Escape from the Porta-Potty: Lessons in Mental Toughness
Dr Howie Jacobson
International Speaker | Author | Executive Coach | Mindset Mastery for High Performing Leaders and Teams |
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Early Monday morning, I appeared to have gotten locked in a beach porta-potty After sliding out the deadbolt, I pulled and pulled on the handle, but the door wouldn't budge. Definitely locked, and it was probably going to be an hour before the maintenance guy with the key showed up.
I'm proud to say that I didn't panic.?
Instead, I assessed my resources and quickly formulated a plan: use the Philiips head screwdriver on my Swiss Army Knife to remove the ceiling panels, climb the hard plastic sides of the toilet, and chin-up my way to freedom.
Before I set this plan into motion, I did one other thing: I tried pushing the door outward.
And it opened.
I was unspeakably relieved, and — if I'm being totally honest — a teensy bit disappointed I wasn't going to get to MacGyver my way out of the porta-potty.
But there's no point in exerting mightily to overcome an imaginary obstacle.
And that's what I want to talk about today.
Overcoming Behavioral Obstacles
Do you have some habits you'd like to break? Character traits you'd like to shake? Patterns of thinking and behaving that you wish you didn't have, that show up and cause harm from time to time?
One of my clients used to have a lot of trouble standing up for herself. Conflict felt so scary, she backed down in negotiations, not stood up for her values, and let people walk all over her.?
What advice would you give someone with that problem?
All her adult life, she was encouraged to practice boundary setting and assertiveness.?
To take tiny steps toward standing up for herself in low-stakes situations like on the phone with customer service or in placing her order in a restaurant.
In other words, to assume the fear as a given and face it with determination and mental toughness.
There's nothing wrong with any of that advice. Learning a new skill that's uncomfortable and practicing until it feels natural is a wonderful way to grow.?
But there's one shortcoming to this approach, and it's a doozy.
There’s No Lethal Threat
The big problem with "overcoming" a behavioral shortcoming is that it's not necessary.
Just as I didn't need to dismantle a porta-potty and climb out the roof because the door was actually not locked, my client doesn't need to face a fear that's based on a mistake.
In the work settings where she's avoided conflict in ways that harmed her self-interest and self-esteem, she wasn't in physical danger.?
But she acted — or rather, her body acted — as if it was facing a lethal threat.
Her nervous system would flood her bloodstream with fight-or-flight hormones, to prepare her to run away or attack. Her vision would narrow, her breathing would become rapid and shallow, her heart rate would increase, and blood flow would shift from her extremities to her core.?
And the clever, forward-thinking, strategic, creative part of her brain would go offline so it wouldn't interfere with the instinctive survival drive.
None of these physiological changes were going to help her in a conversation. They were, in the words of one of my teachers, Jon Connelly , "worse than useless."
So how about instead of her working hard how to manage her reaction to an imaginary threat, she could learn to see the situation for what it was??
What if her body could respond to a potential verbal conflict with steady breathing, calm demeanor, and open focus?
Seeing the World as It Is
The goal of coaching should be to remove "mind glitches" rather than equip clients to cope with them.
When my client and I worked on her fear of conflict, we treated it as an unlocked porta-potty door rather than an unmoving obstacle.?
Through a brain-friendly disconfirmation process pioneered by another one of my teachers, Bruce Ecker , she unlearned the prediction that conflict was unbearable dangerous. And once the prediction was gone, she was able to engage in healthy conflict in a mature and effortless way.
Yes, she still needed to improve her conflict resolution skills. But now she could do so unencumbered by an emotional strait jacket.?
Your Turn
Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to identify one behavior — one habit of action or thought or feeling — that you know isn't serving you.
Next, think of all the ways you try to "manage" that behavior:
and what those management behaviors cost in terms of energy, time, and opportunity.
Finally, try a thought experiment. Imagine a situation that would trigger the unwanted behavior and ask yourself: "What's the danger that my mind is predicting here?"
I'll be back next week to talk about why our minds glitch this way, and how we can begin to free ourselves from inaccurate catastrophic predictions.?
Until then, always try the door in the other direction before climbing out the roof.