More 5% Idea – How It Helps Us to Get Out of the Overstretch Cycle and Get Results

(This is part of a series on the 5% Idea. You may want to start with the first post.)

In my previous post about the 5% Idea, I mentioned that we sometimes have difficulty making and keeping maintenance habits (an example for me is flossing my teeth regularly). With habits like exercise, we have a tendency to get lost in what we should do, rather than work on getting the consistency of the habit established. So we tend to bounce back and forth between forcing ourselves to work on the habit and forgetting it entirely. Let’s talk a bit about why we do this, and how the 5% Idea can help us to get out of the inconsistency trap.

With maintenance activities, it’s all about the habit. Because we’re going to need to do this thing, whether it be exercise, reading and keeping up on our career, time spent with each child, developing new business ideas, or whatever—because we need to do this consistently, week-in and week out, we’ve got to have a habit. Otherwise the energy involved in doing it routinely is just too much for the benefits received, and we’re sure to stop doing it.

It’s common to overstretch when we try to work on exercise. Do you know anyone who makes a pact to get in shape each New Years, joins a gym, works really hard at it for a few weeks, and then lets exercise go for the year? It’s so easy to get stuck in cycles like these, where we forget about the activity (at least we forget to put time into it), then we feel the pain (weight gain, lethargy, guilt, in the case of exercise) and frantically reinvest.

We have this annoying tendency to overstretch

Why do we tend to overstretch, rather than build up some consistent engagement we can keep up? It can be hard to get these consistent habits going. We don’t feel the pain of them every day when they’re not being done. Or, if we feel the pain, it’s below threshold. It’s easy to tune out soft background noise after a while, and it’s easy to tune out the annoying hum of guilt that says I need to invest more time in my projects each week. There’s pain there, but it’s less pain than the pain of not handling that latest crisis, email, or request.

We don’t feel the pain of not developing our employees until that employee mentally checks out or actually physically checks out and heads for another employer. We don’t think of the stress of becoming obsolete in our career on a daily basis, so we forget to invest in reading or developing ourselves. Because it can go a while before the pain or impact builds up, we tend to miss it or ignore it for a while. Then, one day we see the pain or lack of investment as a problem, and we overstretch to try to correct it. That overstretching reaction is a problem in itself.

Overstretching is not the only way we could approach the situation, but it’s the common way. We could decide to invest in the long-haul, in developing a lifetime habit in that area, and to work in small bits until we get it. But we often don’t. Why? Perhaps we overstretch because, as people, we are not always terrific with the application of patience and flexibility to the hardest parts of our lives.

These virtues of patience and flexibility are so important to human effectiveness, but they are hard to develop. We tend to get impatient for results, especially when we’re feeling the pain. Or we tend to get stuck in our cycles of how things must be done, should be done, and so we don’t alter our behavior enough to get new results, like a consistent habit. “I must do my exercise in the morning” cuts off options like lunch break, walk with kids after work, weekend yoga clinic, etc.

We want the results right away, and we are inflexible with ourselves. You might catch yourself saying things like “I should be flossing seven times a week.” (That’s what I used to say to myself.) But those “shoulds,” that want of results, can get in the way of getting to those results. I might try to floss every day, but if I haven’t been flossing at all, that’s probably too much. That flossing habit won’t have time to take, and my result will likely be: flossing like a madman for a week or two and then I don’t do it anymore. I’ll be upset with myself and won’t believe in my ability to get results in this area, which will make it harder to get them the next time. What a vicious cycle this can become. Can you relate? There’s got to be another way.

It all works better when we stop overstretching and start respecting the system

This cycle of overstretching and then giving up, repeat, gives us terrible results over time. Yet getting stuck in this is our tendency, especially with the harder habits of our lives.

Here’s what the 5% Idea is really about. If you can get out of this cycle, and improve at all, you’re going to be doing better than you did before. If you can be patient with yourself and focus on improvement over time, rather than instant overstretch, you will benefit.

