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Lessons From Roller Skating

Lessons From RollerSkating from Beth Andrus on Vimeo.

The Success Bias

Sometimes when things start to feel too easy for us, we think we’re not doing it right or not working hard enough. But maybe you’ve just hit your stride and are in “your zone”. Probably (hopefully), your ever increasing business experience is just making it feel easy. There is new scientific research to support this phenomenon.

Because athletes often report that when they’re in the zone, motion seems to slow down and their targets seem closer and larger, Psychologist Jessica Witt of Purdue University created an experiment using 24 athletes. The non-football participants kicked a total of 10 field goals from a relatively easy distance. The kickers were asked to estimate the size of the goal posts before and after each of their attempts. The most successful participants perceived the goal posts to be 22% larger, and easier to reach, than those who repeatedly missed. But the successful kickers didn’t see their targets as larger and easier until after accomplishing the task. Success directly changed their perception of the difficulty of the kicks.

I have previously talked about the effects of positive self-talk, and this is an extension of that. Successful completion of a task stretches your boundaries. The proof of the “success” bias is a good reason to create steps that lead to bigger and bigger goals. With each accomplishment, your perception of what is attainable will adjust in the right direction, so start laying out your plan.

The Benefits Of Giving Your Time To Others

We all have days, and sometimes weeks (ugh!), when we feel discouraged and start to wonder what we’re doing, and why. As I’ve recommended in the past, it can really help to turn your focus toward others. A great way to do this is by volunteering or mentoring. It is rewarding to share your knowledge and experience, and it also gives you an opportunity to see how much you actually know. When we’re in the thick of growing our businesses, it’s easy to lose sight of how far we’ve come.

Last Friday I spent the day at the Junior Achievement Finance Park in Los Angeles. The program brings L.A. area high school students in, gives them an adult identity/situation for the day and they must create and live within a budget. They may become a 36 year old married person, with no kids and an income of $53,000, a 29 year old single parent of two with an income of about $20,000, or another of the several scenarios. 

It is a day-long program and I think I got at least as much out of it as the kids did. The students put a lot of thought into creating their budgets (much more than I do). They were kind, respectful and very funny. Seeing them gave me hope and reminded me that the stories we see regularly on the news are not the norm. I felt energized and inspired throughout the day, and the positive feeling has stayed with me. 

So whenever you are feeling discouraged or overwhelmed, find a way to step outside of yourself.  Look for volunteer or mentor opportunities in your local community.  Sharing with others will give you one more reason to strive for your own success.

If you still need help finding a place to support, I highly recommend contacting your local Junior Achievement program. I really love this organization. They are active across the country and around the world. Their programs help to prepare young people for the real world by teaching about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy.  Junior Achievement has almost 400,000 classroom volunteers who teach over 9 million students a year. With numbers like these, I am sure you can find a volunteer opportunity in your area. You can read more about them here. www.ja.org