Lily Pad Theory doesn’t require a Leap of Faith
As we near the end of one year and the beginning of a new one, we naturally start to formulate new goals. Leaders set goals for the business, and many of us set personal and professional goals.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the exercise. However, research shows there’s a dark side to goal setting. When we only focus on an outcome goal, our motivation decreases with time. That’s because once we establish the outcome goal, we frequently pay little attention to it; we set it and forget it.
The best way to avoid that is to dream big but start small. First, get really clear on what you want to achieve. Picture in your mind’s eye where you, your team or your business will be or have achieved at this same time next year. Then, channel your best MC Hammer and break it down.
With your plan in hand, schedule – yes, on your calendar – the actions you need to take to get there from where you are now. Accept that your plan will evolve. That’s part of the process. Then, throughout the year, leverage the Lily Pad Theory to maintain focus by achieving incremental progress and ultimately exponential growth. Let’s get started.
Nature Teaches Life Lessons
The life lessons nature teaches are abundant. What’s ironic is they’re hidden in plain sight and often overlooked. To make the case, there’s a parable starring a small frog and a lily pad.
Imagine you’re that little frog sitting on the edge of a pond. You strain your eyes to see across the pond and have a strong desire to explore what’s there. It’s a bit hazy and seems so far; the distance feels overwhelming. The frogs around you express their doubts, croaking that swimming the distance is unrealistic. This is often the case when we compare where we are to where we want to be.
The Math Puzzle Many Get Wrong
It’s no secret that math isn’t my strong suit. I own it and have been known to say, “I don’t do math in public.” But math doesn’t lie.
Imagine you’ve hired a contractor to build a pond in your backyard and for decoration you drop a newly acquired lily near the edge of one side. Your contractor says you can expect that kind of lily to grow by doubling every day. So, after one day there are two lilies. On day three, there are four, then eight on the fourth day, and so on. On day thirty, you find that the entire pond is covered in lilies. After how many days was the pond exactly half full of lilies?
The most common answer is 15 days. Unfortunately, that answer is wrong. The correct answer is 29 days! The day before the pond was completely full.
In recent years, videos of people using the lily pad as a metaphor to explain this math problem and the solution may be found all over the internet. They’re using it to help people understand how viruses grow and spread because, in terms of numbers, viruses grow and spread the same way as the lilies in the pond.
Dig deeper: Lily Pads and Exponential Thinking
The Lily Pad Theory Simplified
Have you ever felt like your goals are on the other side of a vast pond, hazy and demotivating? Well, Dr. J, the founder of Mind Right Sport Psychology, not the world-famous basketballer, has a theory. Dr. J’s Lily Pad Theory can guide you, enabling you to take a metaphorical leap towards success. In simple terms, there are three steps:
- Leaping to Success: The Lily Pad Theory challenges the traditional method of setting outcome goals. Rather than fixating on that distant lily pad across the pond – your end goal, break it down into manageable steps – the intermediate lily pads. These are your process goals, the actionable steps needed to reach the ultimate destination. Take losing 10 pounds, for example. Forget the overwhelming goal; focus on taking small actions each day, like laying out your gym clothes the night before to inspire you to hit the gym tomorrow.
Sounds simple, right? We know from experience, it’s anything but. However, when you master each step, the outcome will take care of itself.
Here’s how: James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, challenges us to think differently about goal setting. He believes that we’ll have more success achieving our goals if we focus on building lasting habits. And to build new habits, we must focus on creating a new identity first. The path to weight loss, for example, is shifting your mindset from “I can’t eat that, I’m on a diet,” to “I’m an active person / athlete, so I make healthy food choices.” When faced with a food choice, you ask yourself, “would a healthy person eat that?” - Performance Goals: Dr. J emphasizes process or performance goals as a crucial component of the Lily Pad Theory. These goals hone in on improving your task performance relative to your own standards. Apply this to your proverbial intermediate lily pads. Whether it’s running an extra mile, maintaining a faster pace or consistently reaching those key performance indicators at work, performance goals are within your control, fostering a sense of personal achievement.
Here’s how: Dr. J contends that, in competition, it’s better to stay process-focused rather than fixating on performance goals. Similarly, James Clear suggests we’ll realize the goal or our desired outcomes by focusing on and achieving our daily habits. It’s all about consistently waking up each morning and making conscious decisions and taking mindful action to jump to the next lily pad that’s within reach.
