Many high achievers are conditioned to believe that if we’re not getting the results we want, it’s due to a failure on our part.
We must push ourselves harder, do more, double down on our efforts, power through.
Max out. Go balls to the wall.
But in most cases, pushing harder and doing more isn’t the answer.
It’s often easiest to see why this doesn’t work in a physical practice.
Let’s say you’re lifting weights. At the beginning, showing up is half the battle; as long as you’re loading the bar and doing your lifts, you’ll make gains.
Eventually, though, those “newbie gains” start to flatline. You hit a plateau. Your progress stalls.
The natural response is to load more weight on the bar. Push harder. Do more.
But here’s the thing: if your technique isn’t solid, adding more weight won’t help. In fact, it’ll probably hurt.
If you’re moving in a way where some muscles are compensating for others, eventually that will catch up with you.
Without proper technique, you won’t be able to hit your heavier lifts. Even worse, your body will succumb faster to wear-and-tear that leads to injury.
And being forced to the sidelines is the surest way to stall.
The same principle applies to everything else in life.
When we feel stuck in making progress, doing more of something that isn’t working — or that is actively causing damage — is not going to help us move forward.
The better approach is to step back, assess what isn’t working, and try a different approach. Sometimes this means refining your technique or learning a new technique or skill. Sometimes it means adjusting the timing) of what you’re doing.
As you retool your approach you might need to scale back for a while.
On paper it might look like you’re giving up your gains, but in the long term you’ll be able to sustain your efforts — and your results — for longer.
When you’re stagnating or not seeing results, the answer isn’t to push harder or do more of what isn’t working — it’s to identify what needs to change and do something different.
[…] It’s common to believe we need to work harder when we feel stalled or we believe we’re not making progress. But if what we’re doing isn’t working, then doing more of it isn’t likely to change our results. […]