Create "remembering rhythms" for new learnings to stick

Years ago, I flipped from yoga going to Bikram yoga. I have no idea what I was thinking: 26 poses repeated twice in 40-degree heat for 90 minutes. Hello?!?

Each class was exactly the same - same poses, same sequence, same instructions from the teacher, everything exactly the same. Of course, I thought I would learn the techniques pretty quickly. I thought I’d be cracking out a standing ‘head to knee’ while waiting in line at the airport. Yeah, right.

It took a very long time to undo what I’d learned about exercising up until that point. I’d spent most of my life in action mode, running, swimming, and doing it all fast. But in Bikram I had to learn to do the opposite, to still the mind in order to stay in each pose for a full minute in the heat.

I had to learn how to be still and drop my ego, and to stop showing off in the room.

Repetition was key.

The more I went to Bikram, the better I became. I watched poses on YouTube for inspiration and read articles about techniques as well.

As a result, the rhythm of Bikram started to fall into place. That’s not to say I didn’t have good and bad days based on what was going in in my life, or in my body at that time, but it became easier to remember what to do and how.  

The point?

If we want new skills to become natural then we need to set up ‘remembering rhythms’ for them to become easier.

When it comes to the workplace and learning new skills we need to make it easy for our people to embed these new skills.

Whilst people are not robots and cannot be automated, we need to have a strategy and process for our feedback to flow so it becomes a natural rhythm in the workplace. 

What areas do you need to create rhythms for?

Want to know more? Why not download my white paper Feedback Cultures are Game Changers or download the first chapter of Fixing Feedback, my book.