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Failing Isn’t the Worst Thing … Giving Up Is

Twelve- to 19-month-olds averaged 2,368 steps and 17 falls per hour (Adolph et al, 2012). What if as an infant, after the first time you fell while transitioning from crawling to walking you simply quit and never tried again? Would you be an adult who crawls around all day? Being that I don’t see many adults still crawling, I’m guessing EVERY TIME you failed at walking when you were an infant, you got back up and tried again until you got it “perfected.” At the time walking was a new skill to you, you saw a lot of other people doing it, in fact the two people you looked up to the most did it ALL THE TIME. Watching your mom and dad walk all the time likely looked fun so you kept trying it but also failed a lot too.  Once you took your first steps, mom and dad were SOOOO EXCITED it was like the best thing ever but even though you did it once, it wasn’t very easy to repeat. Eventually you got it down pretty good and probably now you’d consider yourself an EXPERT walker (even if you sometimes stumble over imaginary stuff on the floor like I do). Where did this tenacity to keep trying disappear? Maybe yours hasn’t, but likely most adults have quit at least once on something in their life.

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never give in. Nothing, great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” — Winston Churchill

Instead of just telling you that you shouldn’t quit, I figured I’d let a famous person do it for me :) Truth is, in my life I’ve learned more through failure than through success and I’ve also spent a lot of time avoiding things to circumvent failure.

Today is January 21 … USA Today published an article that said January 17 is D-Day for New Year’s resolutions … people give up on their good intentions and fall back into old habits. So if you’re still going strong, GREAT JOB but if you feel like you’ve failed, that’s ok too, you’re human and you still have time to get back on track.

I’ve cited this in a previous blog but it bears repeating here too, striving to be 1% better  every day leads to a 37.78% increase but the caveat is that making that 1% better choice seems insignificant in the moment but like compound interest in your bank account, leads to gains in the future. This is termed the Aggregation of Marginal Gains. To put this into work for our lives we must be able to shift from an immediate return to a delayed return mentality.

Immediate Returns vs. Delayed Returns

Imagine that I gave you $100, would you think you were rich? What if I told you I would give you $100 every day as long as you saved the money in a savings account? Eventually you could have more than $365,000 (plus interest if you found a good bank) which is quite a large sum of money but was it that last $100 that made your rich, or was it all the intermediate steps that didn’t seem significant at the moment?  The truth is for most of the difference between $100 and $200 isn’t significant but $100 and $1,000 or $10,000 or $100,000 is significant. This is an example of how compounding habits can lead to great outcomes.

The problem is, we live in a very immediate-return environment and our brains are already hard-wired to respond better to immediate-return choices than delayed-return choices. Generally speaking, rewards of a bad habit are in the present and the cost in the future and the rewards of a good habit are in the future and the cost is in the present (Clear, 2018).

For example: the one session of strength training can be tiring (immediate cost) but the benefits of strength training for 6-weeks on a well designed program will be improved strength, performance, and physique (delayed reward) and one peanut butter chocolate chip cookie will taste great (immediate reward) but eating one every day can lead to regularly eating over caloric expenditure and weight gain (delayed cost).

Am I saying, “NEVER EAT THE COOKIE” nope … you’ll never hear me say that but I will say that sometimes we need to look at the choices we make every day and determine if they are consistent with the path we want to be on or if they’re hindering our progress.

A Strategy to Convert Delayed Gratification into Immediate Rewards

I think this is an economics tenet but “pay yourself first.” Say you normally hit up Starbucks EVERY morning for a venti Unicorn Frappuccino at a cost of $6 and a whopping 500 calories, when you skip the Unicorn Frappuccino take that $6 and put it away in an envelope (or a separate savings account) and earmark it towards something that supports your goals, like a new workout outfit. Now every time you skip those extra 500 calories you are one step closer to some new joggers. If spending money on lattes isn’t something you do, you could set up an account and give yourself $5 for every workout you complete.  If you go 3 times a week for 52 weeks, you’ll have $780 … put in a few extra workouts and you can go on a nice little vacation. While the joggers or vacations will be nice, the REAL benefit will be a healthier body (maybe you’ll even buy joggers in a smaller size).

Maybe you’re saying … “hey Michelle, this sounds like bribery,” not quite (at least in my opinion), the truth is you probably WANT to adopt the new habit of exercise but because it’s new, it’s hard to adopt this new mindset but the more you do it the more rewarding it becomes. If you pair it with something pleasurable you’ll be more likely to continue. Pairing a new habit with an old habit is a great way to get the new habit to gain traction and eventually it’ll become part of you.

I could go and spend a lot more time here talking about growth versus fixed mindset, goal setting, habits, etc but I’m going to end it here. If you’ve already “fallen off” your New Year’s Resolution, don’t fret pretend you’re a toddler and get back up and try again….try so many times that you succeed. Also remember the things you see on social media, the TV, in magazines, etc aren’t necessarily the truth, most only show you the highlight reel. If you’re looking for some help, message me here.

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Adolph, Cole, Komati, Garciaguirre, Badaly, Lineman, Chan, & Sotksy. (2012). How Do You Learn to Walk? Thousands of Steps and Dozens of Falls Per Day. Psychological Science 23 (11), 1387-1394

Clear, James. (2018). Atomic Habits