Do This One Thing to Make Change Stick

A few weeks ago, I had my first golf lesson.

The first change he made was to my stance – point my left toe out, shift my weight to the front, and boom – I hit the ball really well.

“How does that feel?” he asked.

“Awkward,” I said.

Awkward is the best description I have for my golf lessons to this point.

I never took a lesson before this summer, so when it comes to golf, I’m a hacker whose softball swing causes me to lose a ball every 1-2 holes.

I mean I hit the ball well on occasion, but that whole blind squirrel finding a nut thing applies here.

Anywho, when I showed up to my first lesson, Lucas, my coach, told me to forget everything I knew about swinging a softball bat.

Easier said than done of course.

I mean I’ve been golfing, poorly, on and off since I was 15. I've been playing baseball or softball since I was 6.

I’m 45.

Whatever habits I have in swinging a golf club are pretty much baked in at this point.

As Lucas continued to tweak everything about my golf game (and I proceeded to rip 200 yard shots that went straight down the fairway), all I could think about was just how reflective my golfing lessons are of my own coaching program.

I mean, I work with clients who have had the same habits for years and more likely, decades. If you don't have to think about a behavior, it's probably a habit. In fact, I recently saw a statistic suggesting 43% of our behavior is habitual.

Which means that any time we try to make a tweak to our behavior, it's going to feel awkward, and hard, and probably won’t stick the first time. Or the second. Or the third.

Put your fork down between bites. (Kim that's just awkward. I'm eating while I watch Ozark and I'm too distracted to remember that).

Stop eating when you’re 80% full. (WTH does that even mean Kim?)

Put your sneakers on as soon as you wake up in the morning (ok, probably want to put shorts and a shirt on too, depending on what you seep in…).

These are tasks that I talk with clients about every day. And yet they came back to me in frustration when they come up short because the process feels like it should just be that straight forward. Knowing and doing.

The thing is, every time we work to develop a new habit, or untangle an old one, it's going to feel awkward. Just like switching my grip on the golf club. And every time we want to revert to our old habit, we're going to have to make a conscious decision to focus on the new one.

But whether it’s working on your golf game or making changes to your nutrition, either way you have to get the reps in.

I feel like I've written about this topic ad nauseam but it’s because I don’t think I can emphasize it enough - behavior change is a skill. Something that takes work and yes, repetition. Conscious, thoughtful repetition.

I think we accept that we need to get our reps in when it comes to learning a new skill, or refining an old one,
but we don't apply the same mindset in behavior change.

The fact is, whether we are learning to paint, trying to improve our pickle ball game, or eliminate snacking at night, in order to make the change stick, we have to get our reps in.