Scaffold to What Matters Most
Right now, I'm really enjoying reading Angela Duckworth's new book Situated. You may know her from her book titled Grit and/or the related Ted Talk as a common factor between the most successful people in the world. I love that Situated is a bit of a continuation of the thought stream about success, and that it acknowledges that it is not solely about willpower and determination that people are successful. It also has to do with their situation - their space, peers, mentors and culture.
Within these situational aspects, she also acknowledges that we all have things that we can control, and things we cannot control. While she doesn't get into aspects of privilege, it's implied. What she directs us to, however, is that which we can control. Her main point being, that if we invest our efforts in situating the situation as best we can, we will reap benefits and success with less effort, which is in a way, the opposite of grit.
I love it when something comes full circle and is more inclusive of seeing more of truth of something. I also love it when anything can be made easier!!
It reminds me of my many years of Integrated Movement Therapy training with Molly Lannon Kenny, and how we were encouraged to scaffold tools and skills to meet the needs of our clients. The scaffold refers to the structure that's needed to access the building/learning opportunity. On that scaffold, we can climb up and down as needed to access the building, right?
In this analogy, we need to acknowledge that the scaffold is the situation we can build. The situation supports us and can be relied upon to give us access to what matters most to us, whether that be achieving health goals, more loving relationships, or doing meaningful work in the world.
So, our topic of the month, for our yoga classes and coaching groups is scaffold. If you're new to Unfold, you'll want to know that we have a monthly topic that guides the themes of some of our group work.
So here's my invitation for October. Instead of asking yourself to try harder, ask: what's one piece of my situation I could build? Maybe it's keeping your dumbbells where you can see them instead of in the back of the closet. Maybe it's putting class on your calendar like a doctor's appointment, or telling a friend you're going so someone notices if you don't. These are small, structural things. They make the next step easier to reach, so you're not counting on willpower at 6am.
Sometimes the scaffold is people. When I quit drinking, one of the things I did was nurture my friendships with my non-drinking friends. It helped me see that there ARE people in the world who make this choice, and that it's just as "normal" as anything. I didn't have to white-knuckle it alone. I had company.
That's really what Unfold is meant to be: company for the climb. Our classes give you a regular place to show up, with teachers who know your name and notice when you've been gone. Our coaching groups give you people to climb alongside. StrongHer Golden Group is open to women who are retired or 60+, and StrongHer Forever is where our StrongHer Now graduates keep going together.
And speaking of scaffolding: StrongHer Now is coming back this Friday, rebuilt as exactly this kind of support. It's six weeks at your own pace, with real backup from me and our team. More on Friday.
In the meantime, I'd love to hear from you. What's one piece of scaffolding you could put up this month?