Here’s the thing we don’t get: the bumpy ride of overstretch and then do nothing produces terrible results. If we can grow that in small, patient increments, we can grow your results in any area. If we focus on your historical average (how much time do you actually spend on projects, not time you should spend on projects), we can use that as a starting point. We can then work to build a habit where you learn to do that average, horrible as you think it may be, consistently. Consistency (not robotic perfection, but more consistent execution than before) always helps with maintenance habits—I think it’s required for them to “take.”

Why does the overstretching cycle perform so badly? You are a system. A system of habits, responsibilities, things you’re invested in, strengths, weaknesses, and personality traits. As an engineer, I studied and worked on systems. I have a lot of respect for them, and realize that too much change in one area of a system can throw the whole system off. Systems need to maintain some kind of balance, or they break down, they react.

Stretch a habit too far in one area without accounting for it in some other way, and the system called you may not be able to handle it, at least long term. Let’s say you run for seven days straight and you’ve never done that before. That’s quite a stretch. You may be able to keep it up in the short term, but there are just too many things in your life that will be ready to come in and stop that habit from taking root. There are many, many different ways the system could react, and throw you back to where you started. Here are a few of the blocks that could come up with the exercise:

• The pain of exercise on your body, which isn’t conditioned for that much.
• You haven’t yet changed your lifestyle in other areas to free up the time.
• Others may question why you’re running so much.

If you can get unstuck from the overstretching and start to work on consistency, you experience success on several levels. First, you’ll probably be getting more of the habit in. Second, you’re being more consistent, which usually improves results with maintenance habits, as opposed to “crunching.” Third, you know that this is all toward a bigger picture, which is that every year you’re going to be doing this successful maintenance habit more and more. You’re going to enjoy these results for a lifetime. Every year the habit will grow in results, and getting those results will get easier. You won’t have to think about it so much.

Much as I love the 5% idea, it’s not for everything

I’m not advocating the 5% Idea for every habit or change. There are areas where we need to move faster. Luckily, though, we generally feel more pain in the moment in those situations, so it’s easier to set a habit, even if it’s a bit of a stretch.

If you had just had coronary bypass surgery and been told by your doctor that you needed to drastically modify your health habits or you would probably die, the 5% Idea would not be enough. You would need more drastic measures--although you might not take them. According to Dr. Edward D. Miller at John Hopkins, only 10% of patients change their lifestyles when measured two years following bypass surgery. Perhaps the 5% Idea could help that 90% that don’t change, although I’d probably advocate a faster rate of change, like the 10% Idea. You get the idea.

So the 5% Idea isn’t for everything, but I believe it can help with most of our habits. If you’re willing to invest a bit, and be patient in the smaller areas, I am convinced you will build a habit that will last a lifetime and get you better results than we get through the overstretch cycle.

In my next post, I’ll give you a walkthrough of how to apply the 5% Idea in detail. Until then, here’s some fieldwork for you. Ask yourself these questions around one area where you’d like to develop a more consistent habit. For this habit:

• How could lack of patience or unwillingness to try different approaches be getting in the way?
• What other things in the system called my life tend to react or get in the way when I try to invest in this habit?

The 5% Idea – A Simple Way to Build and Keep Maintenance Habits

I’m proud to say that I have flossed my teeth a lot more this year than I did the previous year. Though my average this year is only flossing two to three times per week, that average is by far higher than last year. Also, there wasn’t a week (well, perhaps one or two) over the last year where I didn’t floss my teeth! Very different than what I’ve done in the past. Flossing might seem like no big deal to someone else, but it is a big deal to me. Here I’ve taken a small thing that’s challenged me all my life, and I’ve made a big change in it that I fully believe I’ll keep for a lifetime. That’s an exciting start.

My reason for choosing flossing as an example is not to embarrass myself or to make you ill. (Rest assured -- I do brush my teeth regularly, and always have.) I chose flossing because this is an example of a persistent little habit that I tell myself I should really be doing, and yet I’m not, or at least I wasn’t. It’s one of the most difficult things I’ve ever attempted to do with any consistency—for me, at least. It’s a habit where not doing it costs me something. Not flossing might likely mean gum disease in my future. Both my mother and grandmother have had gum surgeries due to an inherited issue with their gums that is prevented by routine flossing.

