What Are You Adapting To?

Wherever you invest time and energy, change is going to take place.

This is true in the scientific realm:

“Every action has an (equal and opposite) reaction”
➼ Newton’s Third Law

“Energy is neither created nor destroyed but can be changed from one form to another.”
➼ First law of Thermodynamics.

It also stands true of relationships. It’s true in business, career, training or any area of your life that you choose to make a priority, too.

Why Seek Adaption?

Many of us have a pretty good idea of what we want to change as time moves forward. If not, at the very least we carry some picture in our head of what we want our lives to look like at some point in the future. What outcome we are after.

If you’re an “A Type” personality like me, then there’s a good chance you’ll spend time planning out the path between where you are now and where you want to go. If you have a coach, there’s a good chance they’ve helped lay out that plan for you. Having a plan is an important part of the change process. There needs to be structure to keep us on track as we forge ahead. There’s some truth to the cliche “the difference between a dream and a goal is a plan”

Plans Drive Adaptation

But planning is a double edged sword.

You’ll often hear successful athletes say things “trust the plan”. Coaches and teachers will give you similar advice – “trust the process”. And there is a value in the advice. You need commitment & grit to do great things. You can’t cherry pick the workouts. You can’t choose projects or conversations you think are fun and only do them on days you feel like it. To get results you can’t flip flop between on plan and on a whim.

But, even the best plans are best guesses. Even the ones that are laid out and designed by “experts”.

Plans rely on models. On science. On past experiences. On gut feel or intuition. But in the long run, no one can accurately predict exactly what will or will not happen. No one knows for certain how our body & brain will adapt to a plan or the variables that influence it.

We know adaptation will always take place. It always does. Wherever you invest time and energy, change (adaption) is going to take place.

But, for a plan to be successful, it needs to be moving us towards our goal – we need to be adapting in a positive direction.

Adapting to something that isn’t moving in the direction we want to go, is (or will become) more harmful than helpful.

Here’s an examples of how I’ve “maladapted” in the last few years:

Through Covid I got surprisingly good at training in a very tired state. I used routines & structure & discipline to grit my way through very hard blocks of training. I learned to hit “good”, “competitive” paces in a completely exhausted and way underfed state. I did it so well that “completely exhausted and way underfed” become the status quo. My body & brain adapted very effectively to deal with the plan I had in place. Nice work, Rory – you’re tough!

But here’s the thing: I don’t want to be the fastest athlete in the “exhausted and way underfed” category. I was adapting in a way that wasn’t moving me in the direction I needed to go in.

At this point, “trusting the plan” is bad advice. At this point you need to question the plan. You need to retest or reassess where you are, where you’re heading and how well that lines up with where you want to go.

Those retesting & reassessing moments are hard. They take hard conversations. They ask challenging questions. The will bring up uncomfortable feelings. They’ll hit your ego.

The question is; would you rather take that ego hit now? Or in months, years or decades from now? You’re going to continue spending your energy and adaption will take place.

So I’ll ask you again; what are you adapting to?