You Didn't Regress, You Changed Lanes

Is up. Flint from iAlign here. Kind of a late night Kind of a late night, uh, kind of a late night post here wrapping up work. I just wanted to, uh… That’s not very good

What is up? What’s up? Flint from iAlign here. I hope you’re having a fantastic whatever time of day it is for you. It’s, right now it’s 9:00 PM on a Thursday. Just wrapping up work and had a good id- just wrapping up work and had a, just wrapping up work, and I had a client that I coached recently tell me last week that he felt like he had been taking feeling like he had been feeling like he had taken four steps back because earlier in the year he was taking action, he was shipping, he was moving.

And lately in the past, like two weeks, he’s felt like there’s been a significant amount of inaction and more emotion running the show. So he’d done all this math in his head and he concluded, “I must be going backwards.” And I stopped him for… And I stopped him because he’s not going, and I stopped him because he’s not going backwards.

He’s just standing in a part of the process that nobody talks about beca- because everyone wants to talk about action and motivation and movement and progress and all that kind of stuff. But all that comes after you tangle with the real obstacles

And let… See, what he’s dealing with right now is a s- what he’s dealing with right now is a significant blocker. He’s actually tang- he’s actually dealing, he’s actually, he’s actually combating one of the deeper problems. He’s actually combating one of the largest obstacles that has been in, that has been in his way for a long time, and he’s finally prepared and equipped and resilient and ready to tango with this thing.

That’s been dealing… That’s been preventing him from asking for a raise, communicating effectively, building strong relation, a lot of things in his life. Doing, doing a lot of things that are important in his life as effectively as he would like to. So let me get th- and because it is important, he is taking less action because he is handling more emotion.

And he’s not doing no action, but he’s taking… And that’s okay. And so let me walk you through how I actually think about this, because it’s a little bit of an engine- and let me walk you through how I actually think about this. It’s a bit of a engineering brain, so bear with me. The action that you take in any given moment is basically your desired behavior multiplied by your competency at pulling it off.

And competency isn’t yes or no. It lives on a scale from zero to one. So if you know exactly what you wanna do, you have clarity, but your competency in that specific thing is close to zero, guess what the product is? Close to zero. Or, y- or rather undesirable action, or almost no action. Not because you don’t want it, not because you’re broken, because anything times zero is zero.

So when this guy says he’s regressing, what’s actually happening is he finally walked up to a part of his life he’s avoided for a long time, and the competency there is low And all the emotion, and all the emotion that’s been buried under it is coming to the surface at once. That’s not regression. That is what a learning curve feels like from the inside.

It’s disorganized. It’s stuck. It’s slower than you were, it’s slower than you were on the easy stuff. Now, now it was still in… Now, now, it, now an important point here is he is now prepared to work through this larger obstacle because he has equipped himself with the right tools and the right resiliency and the right clarity over what is important through definitions of his core values.

That this obstacle is one he can now ha- ha- is it- it… This obstacle is now one he has the co- he has a gr- this obstacle is now one he has… This obstacle is one he has worked himself up to overcome. He is now better equipped. He has a higher probability of moving through this, not only from a place where he maybe was unable of doing that to a place where he’s able to do it, but now at a, now in a place where he’s able to do it effectively.

Like, he will move through this obstacle because he’s equipped. But, but still encountering a learning curve, encountering a significant learning curve of a, with an obstacle that you’ve been, with an obstacle that you’ve been avoiding for a long time sometimes feels like regression because it slows you down.

But that’s not regression. It’s just you, it’s just you coming to terms with and act- it’s just you coming to terms with and actually challenging limiting beliefs or limiting behaviors that you’ve ha- that you have had established for a long time. Those don’t go away in a second And they require greater competency.

And here’s the part that people miss. The learning curve is different for every person. It, depending on the d- de- the learning curve is different for every person depending on the domain. For you, writing the code or building the thing, that might be c- that might be comfortable now. Negotiating the salary though, but negotiating your salary, saying the un- saying the uncomfortable true thing in the room, that might be terrifying.

For somebody else, it’s the exact opposite. They’ll walk in and ask for the money with no flinch. They’ll, they’ll walk in, they’ll walk into a room and ask for money. They’ll walk into a room and ask for a raise without a flinch. But then they’ll spend two weeks sick to their stomach preparing a technical talk that you’d give in your sleep.

Same person, wildly different… Same person, wildly different competency in different lanes. So when you compare how much action you’re taking on the hard thing to how much you took… So when you’re comparing how much action you took on the hard thing to how much you took on the easy thing for you, of course it looks like you fell off track or regressed.

You didn’t. You just changed lanes into the one you’re not good at yet. You need to build the competency. And I’ll argue immediately with the, and I’ll argue immediately with the objection. And I’ll debate the objection immediately because it’s mine too. You’re thinking, “But I’m literally doing less than I was.

That’s just a fact, Flynn.” Sure, but doing less in the hardest domain of your life is not the same as being worse at your life. And I’ll tell you straight, building my business has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and there have been nights where the anxiety was so intense that an older version of me would’ve been completely derailed by it.

I would’ve been scrolling my phone. I would’ve been back to probably pornography. I w- like, coping mechanisms that I used a long time ago. And in those moments, I don’t… And now in these moments where I’m feeling anxious, I don’t think I’m going backwards

But now in these moments, I’m just feeling anxiety or intensity. I don’t think, “Man, I’m going backwards.” I just think, “Oh, this is something I’m not good at yet.” Like, I don’t have competency in here yet, but it’s not something that I can’t achieve. It’s just something that I, I… It’s just something that I am not competent at yet.

Desired behavior times desired behavior times competency. If the competency isn’t there, the action, the desired action or result won’t be either. And that doesn’t mean you aren’t improving. It means you can’t see the improvement yet because you’re improving the competency first. So the move isn’t to grind harder or shame the slowness.

It is to try the har- it is to try the hard domain with more intensity, not less, more preparation, smaller reps, lower stakes practice, better tools. You raise the competency, and the action, the results you want follows on its own. So if you’re, so if you’re the capable, so if you’re the capable one who was flying and now it feels like you’re stuck and you’re quietly calling it regression, what is the domain that you just walked into that you’re not good at yet?

Namon, what is the domain that you’re attempting to improve on, and are you competent at that yet? ‘Cause if you’re not, it’s okay. Improve the competency. The results will follow. Just food, just food for thought. Peace