What gets in the way of flossing or whatever habit you’re working on

I know flossing is an area I need to be cautious about and doing something about, but like so many things, it’s a small blip on the radar. The costs of not flossing are just not on my mind. What’s usually on my mind is that I’m tired at the end of the day and I want to go to bed. In the past, the act of flossing was usually not on my mind at all, and I would just forget to do it. Also, flossing is one of those maintenance habits where the cost of not doing it are so small on a near-term basis, so I just don’t think about it unless it’s a habit. Even though flossing might have long-term consequences, the lack of near-term ones makes it hard to focus and build a habit.

Another problem for me with flossing is that I think I should do it. I think that everyone else is doing it, just not me. So I tend to be impatient with myself. That impatience makes it again very hard to get a habit going. Most lifelong habits require some patience to set up. In doing a little online research, I uncovered some fun facts about flossing and other dental care issues. For example, 73% of Americans would rather go grocery shopping rather than floss. Only about a quarter of us (at best) floss daily. So I’m not alone. I may not be the only person who for most of his life has only flossed before the dentist appointment to avoid the embarrassment of bleeding gums and getting chastised for not taking care of my teeth.

So, a few questions for you (feel free to post in the comments):

• Where do you find it difficult to set up maintenance habits, both personally and professionally?
• What have you tried to set up these habits, and what usually happens?

The 5% Idea – How we can improve in any maintenance area

I want to tell you about a fundamental principle of building success in any area, but I think it’s especially useful in successfully building maintenance habits. I call it the 5% Idea. The idea is to build the consistency of the habit first and then build on top of that consistency small improvements (hence the 5%) until you are doing the habit at the level you want. I am firmly convinced based on many trials on my own habits and over the years with clients that in order to get great long term results around a maintenance area, you need to build in the habit’s consistency first, and the amplitude later. We tend not to approach those habits this way.

Why does following the 5% Idea work so well? Most of us have a few habits that we’re convinced are very important to our results, but around which we’re horribly inconsistent in our delivery. You might be very inconsistent in getting your project-related work done, as the day is filled with urgencies. You’re then confronted by being behind on your projects and having to crunch to catch up. Investing in relationships can often be inconsistent: we may be reacting to our customers rather than really staying ahead of them and engendering great relationships. We may be inconsistent in investments like our relationship with our partner, our children or ourselves. Self-maintenance activities like diet, exercise, and others can be especially problematic.

Why crunching doesn’t work on our maintenance habits

So most of us have these areas that are extremely important to our results, and we know we should be doing them, but we’re not, or more likely, when we do them we do it inconsistently. Can you relate? Instead of your exercise being a consistent habit, maybe it’s an “if time” habit that’s all over the map from week to week. These habits can get so bad that we may swing wildly between no time spent on the activity and crunch times where we try to “get back in shape” in that area and make up for lost time. Usually, though, you can’t “crunch” on a maintenance habit.

As an example, you can’t do crunch time on flossing to make it up. I can’t floss only one month a year, no matter how consistently during that month, and expect my gums not to know the difference. They will know! Time with employees is another great example of this. You can’t ignore them during your busy times and expect them to be receptive when you have the time. When the labor market is tight, you can’t expect them to even still be there if you haven’t been investing in them. To get results, we’ve got to invest in these habits consistently over time.

More on the 5% Idea to come and some fieldwork for you in the interim

Flossing my teeth is not the only success I’ve had with the 5% Idea. I’ve had a number of others. For example, I’ve been exercising at a consistent level for the last two years. Previous to that I’d fade in and out, depending on what was going on in my life. I spent a year applying the 5% idea to exercise, slowly building up my consistency and the volume of exercise. And now, for the last two years, I’ve consistently kept my exercise goal of two hours of running and one hour of walking per week. Even during the holidays, and that’s not easy! The best part is that I’m 100% confident I’ve got a habit strong enough to last a lifetime. I’d be happy to post about how I used the 5% idea on exercise if you’re interested. (Just let me know in the comments.)

My next post will explain more of why the 5% Idea works so well, and how it deals with some of our makeup as people. I’ll also get into the exact details of how you can apply it yourself. At a high level, though, here’s how you apply it:

• Examine your past, either by measurement or logging a period of time.
• Ask yourself, how am I really doing on this habit? What’s my current average?
• Work to build the habit at that level, focusing on delivering those results continually.
• Grow the level of the habit (e.g. how much you exercise each week) in 5% increments, until you’ve built up the habit to the right level for you.

Here’s some fieldwork for you. I’d suggest asking yourself these questions soon, perhaps on your way home from work today.

• What are a few habits where I’m not consistent in my efforts, but want to be?
• What are the excuses or blocks that get in the way of me putting in time and effort consistently? What are these excuses costing me?
• How much do I think I should be doing these things? As I start to think about my past performance, on average how often do I think I actually do these things?

First Post Continued – What Do You Mean by Pressure, Chris?

So Chris, you say there’s a lot of pressure in our lives…where’s it coming from?

It seems to me (again, I work with a lot of people week-to-week around results in their lives) that the way we deal with the pressures of our day is not always working as well as it could. We’re not enjoying it. I want this blog to address not just what does it take for us to be successful, but to give us a place to talk about being successful in the face of so much pressure.

I think we feel a lot of pressure out there. Do you? I believe that most of us are often over our stress threshold, and I think it’s just going to get worse—or more interesting, depending on how you feel about stress.

Seriously, though, we all like stress—to a certain degree. Life would be boring if it were so routine and so under our control that nothing ever happened to test us or grow us or surprise us or take us in new directions that ultimately ended up adding to our lives. Of course, once that “excitement” gets over a certain level, though, we experience it as dis-stress, with all of the stuff that to comes along with it: draining of our energy, loss of focus, bringing out our weaknesses instead of our strengths, etc..

Each year, especially as technology continues to innovate and change how we communicate and how we work, we will get a growing number of interruptions and distractions in our lives. I once heard that we have something like 1000 times more distractions in a day (buzzes, beeps, ads, etc.) than our grandparents did. I’m not sure I trust that number, but I think it’s definitely right in proving the point: the number of daily distractions we face are multiplying rapidly.

We have habits we’ve created around dealing with those distractions, and I find those habits are often unconscious and driving us toward results we’re not really enjoying. Case in point, notice all the different habits people have developed around using a cell phone, or a portable email device like a Blackberry. One of the most useful exercises you can engage in is to take some time to compare your daily habits around things like email with your goals for those habits. Ask yourself questions like:

• What do you want email to do for you, anyway?
• Where does it sit on your job description or support the responsibilities that do?
• Are your habits for email really getting you there?
• If not, what might you want to try to change it up, get some different results?
  

Constantly Growing Expectations – from Others and from Us

In addition to the interruptions, we’re facing constantly growing expectations. These are a big issue for most of us, and the expectations come from many places. In work, technology has allowed us to be more productive, and the down side of that is many of us feel the productivity expectation is now so high it’s hurting. We may feel like we’re letting people down everyday, and that gets in the way of enjoying our successes. We have the expectations, constantly growing, of customers, bosses, and colleagues. That’s a lot to deal with. Especially today, when they can reach us anywhere at anytime with the next expectation.

Perhaps the most difficult set of expectations to deal with is the growing set we have for ourselves. I find that most of us are pretty tough on ourselves. A big part of success is knowing what you want. It’s also knowing what’s possible, so that you set up a game to play that you can actually win. What are you expecting of yourself? Can you really deliver that, or have you set up an unfair set of rules?

I think we often ask things of ourselves that we have no real historical data to support. Not to say we shouldn’t try to stretch and grow, but often we stretch way too far, and then the system (our habits) rejects the stretch, and we’re worse off (feeling defeated) than we were before we tried.

