Practice Success

The Old Bath + Bottle + Story = Sleep!

How My Two Year Old Can Help You Kick More Ass

There is no greater lesson on the importance of communication and what works in motivating people and modifying their behavior than the one you get as the parent of a small child. I mean, you can have long-winded meetings at work and hope to motivate employees through entreaties to their professionalism and the possibility of career advancement but that absolutely will not cut it with Little Susie Q, your adorable but emotionally erratic two year old. If you want to reward her for doing something (or bribe her to do it) then the gratification has to be instant and when you need to punish her (and you will need to punish her) then the punishment has to be swift, fair, and consistent.

New parents quickly figure out that their children actually crave routine and order, even as they rebel against it, and they put this to use in their war battle loving effort to get the damn thing to fall asleep and sleep through the night! How many of you have used some variation of the nighttime formula: bath + bottle + book + crib = good night’s sleep? And by good night’s sleep I mean yours, not the child’s. Well, what you are doing is establishing routine and order in the otherwise chaotic life of your infant. Like Pavlov’s dog, over time the infant internalizes the sequence of events and the sleep becomes natural to them. Good parents recognize a good thing when they see it and use similar tricks for potty training, teaching manners, and teaching sharing.

Well, it’s not just small children that crave order, the very same technique can work to make us more productive, healthy, and happy. Think of any great habit that you wanted to develop and how hard it was to stick to it. By creating a routine, a ritual even, leading up to the successful practice of that habit you can vastly improve your probability of success.

I’ll give you a for instance. Every night, after I put my two year old to bed, I sit down to write. Well, I don’t sit right down, first I go through my ritual. First I make myself a cup of tea and then I spend five minutes thinking about my goals and why I sit down to write every night, no matter what, instead of watching t.v. or surfing the Internet. Then, at the end of the five minutes I take a brief minute to plan my attack on the night and I get down to work. In the past I have tried to just get right to work but ever since my son taught me the value of ritual I have followed this and IT WORKS! Not just in making me more productive, although I certainly have noticed that, but it makes the task so much more fun and therefore I am much less likely to skip it.

The key to developing a real kick-ass and effective ritual is consistent, dedicated application toward a worthwhile goal. This is where the word ritual comes into play because you have to be religious, almost fanatical, in your practice; at least at first. You’ll know that you’re starting to get the hang of it you start to do it automatically, without even thinking about it as an option. When it gets to the point that you would feel odd and disconcerted if you didn’t go through with it then you’ll know that you are really getting it down right.

Beware of Bad Rituals!

Just as rituals can be used to learn and grow good habits, they can also cut the other way. Think of the incredible number of people out there that get home from work, eat dinner, and then veg in front of the idiot box until they realize that it is bedtime. I know people that can’t walk into a room without turning on the television; notwithstanding the presence of company or having some other task to accomplish. The television is normal, and its absence makes them uncomfortable.

Don’t Believe Me? Then Ask Landon Donovan

Have you ever seen Landon Donovan take a penalty kick? What about Tiger Woods tee off, Peyton Manning take a snap or Lebron James take a free throw? Before Landon takes a penalty he goes through a routine that involves his crossing his fingers and kissing them several times before he starts the approach to the ball. He’s gotten a lot of slack for that, but he’s also made a ton of penalty kicks. Never missed for the United States, as a fact.

Rituals for preparing for and performing in sports are both ubiquitous across all sports and legendary. Some athletes will continue to wear the same clothes when they have a hot streak, some will shave their heads to start one and some won’t shave while they are winning. To prepare for games, some players will listen to aggressive, high-intensity music like some rock or rap while others will choose music that makes them mellow. During games some players will cross themselves, mutter to themselves, bounce the ball a certain number of times or approach the plate a certain way.

While sports are especially notorious for the use of rituals to put the athletes “in the zone” and to promote concentration and performance, highly effective people in other professions such as actors, public speakers, and sales people have also tapped into the power of routine and ritual. I’ve spoken with sales people who use methods to hype themselves up and with surgeons who use yoga and soothing music to calm themselves down. Writers will use tricks to bring focus and artists to encourage creativity.

So What Do the Experts Say?

So what do the professional psychologists, men and women of science who have devoted years of study to the subject, think of the use of ritual to enhance performance? Surely they frown upon it, or at least turn a blind eye. I remember an episode of Frazier when Miles Crane took on a basketball player who was in a slump as a client. The upshot is that Miles encouraged the use of positive thinking and visualization while the player fell back upon good old superstition. Either way, the slump was rectified and both parties were happy. Real sports psychologists, who get paid big bucks to advise clients, often actually encourage the use of routines and consistency in their clients, and there are even clinical studies that lend evidence that it actually is effective in enhancing performance.

What’s Harry Potter Got to Do With This?

Some Harry Potter fans will remember in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when the potions master, Horace Slughorn, gives Harry a flask of the elixir Felix Felicis, also known as liquid luck. Slughorn claimed to have used it twice, each time resulting in a “perfect day.” Under the influence of Felix the feels confident, self-assured, ready for anything that may come. So suggestive is its power that Harry pretends to give some to his best mate Ron before a Quidditch match; with the result that Ron, who is duped into believing that he has taken the medicine, performs brilliantly because that is what he believes he is destined to do.

The Recipe for Felix Felicis

Alright, Old Slughorn didn’t really give me the recipe (I was a crap potions student) but between my son, Landon Donovan, and Harry Potter I think the path has been blazed and the answer is evident. Feeling good about yourself (having the “perfect day”) comes about from kicking ass and getting things done, while kicking ass and getting things done comes about as a result of consistent and relentless effort. Indeed, I’ll bet Landon Donovan wasn’t always an automatic goal at the penalty kick and my son certainly didn’t fall asleep the first time we tried the old bath + bottle + book + crib trick. However, through countless repetition, and that old Jedi mind trick of using ritual as a psychological trigger, they have developed the confidence to do so. The ritual triggers the action, and the action becomes automatic.  Now is your chance to tap into the power!