The Right Tool for the Job

One of my favorite coaches is Kelly Starrett, of The Ready State (formerly known as MobilityWOD.) I’ve been taking his advice for about ten years now and his work has really improved my life. He’s co-written a number of books, including Becoming a Supple Leopard and the absolutely essential Built to Move.

Kelly is a movement and mobility coach and one of his basic principles, which I’ve heard him talk about in a dozen different places, is that everyone should be able to fix themselves, meaning that everyone should have access to good and useful information.

For many – maybe even most – people, you only have a couple of options if you’re in pain: pop a pill or call the doctor. Maybe, just maybe, you have a chiropractor or a massage therapist in your speed dial. But that’s the end of the list. And notice that there’s a vast expanse between taking some Advil and calling the doctor. There's no happy medium. But you shouldn’t have to call an M.D. or the chiropractor every time your neck or your knee is bugging you more than Aspirin can cure.

And so Kelly teaches people how to take care of themselves. He gives us the information we need so that we can treat (and prevent) our own pain. Thanks to K-Star (and Diamond Dallas Page, but that’s another story for another time) I went from a guy with chronic back pain and occasional bouts of immobility to being one of the stretchiest/bendiest 40-something-years-old guys I know. And when my back does bother me, I usually know why and I know what to do about it. That’s really powerful. I went from helpless to very capable – empowered, even.

Die With Your Boots On!

I have carried Kelly’s philosophy into the realm of Positive Psychology and specifically my work on Achievement Skills in my audiobook art project, Ready for the Quest. When we’re feeling uninspired or incapable or mired in obstacles, when we’re not accomplishing the things that matter, the problem is often similar to the issue we have when we’re in physical pain: we have very limited options. In fact, most people see only one way forward - JUST DO IT.

Here’s a quotation from Chapter Two of Ready for the Quest.

Much of the available advice about how to handle Resistance sounds like this: “suck it up, put your head down, sit your butt in the chair, and get after it. Push through your feelings and die with your boots on. Just do it and don’t wait.”

If you’ve been looking for solutions to your stuck-ness you’ve probably been handed some version of the workaholic manifesto. You’ve received some very intense messages about the blood, sweat, and tears necessary to achieve your dreams. You’ve been told that the only way forward is to sit at the typewriter and bleed. Many of us only know one way to get moving and it’s the one that says “f__k your feelings.”

I want to be very clear: I am not against any of that stuff in and of itself. In fact I love a lot of it and I use it. Sometimes and in some situations a big kick in the backside is exactly what I need. Those are great resources to have and it’s excellent to have that tool at the ready when it’s the right one for the job.

You Get to Choose

But there are other paths you can take. That’s what I love about this Achievement Skills stuff. More skills = more options. More options means you are more likely to find a tool that's particularly well-suited to the job. No more using the back of a screwdriver to drive nails now that you've got a perfectly balanced, solid steel hammer.

And I’m a zealot because I’m a convert! These are lessons I learned the hard way, through using blunt force over and over again when I could have been taking a more nuanced and effective approach.

Once you start learning about how the mind works and the science behind things like your motivation, your mindset, your self-efficacy, and your work ethic, you’ll see a whole world of options and opportunities open up. Just as learning from Kelly Starrett helped me to understand why I was in pain and what to do about it, learning about these Achievement Skills will provide you with an understanding of what’s getting in your way and a plan for how to change it.

And then you’ll get to choose, every day. Do you wanna say “f__k your feelings” or do you want to try something else instead? You won’t be stuck, you won’t be helpless, and you will be ready to do what matters most.