Identifying Your Sticking Points

In this 25th Episode of MindCast, Mind Coach Kevin Seaman introduces the concept of a Sticking Point and how it can Deadlock us in relation to overcoming a challenge or problem. He also goes into detail as to how sticking points prevent us from achieving things we attempt. How to identify Sticking Points in yourself and others, and strategies to overcome them in order to ultimately succeed at your focused objective.
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Hey guys, this is Mindcast with your host, Kevin Seaman, where we talk about what's going on in your head. Welcome to Mindcast. This is your host, Kevin Seaman. I'd like to take a brief moment to thank our esteemed sponsor of this episode of Mindcast, Dolorex. Dolor is a French word for pain. RX comes from the Latin word for recipe. Well, let me tell you, this is one of the best recipes for pain I have ever used. This is a product that works, guys. I've tried a lot of pain management products over the years. I have personally used Dolorex CBD cream and the roll-on, and as a coach and a very physical athlete, I've had outstanding results with these topical creams. I've also given them to my staff and clients who have had equally outstanding results. In addition, I've also had equally great results with the powdered CBD drink, especially as a compound factor for injury and related pain. And in addition to pain management, it's given me a feeling of well-being, calm, and relaxation. It's helped me fall asleep more quickly, and I wake refreshed and ready for the next day. That's D-O-U-L-E-U R X. Look for the green and white label. Use the product code Mindcast to receive a 20% discount on your order. Check them out at dolorex.com. Okay, welcome and thank you for joining us in Mindcast number 25, identifying your sticking points. Several times in our lives we learn or are exposed to concepts that are transferable to other areas and become very valuable to enriching our lives. This is one of the truly useful things about concepts and principles in that they are often applicable in various other ways if we have the aptitude and awareness to be creative with them and recognize their value. In my last Mcast, I spoke about the concept of strategic discipline. This is a perfect example of how a principle-based business concept can be applied quite effectively to enhance your performance and improve your success ratio exponentially. Okay, let's first of all look at and determine what a concept is. This way we can better understand how to identify its attributes and usable qualities. A concept is basically an idea, a thought, or a notion. A concept can be and many times is based on imagination. It can be developed based on a view or a way of doing or perceiving something. It isn't always founded in reality, nor does it always possess tangible qualities. But to make it useful, it does require understanding, perception, and thought. Usually concepts are seen in parallel with other ideas, where they may complement similarities. One of the concepts I learned as a gym rat and personal trainer was the concept of sticking points. This is one of the most useful things I have ever learned. And I'm excited to share that with you today. What's a sticking point? Well, according to Google, it's a point likely to cause deadlock or a seemingly immovable obstacle. I like that word, seemingly. That means that there's a certain degree of perception involved in how immovable it is. In strength training, a sticking point is the point where the weight is at the most difficult angle or position for the muscle to be able to move it. Many times this is at the beginning of a lift. In order to be safe and effective when the mover of the weight engages whatever they're attempting to move, lift or push, it is imperative that they maintain precise and perfect structural form when doing this. If they do not, a few things can occur. First, they can injure themselves by overexertion. Second, if they deviate from using proper form, it will eliminate some of the benefit, i.e. the results that they wanted. And third, they will fail in their effort. Why this is important is many times the sticking point makes the individual adjust when they're attempting to accomplish their task. And this very act changes the outcome. As a physical trainer, I would first identify the sticking point, then adjust the approach so my client could succeed and obtain the results they were seeking. I would do this through assessment, deduction, and adjustment. Adjacently, I use the same formula when assessing sticking points in reference to mental and physical performance when coaching. What is the obstacle that prevents progress towards a goal or a series of objectives? In most cases, this is in relation to the performance desired. When I look to find an individual's sticking point, I always find it is in some way related to what they believe to be true. Is it always true? Is it always reality? No. But it's their reality, their truth. And at that moment in time, that's what matters, and that's what affects them. When I coach these individuals, I use a standard procedure of inquiry in my interview. First, I identify the behavior that is in question. Next, I deduce whether the behavior of that individual is related to a sticking point. If this is indeed the case, once this has been established, then I formulate a plan to address and adjust the belief associated with the behavior. I then work with them to eliminate the sticking point that is holding the individual back from achieving their objective. How do I do that? Here's an example. I have many examples from the work I've done over the years, working with individuals to help them increase their performance and improve themselves over time. This, however, is one of my favorite examples of collapsing a sticking point in mere moments after it was revealed. While coaching the professional kiteboarders at the 2005 World Cup in Cabarete, Dominican Republic, one of the athletes from Venezuela was worried about the sensations that he experienced in his stomach prior to competition. His belief was the butterflies were signaling fear, and that as a result, he wouldn't perform well. He was stuck and thinking about dropping out of the competition. I recognized what this sticking point was based on, his erroneous belief that he was experiencing fear. And because of that, he was experiencing what is known as approach avoidance. Approach avoidance is where an individual experiences a pull towards something, yet at the same time feels repulsion that pushes them away from that exact same thing. This is because the situation evokes multiple and conflicting emotions due to the multiple and conflicting beliefs causing hesitation and a lack of confidence in his ability. In his case, he knew what to do and he knew how to do it, but he had never competed in an international level, so he wasn't sure he could. With the use of an interpreter, I explained that this was totally normal, and that this was actually his body's way of preparing him for combat or for a great challenge. That this was a powerful force that he could use to his advantage and not something he should fear. I went on to explain that great warriors had been feeling this way for centuries, and he was just like them. Once he heard that, he changed his mindset almost instantly, and you could see the immediate corresponding change in his body as well. He went from timid to confident in a matter of a few seconds. I further explained to him how important this process was and how the adrenaline that accompanies it is the key to his