Written by Karen D. Swim
Image by Essjay is happy in NZ via Flickr
“Give me ten more,” the trainer said. The woman eyed him with defiance, “That’s enough, I’m tired.” I watched with mild curiosity as trainer and client engaged in the proverbial standoff. He with a tinge of weariness responded, “You can do ten more. If you want to lose the weight you have to learn to push yourself.” She rolled her eyes, dug in her heels and argued. I briefly caught the trainer’s eye and we exchanged a look of understanding. It is hard to help someone change when they are addicted to being right.
The woman was morbidly obese, so clearly her way was not working for her. Yet, when faced with expert help, she rejected it in favor of her opinion. Like any addict, the first step is admitting you have a problem.
You want to lose weight but you disagree with all the nutrition and exercise advice offered to you. You have been laid off and hire someone to write your resume but argue with them over every comma and period. You have started a business but pooh pooh the advice from long term business owners on marketing.
However, you’re not difficult. You have to be true to yourself. You know what works best for you. So tell me, how’s that working out for you?
Have you been able to succeed by continuing to do it your way? The truth is you’re afraid – afraid to admit your weakness, afraid of failing, afraid of succeeding. Your fear has you locked in your comfort zone of defeat.
I get it, I really do. If you take the expert advice and still fail, what does it say about you? Your inner critic is telling you that it marks you with a scarlet letter as a bozo who could not make it work. Tell your inner critic to tak e a hike, because he/she is wrong. It says that you are a person who desires change and is willing to seek out help to achieve it.
Consider this, you have nothing to lose. You are not giving up success for potential failure. You are letting go of failure for a potential solution. You took one step by asking for help, now take one more by accepting it. The choice is yours. Hang on to your excuses as you tumble down the cliff or grab hold of the rope and begin the journey upward.
Have you ever found yourself needing help but resisting change? How were you able to finally break through? Questions, comments and feedback are warmly welcomed as we all learn and support one another.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a5630dd2-0dfa-4bbf-b22b-063f8aacb684)
Ha! True confessions of the kilted viking! 🙂 When I was much younger, I would doggedly spend hours upon hours figuring out stuff on my own. It bordered on insanity. Now, I tend to google or tweet a question, man if only I knew back then what I know now I could have had a lot more spa days!
Karen,
🙂 usually just when I’ve been at something for a long time, such that it has become almost a given.
Brett Legree´s last blog post..viking fridays – a story of give and take.
Jan, hmmm, inner dialogue is good because you can uncover the root of your resistance. I think going with the flow is good but it still requires a letting go and allowing the unknown to unfold. You have me thinking deeply (as always), I am going to ponder this a bit more. I love this conversation because I have a desire to learn and grow too.
Alex, lol, your analogy validates why you will be a bestselling novelist! I love the imagery!
Oh Jamie such wise words! While I won’t argue with you once I’ve accepted I need help, I too have struggled against myself before I reach that point. The older I get the more I realize how little I know so I get to 911 much faster than I did in the past but I am very much a work in progress. 🙂
Alina, I completely agree with you. When someone offers help, you do need to test it against your own instincts. There have been times I have not acted on something because my internal meter said it was not the right choice for me. However, If I go to someone for help I have already made the decision to trust their expertise in that area. If I don’t understand, I’ll ask questions, if I screw it up I ask why but I will not pay you (or ask you) to help me and then argue with you to prove you wrong.
Melissa, when I seek help from someone, I listen! I don’t fight the person because I trust that I’ve made a good decision in asking for their help! I have had the same issue with clients and like you have had to share AP or Chicago manual of style. The most infuriating was working on a web project and the web designer questioned me. I cited my style reference but it was irritating. Hello, am I trying to tell you how to code?
“When you coach someone I think the hard part is not when you teach the process, the hard part is when you help the person you coach to trust himself, to help them accept the ‘you can do it!’.”
Roland this statement provided an aha moment for me. While I am not a coach, I suppose we are all called to coach in certain circumstances. You are so right one of my recent frustrations is getting people to accept they can do it. I am not always patient when people come to me for help, pay me for it even and then do nothing with it. You have helped me to be more patient and understand the other side of it. Thank you!
Brett, you are so zen that it’s hard for me to imagine you resistant but I suppose we all do it in some way, sometimes. How cool is it that you know the photographer? Love the interwebs, such a small world!
