The story of the Little Angel

Although the little Angel is mentioned when telling the story of the comfort zone, up until now we’ve mainly focused on working with the little Devil.

As athletes become more and more familiar and aware of their little Devil and how it goes about tricking them, there comes a time when they will ask about the little Angel on our other shoulder.

“Coach, what about the little Angel, how can we hear it?” they eventually ask.

When they ask this question, they’re ready to hear the story of their confidence.

To start the story, I ask the swimmers to remind me of the purpose of the little Devil on our shoulder.

“He wants to keep us in our comfort zone, it’s like an alarm system. It’s the Voice of our comfort zone.”

Then I tell them that the little Angel is the Voice of our confidence. It’s the voice that tells us things like: “You can do it! It may not be easy, but it’s possible. Don’t worry if you win or lose, just give it your best shot. Come on, you can do it, just a little more, a little longer, I may not be able to do it, but I sure will come as close as I can to doing it, etc…”

As we grow older, our little Angel gets buried deep inside of us and as such we can only hear it once in a while and usually faintly.

To hear it more often we simply have to dig him up from the hole.

The more often they resist the temptations, the deeper and closer to their little Angel they get and as such can hear his voice, more often, more clearly and louder.

One swimmer usually asks: “If we stop digging, does the dirt go back in the hole?”

“Absolutely, there’s always a bit of dirt falling in the hole whether or not we dig it out. Let me give you an example: You all know the tricks your little Devils like to use on you to stop you from going 5 meters under the water after you’ve pushed off the wall. When you resist and go 5 meters, you dug a shovel load of dirt out, because every time you go 5 meters underwater your confidence that you can do it, grows. If you keep repeating this often and regularly enough, eventually going 5 meters underwater will become part of your comfort zone and the little Devil will not fight you with this anymore.”

I continue: “However, every time you fall for the trick of your little Devil, breathe before the 5 meters, stay in your comfort zone, dirt falls back in the hole. Not a whole shovel load, but enough that over time, the whole can fill right back up. When you get tricked, there is no evidence in your actions to make you believe that you can do it, and as such the dirt falls back in the hole.”

That’s usually when one of the kids will ask: “But how does the little Angel get buried anyway?”

 I explain that there is a natural stream of dirt that continuously keeps adding dirt to the hole and that without this key feature humans wouldn’t be able to grow up pass their twenties.

“Imagine people are like caterpillars. We are born and our bodies grow up until by the time we’re in our twenties, we’ve fully grown up. During those 20 odd years or so, people build up all sorts of false beliefs about themselves (I’m not good at this, not good at that, etc). These beliefs are based mostly on the evidence they got from having listened to their little Devil. These false beliefs form the edge of their comfort zone, kind of like the strands of silk caterpillars use to create their cocoon.”

“So the cocoon is like their comfort zone?” one swimmer asks.

“Adults, for the most part, are like caterpillars in their cocoons. And yes, you can say that their cocoon is their comfort zone. They live inside their comfort zone. Many people stay in their cocoon until they leave the planet, making their cocoon stronger and thicker as years go by, without ever realizing that they really are butterflies.”

They usually are paying real close attention by now.

Champions don’t stop once they’re in their cocoons

“Champions don’t stop once they’re in their cocoons. They can feel deep within them that there is something more than living in a comfy cocoon and look for ways to get out of their cocoons. For most people, by the time we’re in our twenties, the walls of the cocoon are quite thick and it takes a lot of effort to just even scratch the cocoon. Just like butterflies, Champions must break their cocoon through their own struggles, no one can help them, before they can spread their magnificent wings.”

I continue explaining that: “The natural stream of dirt that falls where our little Angels is buried, is meant to make sure we struggle enough while digging our little Angel out, that we become strong enough to deploy our wings and continue to mature. If there wasn’t a stream of dirt filling the hole, it would be too easy to reach our little Angel and then your wings wouldn’t be strong enough to allow you to fly.”

Struggling to break our cocoon is quite simply done by fighting to resist the temptations of our little Devil. It’s in persisting to struggle, in continuously fighting the temptations to remain in our comfort zone that inevitably our cocoon weakens enough to let us spread our wings.