Felicity and Sabrina are two 10 years old swimmers who have recently reached the provincial level. They are good friends and hang out even when not at the pool.
At the beginning of the practice, Sabrina was leading and Felicity was just behind in the same lane. Both girls are clear that the way the lane leader is chosen is by going fastest to slowest so as to prevent traffic jams. Felicity was consistently catching up to Sabrina and then would hold back so as to not pass her friend.
Although I had already noticed this being a trend and had spoken to them about it, I saw an opportunity to help Felicity to further understand the motivation behind her behavior. Once clear on the process of how she got to “decide” to go behind Sabrina, even if she is faster, she would be able to choose an alternate behavior, that would be more supportive of her goals.
“Please tell me, at the beginning of the set, who was leading your lane?” I asked her to start our conversation.
She answered it was Sabrina with a half-smile wondering where this was going to go.
“And you we’re second?” I said asking for her confirmation.
“Then I moved you to the next lane and you were first and Sabrina was first in the other lane. What did you notice happened after you moved lane?”
“I was faster.” She said now understanding what we were talking about.
I asked her to remind me how the order in the lane is chosen to confirm that she was clear on this before going a bit deeper.
“I see that you understand very well why we go from fastest to slowest, but I’m having trouble understanding why you went behind Sabrina even though you were faster than her.” I asked with a funny puzzled look on my face.
I could see that she herself was puzzled after realizing that she had been choosing to go behind Sabrina many times, even though she is faster.
To help her process what she was now seeing, I asked her to tell me what is easier for her: tell Sabrina you will go first because you’re faster or simply go behind her?
Her face brightened up, her smile stretched across her face as she understood where the edge of her comfort zone laid.
I then asked her whether she was choosing the easy or hard way when she was going behind Sabrina.
“When you go behind her, is it the easy or the hard way that you’re choosing?”
“It’s the easy way.” She answered being clear on it.
“Imagine if in the next few months, you keep choosing the easy way, listening to your little Devil, and keep holding back because you’re afraid to get out of your comfort zone. Would that help you improve as fast as you could?” I asked trying to get her to see the potential consequences of repeating this choice over and over.
“Sabrina is your friend, right? Do you think she wants you to not be as good as you could be? Probably not, think about it, do you want Sabrina to become as good as she can in swimming, even if it means she is faster than you?”
Felicity was nodding in agreement. Of course, she wants her friend to be as good as she could be, even if it means she is faster than her.
“It’s the same for Sabrina. If it wasn’t the same for her, you two wouldn’t be much of friends.”
I sent her home with a little homework to hopefully help her go even further with this reflection.
“Your homework for this weekend is to ask yourself, how does my little Devil trick me into choosing to stay behind Sabrina? What are the sentences he uses to trick me into staying safe? How does he make it ok for me to stay behind Sabrina, when I know it’s the fastest swimmer that goes first?”
“When you’ll find the tricks, it will give you a chance and you will be able to choose to tell Sabrina that you will go first because you’re faster, no matter how out of your comfort zone that might be for you.”
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