Last day of lessons and Will with his bag of candy courtesy of the swim coach!
In my previous life I worked for a crown corporation here in B.C. (for you international folk out there its like a quasi government job). When I was still fairly new and struggling with the steep learning curve, I recall doing some sort of group exercise where we had to say what animal we thought we were most like. Others in the group mentioned dogs, dolphins and lions, but only one creature popped into my head and it was not a tough or exotic creature it was a fairly mundane one;
“turtle”.
When pressed as to why I chose the turtle I think I said something like;
“Well I think I am a lot like a turtle as I sometimes have a tough shell, I can seem confident, but the truth is I have a soft underbelly -I’m sensitive, and I don’t like to be pushed into doing things I don’t want to do. I like to set my own pace, so to speak, that’s why I relate to a turtle.
I think everyone at the table understood what I was describing. No one likes to feel pushed into doing something they don’t feel ready for, although as a adults we often have no choice and although overwhelming, it CAN be a way for us to learn faster.
Ready For The Big Pool?
A great example of ‘feeling pushed’ came up this last week in my youngest son’s swimming lesson.
Will was having a great time splashing around and playing games in the kiddie pool when the instructor motioned them to head over to the BIG POOL. There the kiddos lined up and one by one jumped in the deep end (where the water was over their heads). All but one- my little guy. He burst into tears and refused to move.
I cajoled a bit from the sidelines “Come on you can do it” , that sort of thing, but it did no good. He stood at the side of the big pool for the rest of the lesson and watched the other kids float on their mats up and down the lane.
Driving home I could tell he was upset with what had happened so to take the pressure off I said;
“Will, you don’t have to jump into the big pool tomorrow if you don’t want to. I know it is scary. I’ll speak with the swim coach before the class and let him know that you are nervous about it”.
He seemed to relax after that.
Thinking about the whole swimming thing later that night I had a “Eureka” moment, and the next morning on the way to swim class I said to Will;
“Remember you don’t have to jump into the big pool if you don’t want to”.
I paused for a bit then went on;
“I was wondering though what you thought about taking a turtle step -just sitting on the side of the big pool and putting your feet in the water?”.
He thought about it a moment and said;
“Yeah, I can do that”. And he did.
“Yaay Will you took a turtle step you put your legs into the water!” I said to him after class.
Then later that night I asked him;
“What do you think about taking another turtle step tomorrow and instead of just sitting on the side of the pool, what about jumping into the instructors’ arms? I will speak to him and make sure he catches you”.
“Yeah, I could do that”. He said. And he did.
You see where this is going right? The next day his Dad was taking him to his lesson, so I explained to Steve that Will and I had discussed taking another turtle step today and that he was prepared to jump into the instructors’ arms (Harry) and then Harry would put Will right onto the floating mat.
“So the Swim Coach is laying out these “turtle” steps?” asked Steve.
“No the Life Coach is.” I responded with a grin.
Well I sure you can guess what happened. By the end of the week Will was jumping into the BIG POOL, close to the arms of the instructor, and swimming to the mat.
Success!!
When You Want to Move Closer to Your ‘Right Life’ Try a Turtle Step
Dr. Martha Beck (one of my Life Coach mentors) uses the notion of turtle steps as a way to break a big goal down into easily digestible parts, which serves to assist a client from moving from a place of paralysis to a place of action- even if it is a tiny, tiny move.
I plan on doing this myself this week. Right now I have a lot of big goals on my plate; create an on-line coaching program, film a video clip, create a free workbook to put on my website, update my website…the list goes on and on. Needless to say I am feeling a bit overwhelmed and not sure where to start.
So what I decided to do is this; I am going to go out and get me some big ole’ flip chart paper and a bunch of little post it notes and I will write my big goals down and then underneath, step by step I will work out every turtle step that I need to take to achieve these goals.
The beauty of the post it notes is that you can move them around and refine your process as you go along. Without some sort of template like this I know I would go on feeling stuck and confused about what to do first. I’m also a visual person so getting all this information out of my head and onto the paper will be a relief.
I commonly use the concept of turtle steps with my clients. I may have a client say;
“I don’t have time to do one thing in order to achieve this goal –I just don’t have the time”.
(This excuse comes up a lot, but really it is a lie we tell ourselves as there is always time to do something if you want to do it badly enough), Or the client may say;
“I know we talked about X,Y, Z but I can’t do it, I am just feeling totally overwhelmed”.
So we break it down into turtle steps and 90% of the time it is achieved, which generates momentum allowing the client to go on to the next turtle step, (just like Will with the swimming)…and so it goes.
For the 10% that don’t complete the step that is TOTALLY OK. When a client is not able to carry out the turtle step that gives us good information i.e.. what kind of roadblocks came up for the client to prevent them from achieving this step? Maybe the turtle step was too big and it needs to be chunked down even further.
We just work with whatever is before us.
Did the astronaut Neil Armstrong just wake up one day and say;
“Hey I feel like going to the moon, I am going to call my buddies…” ????
NO way! I cannot even imagine the millions of small steps and small goals that needed to be mastered in order to pull that BIG GOAL off.
(Remember the words that accompanied that first moon walk?);
“That is one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind”.
The next time you are feeling daunted by a big goal or have too much to do and are feeling overwhelmed, think about a turtle step you could take. You will know if it is the right size of step for you by how it makes you feel. If you have broken the goal down but even the little steps make you freeze up, break it down even further.
Ask yourself;
What is the one thing I could do right now that feels good?
If it feels juicy and doable then you know you have found your turtle step.
Now go out there and take some ACTION!
Happy turtle trails!
…and thanks for allowing me space in your in-box.
xo Elizabeth