The Power of Process

By Diana Tyler, 925 Owner

“That’s the process: Let’s think about what we can do today, the task at hand.”

– Nick Saban

I recently read a fantastic book, The Obstacle is the Way, by Ryan Holiday. In one chapter, Holiday highlights University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban, particularly his unique, and undeniably effective, coaching philosophy. Unlike other coaches, Saban doesn’t focus on winning the SEC Championship. Rather, he keeps his eyes fixed on the present moment and its immediate goals, i.e., drills, plays, even the way his players carry themselves.[1]

After a psychiatry professor helped him realize that the average play in footballs lasts only seven seconds, Saban decided that was just enough time for him and his team to seize, and maintain, control of the field. Execute for seven seconds, rest a while, and repeat The Process, and he’d win himself a game. Win enough games, and he’d earn a National Championship. And eventually six of them.

Saban views excellence as a manageable series of steps. Or, when the steps are not so manageable, a wall of obstacles he must lay siege to. As long as he doesn’t allow himself to become distracted, or disorder to disrupt his team, the obstacles collapse one right after the other. His Process ensures that there is always, always something to do – a weapon to wield, a skill to employ, a mental shift to make – when the tide turns against him. Constantly moving forward, not allowing anything or anyone to pin him down, prevents the sort of disastrous panic and self-doubt that paralyzes so many of us, or worse, impels us to react rashly, creating even bigger messes for ourselves.

Holiday advises that we do the following whenever obstacles crop up:

“ … take a breath, do the immediate, composite part in front of [you] – and follow its thread into the next action. Everything in order, everything connected.”

There’s no end to the obstacles that rise to sabotage our health and fitness goals.

Traveling.

Holidays.

Emergencies that make cooking and meal prepping impossible.

Bad weather.

Worse traffic.

Illnesses.

A to-do list trying its darndest to convince you that tackling it is more important than working out or preparing a healthy lunch.

I’m sure you have plenty of examples you could add to this as well! If we have a process, however, for dealing with such obstacles, then we can know, without a doubt, that they are conquerable.

So what does a process look like, when it comes to winning the health and fitness game?

Well, because each of us is unique, and therefore so too are our preferences and protocols, it will look different for all of us, so I’m no help there. But what I can tell you is what the process will sound like: a mature, no-nonsense, perhaps drill-sergeant-y voice, belonging to the part of you who knows what needs to be done to extricate yourself from whatever pickle you’re in. It says, “You know what your job is, and it’s not to worry or get caught up in things you can’t control. Do what you can do, and don’t whine about it.”

The voice, as Holiday puts it, “demands we take responsibility and ownership. This prompts us to act even if only in a small way.”

Granted, not every obstacle life throws our way can be demolished by The (not-so) All-Powerful Process. Having the flu, for instance, is not the time to run a 5K or prep five days’ worth of meals. A death in the family, or the morning after a sleepless night spent caring for a sick family member, are yet other times during which our thoughts and energy would be better spent not on our personal health and fitness goals, but on comforting and spending time with our loved ones. But what about lesser obstacles, such as vacations, holidays, rough days at work, rougher nights at home, minor injuries or allergy symptoms which tempt us to keep away from the gym and put our nutrition on the back burner?

That’s when we should listen to the voice of The Process – and crank up his or her volume. Because sure, it’s much more tempting to skip a workout when there’s a heavenly white-sand beach calling our name. And what’s the harm in eating a box of chocolates a few days after Valentine’s Day? And why not order pizza instead of cook after the hellacious day we’ve had?

Such thoughts are obstacles, havoc-wreaking distractions hatched in moments of weakness and vulnerability. Sometimes they’re so obvious that we immediately roll our eyes before shooing them away. Other times, they’re unbelievably stealthy, so ninja-like in their subtlety that it requires stopping and initiating The Process before we can expose them as the saboteurs they are.

But after we listen to the voice urging us to take ownership of our goals and fight to defend them, the obstacles, which just moments ago sounded so logical, so appealing, and even sensible in our ears, start to evaporate. And once they’ve gone, we can do the next right thing in The Process, be it putting on our gym clothes, tossing the chocolate into the trash, or preheating the oven.

All it takes is one little step to regain control and reclaim the high ground.

Step after step, day after day… That’s how goals are achieved, and how lives are changed.

[1] https://www.thescore.com/ncaaf/news/274290