You Should be Training, not Trying

When most people want to modify behavior or an attitude, they start by trying. You hear remarks such as, “I am trying to be patient,” “I am trying to lose weight,” and “I am trying to be more positive.” But trying to change is a mistake; instead you should be training.

Attitude and behavioral changes take time and practice. Setbacks will happen. Yet too often the result of trying to do something is success or failure. You either accomplished it or you didn’t. If you try to lose ten pounds but only lose five, you’ve failed at what you tried to do. It’s discouraging.

But the result of training is improvement and progress. If, as part of your training, you only lose five pounds, you haven’t failed. You’ve made progress towards your goal of ten.

Trying to do something means you are doing that one endeavor. Sometimes over and over, until you succeed or give up. To try and break a score of 90 in a golf round, you must hit the links. Training involves a more holistic view. If you train to break 90, you will seek out coaching and practice between rounds.

Training breaks your goal down into manageable chunks. If you want to run a marathon, you don’t wait until the race comes to your city and then try to run it. Instead, you would have a running plan with a gradual increase in miles over time.

As with sports, you can take a comparable approach when dealing with behaviors or attitudes. For example, let’s say you are struggling with a negative attitude at work. You can try to be positive. But under duress, it’s easy to revert to critical thoughts and comments.

Instead, you can train to be more positive. For example:

• When someone asks, “How are you?” you choose to say, “Great!”
• When you arrive home from work, you smile at your spouse
• When the alarm goes off, you think of three things you are grateful for before getting out of bed

Or you can just wait and see how you feel and simply try to be more positive. But my money is on the person who trains, not the one who tries.

You Got This!

Take some time to ponder a behavior or attitude you want to change in the new year. Consider how you might train to make that happen and break it down into a plan, just as you would with a sport or skill activity. Resist discouragement and celebrate the progress of milestones achieved along the way.