- Navigating Tipping Points: Picture the waters between each lily pad as tipping points, where your daily habits clash with long-term aspirations. Here’s the deal – it’s okay to tip in the wrong direction – even fall off the lily pad entirely, occasionally. Instead of viewing it as failure, see it as an opportunity to learn about the thoughts, emotions and self-talk influencing your choices.
Here’s how: Be your own sensei, guiding you through missteps and turning them into valuable lessons. Consider journaling and its benefits. Exploring obstacles on paper between lily pads often equips you with solutions when tipping points throw you off balance.
With time, you’ll view tipping points differently. Remember the exponential nature of lily-pad growth? There’s a point when your slow and steady progress reaches a crescendo, and you wake up one morning to realize the other side of the pond is closer by leaps and bounds, until it’s just a short hop away.
Don’t believe me? Think of the number of times you’ve driven on a road that’s been under constructions for years. Then one day, like magic, the road is fully open as if it’s been that way all along. How is that possible?
It’s the law of exponential growth. The idea that the rate of growth is proportional to the quantity present. That said, at some point during your journey across the proverbial lake, your progress will accelerate, enabling you to reach the other side with relative ease.
Keep Your Eyes Open for Dragonflies
It’s in our best interests to focus on that we can control. However, there are things we may need on our journey that we can’t achieve on our own. Yup, those are dragonflies!
Dragonflies are those serendipitous surprises that appear just when you need them. Dragonflies are also the little victories that give you a boost of energy and propel you towards the other side of the pond – your goal.
Absolutely look for and celebrate dragonflies when they come into your life, but don’t gauge your progress or success on whether they’re coming into your life or not.
Word to the wise: Avoid the temptation of chasing dragonflies. Spending all your time and energy chasing dragonflies is going to distract and exhaust you and possibly make you drown in the pond. You can’t control where they fly, so have patience, practice mindfulness and focus on the lily pads. Doing so attracts dragon flies to you because you’re creating more places on which they may land.
Have Some Fun
If you’d like to have some fun, consider writing your future yourself an email.
Take thirty minutes and visualize yourself a year from now. What would you say? What obstacles did you overcome? How did you celebrate along the way? How do you feel about yourself, your team or your company and what you achieved? The questions you ask yourself and the answers you provide are entirely yours to create.
This exercise is play with a purpose because you’re setting an intention. You’re putting your dream, your goal, your aspiration out there in the universe. I don’t profess to know how it works, but Peter M. Gollwitzer, professor of psychology at NYU, has spent much of his life studying how goals and plans affect our behavior. His most-interesting research shows us that our intentions matter!
Here’s how: The Future Me Blog provides several ideas to help you get started. When you’re ready to write your email, which can be private or public but anonymous, go to FutureMe.org. When you’re ready to send it, you can choose when it will arrive (6 months or 1, 3, 5 or 10 years) in the future.
Let’s Get Hoppin’
Focus your time, energy and attention on your lily pads – your daily habits and short-term actions. As you reach each lily pad, check it off and celebrate your progress!
If a dragonfly lands, take note of what lily pads you reached that helped that dragonfly land. Maybe your “send out resume” lily pad sparked the interest of a recruiter who set up an “interview” lily pad. Maybe you got a “job offer” dragonfly because of your “prepared for the interview” lily pad. One action leads to the next.
You’ll notice that as you reach more of your lily pads and check them off your list, the dragonflies also come more easily, too. After all, the more lily pads you complete, the more places you’ve created for your dragonflies to land.
By consistently creating and reaching lily pads, you’ll attract those dragonflies, and you’ll reach your goals. As you learn and grow, you’ll gain more experience that will enable you to consistently reach even more goals.
As lily pads reach across our proverbial ponds, we imagine a better version of ourselves or our organizations. Each achievement, a pad crossed. Each leap, a ripple of progress. Embrace the journey, celebrate the progress — the small leaps create ripples, turning aspirations into waves of dreams achieved.
– Al Viller
Parting thoughts
I know you’re not a frog and sometimes the pond seems like an ocean. But you have incredible power. The power of thought… of choice. The power to connect, to nurture, to ignite. You’re capable of immense, noble, life-changing things.
It all begins with having a clear picture of what you want to achieve and mapping out a plan to achieve it. Then waking up each day and executing your plan that details the necessary actions that enable you to jump to the next lily pad until you’re ready to make the leap and realize your goal. You’ve got this, so make next year the best one ever.
Inspire on!