success. That if he did not feel this, then we would have some concern. Then we worked with him visualizing his tricks that he had practiced. I told him to feel that feeling in his stomach and hit the moves in his head. I gave him a gesture, which we refer to as an associative anchor, to connect him to that visualized performance. And we did the mental rehearsal a few times to solidify his mindset. After several repetitions of the visualization and anchor set, his facial expression and body language looked remarkably different. During the competition, he performed without hesitation, nailing every move with incredible agility. Later, he thanked me and told me that the advice I gave him helped him perform at the best he had ever in competition. Here's another concept I found both relatable and valuable. When you have a scotoma, it means you are experiencing a blind spot in your field of vision. This condition may be temporary or permanent. This is a physiological condition. What I'm referring to is a psychological blind spot. And in this case, a scotoma is when your brain does not allow you to perceive something because you don't believe it exists. What you believe determines what you perceive. This is linked to the RAS or reticular activation system, a filtering and identification process that involves the part of your brain called the reticular cortex. I've touched on this in both my book, The Winning Mindset, and in previous Mindcast episodes. So if you don't believe something exists, then how much effort are you going to put into looking for it? Little, if any. If you don't think something is possible, how much time are you going to spend trying to figure it out? Again, you're not going to put much effort in. If you don't think that you are capable of doing something, are you going to even bother? Or is it more likely that you will think, uh, why should I even waste my time? So this blind spot in your perception hinders your ability to even recognize that a sticking point exists. That's one of the important skills that a perceptive coach brings to the table to identify the reason for a possible lack of performance that the individual is capable of and has the potential to achieve. This belief-oriented behavior is what leads to limiting beliefs in people that are capable, but held back by the belief that they are not. How many times have we held ourselves back from trying things that we absolutely could do just because our inner voice said that we couldn't? How many times have we thought this will never work? Or I've already tried this and just given up, or worse, never even attempted because of something in our past that made us believe that we couldn't do it. One of my favorite examples of limiting beliefs and how it holds back capability comes from an experience when I was traveling through Thailand. I was in the mountains in Chiang Mai, an area of northern Thailand where they use elephants for work in the rugged forested terrain. Each elephant is raised by a single trainer who feeds and cares for them attentively every day. I was relaxing by a stream and the handlers of a few elephants came down the hill to the water. The elephants were not huge, but sizable and incredibly strong. One attendant smiled at me and he waved the elephants into the water to let them bathe. I was awestruck as he actually rubbed the elephants with sand from the stream, like he was bathing a child, and they responded joyfully. I was eating some rice and chicken with curry in a box, and I was sitting on the rock watching. Then something amazing happened. The man came out of the water and made a clicking sound with his mouth, and the two elephants walked out of the water to stand next to him. Then he took out a small stick and shoved it in the ground next to the first elephant. And he took a rope out of his pocket and loosely tied it around the stick after looping it around the elephant's foot. He then did the same thing with the second one. I'd heard of this and even witnessed it with horses with the reins draped around a fence. The man then brought some food out of his canvas backpack and had lunch. The elephants stood there waiting patiently. I asked the man if he spoke English and he shook his head no, but then he yelled to another guy. That guy came over and smiled and said, Hello. I asked him why the elephants wouldn't just pull the sticks out of the ground and do whatever they wanted. He was very proud of his elephants and his English. We were able to communicate with simple words and facial expression. He said, We're friends, more like my kids. They are taught very young that they are not strong enough to do that. We trained them with big ropes and big sticks in the ground. They know they cannot pull away and leave. They just know. That was one of the most memorable events of limiting beliefs I had ever seen. That this powerful animal that thought it was part of his family could probably pull a tree stump out of the ground, but would not pull that little stick that he had been tied to because he had learned that back in a time he could not. How many times had I tried to change my situation in my life, yet couldn't, because I believed that something held me that might be stronger than myself? How about you? What's your rope and stick look like? Once we are able to see what our sticking point is and recognize how it prevents us from moving forward to be the person that we're capable of and live the life that we are able to experience, it changes us in an instant. Just like that surfer from Venezuela. It is from our experiences that our sticking points manifest. And that manifestation is many times an illusion based on our erroneous belief that we have created in our mind in relation to what we think we can and cannot accomplish. Once we identify that sticking point and once we challenge that belief, we are able to move past the limitation that we've placed on ourselves. This is many times not an easy task, as we are, as I mentioned previously, blinded to what is actually happening to us. Two of the hardest things for us to recognize as individuals is our personal growth and our potential. What can you do to help identify your sticking points? Ask somebody you trust that knows you well to honestly evaluate why you may be experiencing a sticking point. The chances are they can tell you what it is, but not necessarily why it's happening. If you do not have a capable coach, find one. Or look deep inside with absolute candor and evaluate what your belief is in correspondence to your inaction or stumbling block. Then challenge the validity of that limiting belief. Identifying a problem or challenge is the first step in overcoming it. If you don't have a capable coach, I am available for consultations via Zoom meetings. You can contact me at Kevin at the Winning Mindset.com. I want to take a moment and thank you for supporting and listening to Mindcast. This podcast has turned into something very special. And I'm so grateful to all my listening audience, which is now in the thousands. I also want to thank my sponsor for this episode, Dolorex. Check out their website at Dolorex.com and put in the promo code Mindcast for a 20% discount on your order. And don't forget to subscribe to, rate, and review Mindcast. I hope you enjoy this episode on sticking points. And remember, it is from our experience that our sticking points manifest. And that manifestation is many times an illusion based on our erroneous belief that we have created in our own mind in relation to what we think we can and cannot accomplish. Thank you. Until next time, this is Kevin Seaman, and this is Mindcast.