I have to something to admit, I am a pilates junkie.
Yep, I have turned into that woman. The one who drops off her kids at school in active wear, develops a strong obsession with pilates reformer and continues to wear her active wear all day long (okay, I will change if I am client-facing). Now, now if you haven’t tried it, don’t knock it.
Anyway, these past few months, I have ramped it up and I gotta tell you, my body is in pain. I am hurting. I am sore in places that I didn’t even know muscles existed.
Whilst this hurts physically, mentally it motivates me, I actually LOVE the pain. Is that weird?
The thing is, making progress, often hurts.
We all know the saying “no pain, no gain”, well I can assure you when it comes to pilates reformer, this is true.
The same can be true for behaviour change, in ourselves, our teams, or across our organisation or even in terms of our greatest achievements.
Maybe it’s the caffeine addict trying to give up coffee (and the withdrawal headaches that come with it);
Or the team who are changing the way projects are led (and it seems a little chaotic in the beginning);
Or perhaps it’s the organisation who are turning service on it’s head, where olds ways of doing things just no longer cut the mustard (“But I was the expert in our system, it’s going to take me ages to get my head around this new system, erghhhh!”).
Behaviour change is uncomfortable, it hurts.
If we are serious about making positive changes in ourselves, team or organisation, we have to be prepared that there might be some initial pain in the short term.
Of course, it’s always easier to stick to status quo. It takes less energy. We don’t have to consciously think. Our brains don’t hurt. And we are also unlikely to make progress or improvement either.
So next time, when you are trying to make some change, and you find yourself or someone whinging saying “this is all too hard”, simply respond “great, that means we are on the right track!”
You are simply on the wrong side of a whole lot of hard work.
Keeping pushing past the pain, as on the other side of it, is a whole lot of reward!
Keep smiling,
BLYTHE ROWE & Her Life on Heels.
The founder and director of Human Incite, is widely recognised for her passion, energy and her ability to shake things up. Blythe is brilliant at revving-up productivity and performance in organisations. She is on a mission to rid our workplaces of toxic behaviours, build meaningful relationships, personally and professionally and create workplaces worth belonging. Her enthusiasm simply is infectious!