed to go backward three months in my training, I would have resisted. That would be crazy talk. And yet here I am. I think I now appreciate it a little bit more when I work with managers. I often recommend that they do things that would appear to be backward steps. For example, I might recommend pair programming for their teams. I often get the horrified reaction, “You mean twice the number of people doing half the work?” Uh, yes. That’s a giant step backward. Especially when you feel as though your teams are performing at what may be the best they have ever done. I think I get it now. That’s not an easy sell.
But a good coach knows that a few steps backward can lead to later leaps forward. A good coach is invested in getting you there. A good coach knows you will build confidence and capability, and that has value too. And a good coach won’t back down when they know it will help you reach your goals.
Oh, and if you are looking for a good coach, I’m available.