Brain in the Game | Sport Mind Coaching Podcast
Dave Diggle
Episode Sixteen – Knowing and Doing - What is the difference
Hello and welcome back to Brain In The Game. Brain In The Game is a podcast specifically designed for athletes, coaches, and parents, who are looking to do their sport just a little bit smarter. Brain In The Game is like a reality check for the mind, and I'm your host Dave Diggle.
In this episode, we'll unpack the myth that knowing is enough. There really is a difference between knowing and doing. Most of us when we're happy and healthy and life's on track, we don't think about going to our GP and saying “I'm feeling so good and happy and my life's so together that I need some help to maintain that”. Most of us know logically that would be the optimum time to go to our GP, when we have some patterns that we can turn around and say “this is how it should be – how can I replicate this?” But in reality, we just wait for something to go wrong or something that needs to be fixed before we consult any advice.
As a professional mind coach, people only ever come to me when things are broken, too. It's rare I get an athlete knocking on my door to say “Dave, everything in my performance is absolutely fantastic, can you help me maintain this.” Logic tells us that would be the optimum time to ask to help perpetuate that, but as with the GP, I only get the knock when things are broken. This is no more obvious than when you see an athlete trying to get traction and sustainability in their performance, and they're just grasping at whatever slides their way, trying to fix the now.
I had a client come to me, she was an elite athlete, and she said “I need you to help me with this very specific issue I have around my running performance.” I said “Explain to me what issues you think you have, and what you're doing currently to put that right.” She said “I've got to tell you, I've been to some of the best courses out there. I've done some of the best trainings with the best performance people, and they couldn't fix my issue, and I assume you can't either. But, I'd like to give it a go because I've heard some good things about you.”
It has to be one of the strangest conversations I've had with a potential client. Like most people in my industry, I run a number of different trainings and seminars that are open to athletes, coaches, and parents who want to learn the fundamentals around understanding behaviour, and get more knowledge of how this stuff works. Any of you listening to this who have attended some of my trainings will remember one of the first things I say in these courses is that “You are here to gain knowledge, to understand the fundamentals around human behaviour and performance.” The difference between knowledge and your desired outcome is the action you choose to take. What you choose to do with that information will make the difference between it working for you, or it just becoming more information you're storing in your brain.
Back to the client, I would have traditionally said “I'm not the right person for you as a professional mind coach”, because if they're coming at this whole process with “There's nothing you can do, I've seen the rest and they couldn't fix me so you can't either”, then they're not in the mindset to get the right outcome. “When you're ready to learn what you need to do differently, come back and we'll talk again.” But I didn't; I felt there was something in there that clearly needed to be unpacked.
“I will coach you on one condition: everything you believe you've learned in the past from all these experts you've been to, put that all aside.” She agreed. She had been to so many courses, she really had sought out the biggest names in the industry. Why hadn't it worked for her? Why was she still having the same issues? She really believe that by gaining that knowledge, it would be enough to put an end to her running woes. What she didn't understand was the knowledge was only half the solution. Why was her performance on the track not getting better? In fact, her performance was going backwards. The more she was learning the more information she was taking on board; the more frustrating she became with her performance and the more inhibiting this information became for her.
What different approach did I take with her to get the desired outcome – and we did get the outcome; she has performed after our trainings and she's increased her times and status and is now representing her country far more frequently. I'd like to say what we did was a secret weapon or magic bullet, or it was all down to me. In reality, it wasn't necessarily me that was the solution, nor the other coaches that meant it didn't work in the past. I'm sure her performance in the past has nothing to do realistically with the people she went to see. I'm sure the information they gave her was similar to the information I gave her. But her approach to what she was trying to do was inhibiting her – she was seeking out all possible information. Every athlete should be heavily invested in learning and understanding how they do perform, and how their emotions have an impact on them; so her intentions were in the right place. But the key that was missing was the doing.
She had all this information. When I did start coaching her, she would constantly say to me “Yeah yeah, I know that. I've learned that.” All the other big people in the industry had told her the same things. I wasn't telling her something she didn't know. There was no brain surgery behind this. What did we do different? The key is the doing. What made her do, when I coached her? It was years of attending courses that wasn't working for her.
The difference was relevance. The different between going to a course for information, and one-on-one coaching, is the connection to the relevance of you. When something is relevant and has the potential to solve your particular issue, it will gain that accountability and connectivity, the individuality of “This problem is mine, and this solution will fix my problem.” When you're sitting in an audience gaining information, you're trying to fit that information into your life. However, initially what you're getting is very generic information. I'm not saying “Don't go to courses”, I run great courses. I understand you need to initially learn the fundamentals of how a human behaves, or how you as a coach communicate. All these trainings are vital to get the base understanding. But what makes the difference is the relevance – understanding the nuances of what you have as an issue, and finding the very specific and unique key to unlock that.
There really is a difference between knowing and doing. As wonderful, thought provoking, informative, and specific as my trainings are, they are only knowledge. What you choose to do with that knowledge makes the difference. Why weren't their courses working? It was because she wasn't doing anything with the information she was getting. There was no investment, no personal accountability to make it something tangible she could use to change the issues she was experiencing. Information is king, but only when you're applying it. She was scrambling for information, trying to find a square peg to fit in a round hole, rather than going and getting a tailored solution.
When we learn something, we add it to our knowledge base, reference centre as potential useful information. Yet, most people revert back to their old habits, and never make the shift into changing behaviour. We humans have huge emotional investments, on some level, in our behaviours and patterns. On some subconscious level, we do what we do because we get rewarded for it. Changing behaviour isn't as simple as people make out. It's that sustainability, the behaviour sticking, and every time under pressure, relying on it. That makes the difference.
What has occurred during these courses if they have opened their eyes to alternatives, and seeing what they were doing wasn't giving them the outcome they wanted, and then not found a compelling argument to shift that internal pattern. When they get the same old results after so much time investing into learning new ways, it becomes very frustrating. “I know I can do this better now, but I still go back to that old behaviour.” This only goes to raising our emotions and categorising that event in a negative emotional way in our brain. It gets pushed to the back like “Ugh, I don't want to go there again.” We end up in that wilderness of “I've done everything I possibly can to solve this issue, and it still hasn't solved.”
Changing behaviour sustainably takes action, continuity, investment, and time. We, for the most part, have been embedding those old habits and patterns for many years. Changing them isn't a walk in the park, but it is doable, as long as you follow those fundamental keys: make sure you understand how it works; why you're getting the old results; and how to then apply the new behaviour. Understand what the outcome will be, what your buy-in point will be. What will the change do for you? And the number one key is the relevance. “How is changing this behaviour relevant to me?”
How do we overcome this doable/doing issue? The first step is to understand the mechanics of what you're trying to achieve, then build yourself a plan of action. A “doing” plan. Then, know the “touch points” to keep accountable, to make sure you're on track. Make sure “If I do this, this is what I'll get”. Then, the continual re-calibration of the structure in place. Last, start. You have enough knowledge to get started and moving in the direction you want to go. If you constantly keep looking for more information and put one foot in front of the other, you're never going to do what you want to achieve. Get moving and do something.
What are you doing to specifically solve your issues, or are you just gaining more knowledge and reference points to frustrate the hell out of yourself? Until our next training session, train smart and enjoy the ride. I'm Dave Diggle, the mind coach.
Copyright 2012-2022 Dave Diggle
https://www.smartmind.com/
