ATTENTION: Doing Isn’t Enough

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but doing isn’t enough. Don’t believe me? Riddle me this. How much better has your driving got in the past two years?

There’s actually a better chance that your driving ability has become worse in the past two years than it’s improved any. Now, don’t take this personal. There’s no reason for your driving to get better based on how you’re doing it. In fact, most of us don’t need or want it to be any better. Think about it. When you drive, you’re barely even focused on driving. You’ve done so many reps that you can think about everything but driving. This is called autopilot.

Autopilot happens when we have something down so well that we can conserve energy and focus elsewhere. This is good news, too, because if it took the same amount of energy to drive to work everyday that you had to put into driving on your first day behind the wheel with your terrified parent in the passenger seat screaming at you, we wouldn’t have any energy left for our jobs when we got there. Autopilot can be wonderful.

If you want to be great at something, however, autopilot is the enemy. Your commute around town isn’t nearly stressful enough to get you qualified for an Formula 1 races anytime soon. If you wanted to improve your driving, you’d need to stress your systems with new learning. Maybe we could make the lanes smaller, force your to drive faster, and/or put those highway cones in your way for tighter maneuvers. Surely, you couldn’t do that, text, and drive. This is why “doing isn’t enough” when you want to get better at something.

Your reps must stretch you. Learning adaptation is the result of proper stress. This is why we use drills, increasingly heavy loads, and bouts with intensity to make sure that you aren’t just doing in here. We need you progressing.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach