Understanding vs. Action

     A long time ago, believing the world was flat, people felt boxed-in and unhappy. No matter how hard they tried to overcome it, they were still afraid to venture too far from home. But when they found out that the earth was round and, thus, understood that they couldn't fall off—people felt free and inspired. Hence, their sedentary behavior changed automatically.

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When you feel insecure and your performance is restricted, it's normal to want to take action. You don't like to feel or act this way, so you want to fix the problem immediately.

Indeed, this was the case with a basketball team I recently visited. Its star player was not only in a low place, he was also having trouble making shots from the free throw line. One of his coaches attempted to fix the problem by having the player shoot 100 free throws a day—thinking that he would regain his confidence and outlook. All that happened, though, was the player kept missing shots. I said to the coach, "To behave productively (make free throws), you first must understand how the system that generates behavior works. Understanding is what changes behavior, not taking action."

Can you fix a car without understanding how things work under the hood? Of course not.

Unfortunately, in the worlds of coaching and psychology, this paradigm is almost always overlooked. That is, taking action to fix behavior will do little good. To improve behavior, you must understand that your thoughts and ensuing state of mind are the root cause of all of your actions. From a high state of mind, your behavior is always productive; from a low state of mind (if you do not understand this principle), just the opposite.

As an illustration, if a teenager is disrespectful to his parents, the parents will only exacerbate the tension if they take action and discipline the teenager accordingly. But if the parents understand why disrespect (and all errant behavior) occurs, they will be much more inclined to address the teenager's insecure state of mind, the cause of the disrespect, instead. Thus, judgment will cease, mutual respect will emerge, and, as levels of well-being ascend, so will the behavior of the teenager.

Once you see that trying to fix your behavior from a low mood makes matters worse, you won't try any longer.

The truth is that once you understand exactly how human beings create their perceptions, you will know better than to "take action" when you or another person is in a low state of mind. In fact, this is the very reason that mental performance techniques often cause slumps. If a person isn't conscious, he is not capable of fixing things at that moment.  And if he tries, thought will rev up and his mood, and performance, will only get worse. In other words, once you realize that your level of consciousness moves from dark to light by design, you'll see that it makes little sense to get in the sun's way by doing something to help it rise.  

Remember, there's always an appropriate time to take action (i.e. work on your free throws), but only when you are feeling free and inspired. To the contrary, when you are struggling, understand what's happening—it's your thinking and mood that's off; not your free throw method or any other external situation. And just as it's a certainty that you can't fall off the earth and the sun will come up, it's also a certainty that, left alone, your level of clarity will return automatically.

 

As a reminder, please join me tomorrow for another edition of Stillpower LIVE. My guest and I will be making a special announcement; I hope you can tune in. Here's how: http://garretkramer.com/stillpower-live/.