In the recent courses we attended - Coaching for Action - one of the things taught behind coaching is that the main philosophy behind any self-improvement initiative, is to focus on: "progress, not perfection."
The key towards is to do it step by step. But continuously.
To illustrate this example, one of the class exercises is that of the "Progress Scale". First, you identify, what task do you want to be better at?
Then, follow these steps:
1. "From a scale of 1 to 10, what do you rate yourself now?" (So let's say, we identify that task, and we rate ourselves a 3)
2. "What have you achieved or done so far that makes you believe you got 3? Not 2?"
3. "What can we do to get you to get to 4?"
Interesting! The focus here is "How we can get you to 4" - not to achieve 10/10 right of the bat.
Whenever we set our targets or goals, it's important not to just view the "grand prize" - i.e. perfetion. Sometimes high ambitious goals will set us back triggering self-doubt into thinking it as an an imppossible undertaking and slowly demotivate us from even taking that first step.
Rather, what can be more pragmatic is to break it down to tangible, practicle targets that we can tackle one by one, step by step. And celebrate those 'small winds' or 'minor victories' when we have achieved something, no matter how small: keep us motivated to keep progressing - if you scored a "3" as a opposed to "1" or "2", there must be SOMETHING you've done right - we just need to repeat, enhance, improve, improvise, etc, to move it up a notch. Then, we move forward to the next small victory. As time goes by, those small steps become increasingly easier, and we can start gradually taking bigger steps. And as we keep making these small steps - before long, and perhaps without us even realizing it, we have taken giant leaps forward from where we started off.
Take any simple goal - like say, losing weight. Say your 'end goal' is to lose 20kg; work on losing 1kg first. Done? Great. What worked? What didn't? What next? Excellent, keep going.
Want to start reading? Set a simple, achievable-but-easy-to-
If your goal is memorising Qur'an - which may sound downright intimidating to some - focus on memorising one short Surah first. Surah al-Fil. Done? Surah an-naba. Done? juz 30. Done? Any Surah you can recite in your short voluntary prayers. Keep moving.
I remember in one superhero movie, before the beginning of a heroes-vs-villains showdown, this new, unconfident young hero started hesitating and doubting himself, that he has never entered battle and didn't know what to do.
The senior hero, his mentor figure, simply advised : "Save one. Save one person."
After still some hesitation and self-doubt, he continued:
"Dont talk, don't fight. Get in, get one out."
To which he asked, "Then what?"
And then he responded "then you'll know".
As the battle unfolded, and finally mustering the courage, he effortlessly saved one person. Then he realized, that wasn't so bad. Let's do one more. So he did. And more. Eventually he gained courage to join the fight and assist the others, and earned his place in the team.
Step by step.
The key? "Save one person." Not "be a hero". Not "save the day". No long motivational pep talk required. Simple advice: practical action, go.
Progress, not perfection.
It's also important to note that, this law of "progress not perfection" doesn't just apply for non-performers or those who are 'failing'. In fact, it applies for those who are on relative 'success' as well.
Just because you have achieved your relative "success" with respect to your task and respective goal, there are still gaps in other areas in which you can improve on - so the idea is to keep pushing on the scale of "progress" and not get complacent.
Eventually, if we keep this up with a degree of consistency the pursuit of success and perfection (with respect to your goal) becomes a habit - and then this is continuous improvement.
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said,
وَإِنَّ أَحَبَّ الأَعْمَالِ إِلَى اللَّهِ مَا دُووِمَ عَلَيْهِ وَإِنْ قَلَّ
"the most beloved deeds to Allah are those which are done continuously, even if they are small"
(Narrated by Al-Bukhari and Muslim)
I find this a simple and powerful mindset and methodology, not just in the area of coaching others, but also in my own personal areas of self-improvement.
As coaches, or simply as a friend/parent/spouse/teacher who wishes to assist others attain their goals, our primary role to get them on this train of progress - and keep reminding, encouraging, and motivating them to do it again. And again. And when they steer off the rails or start veering off, help them get back on track. Although it helps, you don't necessarily have to be an expert in that field.
All it takes is to Believe in them, and get them to believe in themselves.
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