Have you ever, say, around New Years, decided to start an exercise plan or a diet? You had tremendous expectations (“I’m going from size XXL to size L!”) and you pushed yourself so hard for about…two weeks, right? Then it all went away? The motivation, the results?

We’ve all been through this cycle. Going through it creates a lot of pressure in our lives, as we fail to meet those unfair expectations, and then our confidence in our ability to deliver slips. I will give you ideas in the future to help you set better goals and enjoy building up those systems in your life. I promise you that.

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve said a few times in this post “I believe” or “I think.” I believe a lot, but I don’t *I*know* much. I have some ideas. I’ve seen a lot of trends. I have my own intuition. I don’t always have the answers. Sometimes I find the most important thing I can do for a client is to help them get a new question in their head, to see the issues they face in a new way. Here’s to some hopefully useful questions that will get you powerful answers.

One thing I’m hoping to use this blog for is to test out what is important to you. I’d like to find out through the comments you attach to blog posts, how is it for you out there? What concerns you about success or the pressure you feel in your daily life? I’m hoping to learn from you as much as you learn from me, which will help me to grow and deliver more as a seminar leader and coach. Here’s to our learning together!

First Post -- Why This Blog and Who Is The Author?

Welcome to Success Under Pressure! I thought I would use this first post to let you know a little bit about why I am creating this blog and what I hope the blog can do for you. I also want to share a little bit about me, the author of the blog.

Why this blog—what do I hope to offer you?

Now, I hesitate to say that I’d like the focus of this blog to be “success.” That word has so many prescribed meanings like financial success or power or whatever. Those prescribed ideas can really get us into trouble. Even when we’re successful at reaching our goals, those fixed ideas of success is or should be can continue to create a lot of negative internal pressure (i.e. stress) , make us feel like we’ve never got enough, that we’re not enough. That’s not the kind of life I deserve, and you neither.

If you look up the word “success” in a dictionary, you’ll see it’s really just (according to American Heritage Dictionary): “The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted.” Success is knowing what you want and then going after and getting it. (OK, easier said than done, but I’m committed to helping you in this area.)

To me, success is about going after things that matter, and doing the “going after” in ways that feel good while you’re “going along.” I’d like our version of success to be about strategies for getting focused and clear about you really want, and refreshing that continuously as you learn and life changes. Knowing what you truly want professionally and what you want personally and having strategies to reduce the noise, the pressure. Let’s learn to enjoy the process of building your life toward those successful results.

About the author—the engineer who decided to focus on people instead

I have always been interested in personal development and success. I have worked in the success field for almost 10 years. I regularly deliver seminars on a number of topics like time management, personal effectiveness, leading and working with others. I also coach individual clients and enjoy working them to help them get great results and achieve success on their terms.

I’m committed to talking, yes, about the big questions and big picture stuff of success. But I’m also committed to giving you something you can immediately wrap your arms around and start using as a process to get results from now. I believe, when it comes to teaching, you’ve got to meet people where they are. These days, I meet a lot of people that want the simple, the practical, the tactical. Things that will help them to alleviate some of the pressure that they’re feeling right now. I promise to make sure we have plenty of that in this blog.

I started my career as an engineer (I still get into trouble around the house trying to fix things that I think I can fix but am technically not qualified to fix). Starting as an engineer, and retaining that mindset as I’ve moved through other careers, I’ve always enjoyed looking at things systematically. I believe that a lot of the results we get today have much to do with the systems we have in place. By changing the things we do every day in small, but significant ways, we can get wildly different results. wildly different results. I promise.

My life isn’t wild (or crazy), but it does look wildly different, and more importantly, it feels wildly different, than it did even a few years ago. Building our lives in a positive direction is fun, and very useful. As the pressure continues to grow in our lives, building our lives will become even more necessary.

If you don’t have a strategy, as the futurist Alvin Toffler said, you become part of someone else’s strategy. That’s especially true as the pressure grows in our lives. I’ll talk in my next post (a continuation of this one) about how I believe the pressure is growing, and growing, and growing, and – well you get the idea – in our daily lives.