How to Improve Your Outcome Without Improving Your Skills

The Initial Challenge: A Skill Beyond My Capacity

The final workout of the 2024 CrossFit Open presented me with the challenge of jumping chest-to-bar pull ups, a skill I had never done before.

Though I could occasionally manage strict chin-over-bar pull-ups, this variation demanded a strength and capacity I hadn’t yet developed.

My initial attempts were disheartening. In the first round, 23 attempts to get the 10 pull-ups depleted my time, energy, and frustration tolerance. I ended the workout feeling defeated.

Although I had performed each of the first two Open workouts twice, improving significantly each time, this time there seemed to be little value in attempting a redo.

Success in this workout seemed to require a skill that I didn’t have, and that would take me a significant amount of time to develop.

But what if I didn’t actually have to improve at all?

A New Angle Brings a Shift in Perspective

My coach pointed out that I would have fared better doing the movement with a supinated (underhand) grip.

A quick check of the CrossFit movement standards confirmed that athletes could use any grip for pull-ups.

Over the weekend, I experimented with this approach and found it much easier.

Open 24.3: Handling It Differently, Instead of Better

After a weekend of rest, I returned to the gym on Monday morning armed with my new strategy for my redo of Open 24.3: the supinated grip.

This small but crucial change in how I “handled” the pull-ups led to a significant difference in my experience and the outcome.

This time, I didn’t lose time and energy to frustration. I completed all 100 reps of Part 1 of the workout in under 10 minutes — a stark contrast to my first attempt, when I hit the 15-minute time cap at only 95 reps.

How Are You Handling Life?

This experience was a practical demonstration of one of the metaphorical teachings of Katonah Yoga.

Hands represent our capacity, capability, and competency.

When we get stuck at an obstacle in life, taking a new grip on the situation — changing how we handle it — can give us a completely different outcome.

The Value of a Fresh Perspective

After I finished the second performance, some women from my gym — who had not done the workout at all — told me that they would have done it if they had realized an underhand grip was allowed.

Perhaps I, too, would have done it that way the first time if I had realized it was allowed and that it worked better for me.

The reality of life is that we don’t always know at the outset what techniques will work best for us.

Sometimes it takes a willingness to try and fail before we gain the insight necessary for a new perspective and a new way to handle a situation.

And, we can’t always get that insight on our own.

We can’t see our own blind spots, especially in a situation where one method or technique dominates.

We were all caught up in looking to the “model examples” of the elite athletes and the “standard” way of doing the movement. We didn’t consider an alternate approach.

That’s where a coach or other outside perspective adds value. My coach isn’t a “CrossFit coach.” His focus is on helping me move right, not move to win. He wasn’t fazed by what the crowd was doing; he saw a different route for me, one that played to my abilities.

It was a potent reminder that sometimes we need that outsider’s eye to spot a game-changing approach.

The Lesson Beyond the Gym

The lesson from this experience applies well beyond the confines of a workout.

Inevitably in life we encounter challenging tasks and situations that feel beyond our current capacity. It’s common to default to looking at how other people handle these tasks, or the standard approach, without considering whether those techniques will work for our strengths.

Sticking solely to familiar methods can blind us to innovative solutions. Sometimes it takes an outsider to show us what we can’t see from inside the bubble of our individual or collective experience.

Looking outside our usual circles can uncover unseen possibilities, change our perspective, and give us ideas for how to handle the situation differently, prompting a shift that leads to improved outcomes.

When You Get Stuck, Handle It Differently

Think of a place where you’re feeling stuck. Maybe you’ve been trying in vain to improve your outcome by trying harder or practicing more. With time, technique, and dedication to practice, you might eventually improve your skills and strength.

But what if you could change your outcome without “improving” your skills?

Instead of trying harder, consider adopting “a new grip.” Change your perspective. Change the way you handle it.

And prepare for a completely different experience and outcome.