Karen Swim´s last blog post..Love is Not on My List
Some people say having a talk, an inner dialogue, with your own resistance yields some insight. Does any body do that? I guess it might be the equivalent of asking for inner help.
Then I read that going WITH the flow to see where it takes you is also a strategy, especially in, say martial arts tactics. In terms of resistance , it seems we might already know where that takes us. Same old same old. But maybe in martial arts you go to a leveraging move.
Any thoughts?
Janice Cartier´s last blog post..Magnolias, Gucci, and Talking to Aliens… Maybe
When it comes to change, I’m like a baby fighting sleep. I moan, I grumble and I make the lives of the people around me unbearable until suddenly I drop off into blissful slumber and forget that I was ever cranky.
Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome´s last blog post..Girls Aloud give us all a kick in the pants
We’re all so ready to be right, aren’t we?
It takes a long night to find the day… and a better writer than I to find the poesy fit for such high-falutin’ thoughts. 🙂
That’s why I have a statement taped up on the wall by my office:
“It all becomes so clear once there is absolutely nothing else you can do.”
We struggle and struggle against ourselves each day. Fighting to maintain our grip on the rules we’ve made for ourselves (or those imposed by others). It’s a way to maintain the illusion of control.
But what if we could accept that we are generally wrong? What if we could accept that we are not in control?
If we could do that, we would be free to fail and learn. We would be able to reach out to those who could help us without any sense of shame or guilt.
It all becomes so clear once there is absolutely nothing else you can do. And in fact, there is nothing else you can do until you get over the need to be right and embrace the learning experience of being human.
Jamie Grove – How Not To Write´s last blog post..Salted Spring Fever and Hot Wax Zombies: Where Twitter and Old Posts Meet
Karen, being always right is a very, very hard to control issue. I should know 🙂 When someone offers their input, my first instinct is to do it my own way. I instead now stop and think, and if they’re right, take their advice, if not, go with my gut feeling. The trick is to know when it’s really your instinct talking and when it is just your need to be always right 🙂
Alina Popescu´s last blog post..Less than 3 weeks left to join the WoBM anniversary contest
Oh, I’ve seen this before. Not me though. I always seek advice from those who know more than I do, and I’ll gladly try different ways of doing things to find what works best. But what is it with people who hire you to do the writing and then question little things like comma placement? I have actually had to send quotes from the Chicago Manual of Style to a client or two, explaining proper (or stylistic) grammar.
Melissa Donovan´s last blog post..The Serial Comma
I love the story! How true.
I found that some things are easier in a group – like when we were at a training camp, and we did things we would have never done alone, but we were cursing, laughing and pushing.
Some other things can’t be done in groups, and that makes them harder. But that’s life.
Fear is good.
“The absence of fear is not courage. The absence of fear is mental illness.” – I read that at ittybiz today, and that is true.
Pulling back into the well known comfort is a natural reaction – the unknown can kill you, here, you are alive – certainly not smart a lot of times.
But we have the ancient instinct, and we have additional help that taught us to hold back. We have been taught that failure is unacceptable and results in being mocked and being laughed at, and being punished – school prepares us.
When you coach someone I think the hard part is not when you teach the process, the hard part is when you help the person you coach to trust himself, to help them accept the “you can do it!”.
When you go to a coach, you have to get to the point where you trust him in these matters – so you have two steps: 1) trust your coach, and then 2) trust yourself.
For me the breakthrough always come when I am not so scared that all I do is sit awake all night long, but can go and ask for help from my friends. Then it usually ends in a breakthrough.
Roland Hesz´s last blog post..Építs a Kiva-val
I’ve been there. Because of course, I’m always right 🙂 but seriously, once you learn how to ask for help, it is like a weight has been lifted.
Ask for help – and then give it a shot. Nothing to lose at all – if it doesn’t work, then try it your way and see.
Seems like win-win to me!
Oh, and the picture! I love it, and it has extra meaning for me.
Essjay’s other half is a man named Tirau Dan, and they live in Tirau NZ. Dan’s photography for me captures the essence of New Zealand and I have talked with him a couple of times by email.
I have many of his pictures saved away or printed out to keep at the forefront of what I am doing, to get us there.
So thanks for sharing that one today 🙂
Brett Legree´s last blog post..viking fridays – a story of give and take.