As one of our values here at Adapted, focus on consistency and progress rather than perfection, is a core foundation to everything we do here. There are four key words- focus, consistency, progress and perfection.
These words together mean so much and hold a great basis for many of us to implement into our lives. The choice of focus as the first word is not an accident. “What you focus on grows, what you think about expands, and what you dwell upon determines your destiny” Robin Sharma. Our focus is on consistency and progress- the idea of continually striving towards our best. The intention, the focus, our dwelling if you will, is on the journey not the outcome. The focus of our activity is on the inputs that we need to achieve towards attaining betterment rather than the consequence itself. As this is what we truly have control over, we have no control over the consequence. To put this into a practical situation- we can control directly what we choose to eat, we cannot choose specifically how it will affect us (for example intolerances or allergies). So in essence we put our focus on what we can do, rather than on what we would like to happen. By focusing on the things that have a direct influence on what we hope will be a positive consequence we take the focus off the outcome and more on the doing. For you this might mean rather than focusing on wanting to to be more flexible, put your focus on coming to classes regularly. If you want less pain, put the focus on what you can do- healthy and safe movement for your body, resting as required, nourishing yourself- rather than focusing on the pain.
Consistency in essence, is the focus on average speed, rather than top speed. Some refer to it as refusing to give up, others see it as constant tiny, sometimes faltering steps towards progress. There is so much evidence to show that consistency in the form of developing healthy and flexible habits, standards, routines are a foundation to any success- whether that be relationships, work, life, finances and health and fitness. You will see us encouraging your consistency by helping you set a realistic standard of how many times you will come to class (often lower than you initially want to set)- then this is your constant baseline- every week I will come at least xyz times a week- sometimes it may be more, but it will rarely be less. (because yes you are human and yes life will throw a curveball or two that you just need to be flexible with!).
With the above mindsets, it is nearly impossible not to progress in some way shape or form. Progress for us is many things as we wear many hats. Here at Adapted our team are family members, parents, partners, team mates, students, teachers, their own selves, coaches and mentors. Progress is about awareness of our current performance- asking ourselves the big questions, asking for feedback (and taking it on!!) and then creating consistent habits and routines towards improvement. Towards becoming our best.
The sheer step to shift importance away from perfection holds such a huge power within itself. In a world where we often think ‘all or nothing’, our great intentions can be over powered by a perception that perfection is key. As a human this is a problem because there is no safety margin for errors, mistakes, and emergencies. (You know, the type of things that make you a normal human being.) . It creates a handbrake to even starting- how often will you start something new- next week, when I have more time, more money, more…… When there is a minor stepping off the path, a mistake (or a learning opportunity) a focus on perfection can make it easier to give up. This is often seen in the ‘diet spiral’ where a person decides to ‘eat better’ starting Monday, gets started. Eats something not exactly to plan. Gives up. Starts again next Monday. This results in guild, stress, often binging and essentially stepping backwards every week away from their goal.
By being quite open to not being perfect allows us the opportunity to really be open about our mistakes and things we don’t do so well. Mistakes are going to happen and no-one is perfect- we are all human. With a focus on consistency and progress – we can focus on the solution and step away from feelings of guilt or finger pointing.
This value has such a great positive impact on all facets of Adapted and we hope that you can gain some progress and consistency from this in your own lives x