We’ve all heard that if you drop a frog into boiling water it will hop out immediately, but if you put a frog in a pot of water and bring it to a boil, the frog will boil to death. So a boiling frog problem is one that happens gradually over time, creeping, creeping, creeping getting slightly worse every time you turn around.
In my work as a health and wellness coach I help clients with boiling frog problems all the time. The professional working mother, who keeps thinking ‘yes, I should be taking better care of myself, but I don’t have time. I’ll do it when things settle down.’ Things never settle down when you are a professional woman with children. (I know this from personal experience!) The former weekend warrior who looks fondly at pictures of past running races, and wonders when did racing become a thing in my past? The middle manager who is bored at work, but the thought of making a change is too daunting, so he convinces himself that bored and secure is better than the alternative. To the woman who knows she should go see the dentist, but can’t seem to find the time to make the appointment, until she cracks a tooth. We notice the boiling frog problem, but the water is so nice and warm it’s easy to minimize it or convince ourselves that we’ll get to it later. And the temperature keeps rising!
We are all busy. We all have many competing priorities screaming for our attention, energy and time. For many people the easiest place to find a bit more attention, energy and time is to steal it from the things we need to do to take care of ourselves. In doing so we allow what might be an 8 pound weight gain over the last two years to become a 23 pound gain in the next two years. The time between dental visits expands from 2 years to 5 years, and now we can add embarrassment to our list of reasons why we don’t call and make an appointment. And the temperature keeps rising!
When people think about changing their boiling frog problem they usually do two things. The first is they ‘should’ themselves. I should do this. I should do that. There a mountain of research into motivation that says ‘should’ should be the new ‘s’ word, because it is really shitty as a motivational technique. The second thing we do is we try to tackle the whole problem at once. Rather than just swimming to the side and looking up, we expect to be able to jump clear of the pot, spring to a lovely stream and have the problem behind us. We are just setting ourselves up for failure when we try and tackle the whole challenge at once. And the temperature keeps rising!
It’s time to hop out of the water before you boil to death. What is your boiling frog problem? Is it at work? Is it in a relationship? Is it tied to your weight or fitness? Pick one thing where you habitually say, ‘I’ll get to it later’ and ask yourself why might I want to start working on this thing today? What would a change in this boiling frog problem give me, and why is that thing important to me? By connecting to what is valuable to you now is a far better motivational technique, and one that will serve you well as you swim to the side of the pot and reach for the lip.
If you have a boiling frog problem, but it seems too daunting to tackle or you don’t know where to start I would love to have a conversation about how I can help you out of the boiling water.
