As I've shared before, the scale and I have a complicated relationship. I know I'm not alone in this. For months, I was doing the all right things - eating less and moving more - but the numbers just sat there. Or even moved in the wrong direction. I wasn't trying to run a marathon. I just wanted something to shift.
What ended up shifting wasn't the number. It was me. I went back to the pool.
Not to train for anything. Not to become a competitive swimmer (though never say never - I do love a good plot twist). I went back because something in me recognized that my body needed a completely different kind of input. The same food and the same walking routine had become, in some real sense, invisible to my body. My system had adapted to what I was doing, and it had stopped responding. I needed to press the restart button.
In exercise physiology and psychology, there's a principle called the law of accommodation: your body (and mind) adapts to any stress you place on it repeatedly. This is great news when you're building a habit - the hard thing gets easier. And, it's somewhat good in the psychological realm because it allows us to learn how to take on more and more stressful situations (although, the world is overusing our ability here a bit right now.)
But it's exactly the problem when you need change. Once your body has adapted to a challenge, it stops responding to it. Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness, who write about the science of sustainable performance, describe this as the fundamental equation of growth: stress + rest = adaptation. But when the stress is no longer novel, the adaptation stops. The only solution is a new challenge. Not necessarily a harder version of the same thing. Sometimes a different thing entirely.
This isn't just a fitness principle. It's how our brains work too. We plateau in learning, creativity, and work - not because we've reached the ceiling of what's possible, but because we've reached the ceiling of what this particular approach can produce. The challenge calibration we talked about in Part 1 and the play orientation from Part 2 of this motivation mini series both assume you're in the game. But what do you do when the game itself has gone stale? You don't need a tweak. You need a restart.
Swimming is a strange sport. It asks your body to move in ways that nothing else does. You breathe differently. Your entire body is engaged in the workout to keep you afloat. For me, regardless of my fitness level, swimming has always been a good workout (at least according to my apple watch.) Going back to it after years away gave my body something it genuinely doesn't know how to do efficiently yet. That novelty is exactly why a restart works.
Going back to swimming is hard. I'm a beginner again. I have no speed and I have very little stamina for that kind of sustained workout. But, my bored body woke up. The restart woke it up.
It works for our brains too.
Scott Young, who has written extensively about how people learn complex skills rapidly, makes an observation that stuck with me: genuine beginners are often more engaged than intermediate learners, not because the material is easier, but because the gap between what they know and what they're encountering is so wide that the brain has no choice but to pay full attention. Accommodation, but in reverse. Beginners can't go on autopilot. That's the whole point.
I am lazy by nature. And, so, as soon as something starts to get easy, I'll back off from the focus and attention. But, it's the challenge that keeps my brain engaged. When you're stuck, introduce something genuinely new. Novelty gives us a challenge - even if it's one we find fun.
And here's where I think we're living in a quietly remarkable moment. The ability to restart through learning has never been more accessible. YouTube and other online outlets has made it possible to get instruction from world-class practitioners in almost anything at the exact moment you're motivated. A teacher used to require geography and money. Now the teacher is three clicks away.
How do you find your restart button? Here are a few starting points:
- Look for what's "accommodated" in your life. What have you been doing the same way, for so long, that your body or brain has stopped responding? The workout that used to leave you breathless but now feels routine. The creative practice that used to feel generative but now feels rote. How can you introduce novelty?
- Find a physical restart. It doesn't have to be the pool. Pickleball, a beginner dance class, an indoor climbing gym, a fifteen-minute morning walk on a route you've never taken. Even if it's your brain that needs a restart, try moving your body. That can give your brain the change of pace it needs to figure out whatever it's been working on.
- Find a skill restart. Search YouTube for a beginner tutorial in something you've been curious about for years but haven't started. Give it 20 minutes. The goal isn't to get good. The goal is to be a genuine beginner at something, which is its own kind of reset.
- Find a teacher, even a temporary one. A few sessions with someone who knows more than you in any domain can recalibrate what you think is possible. Go to the library! Community centers and community colleges offer great instruction at minimal cost. The barrier to getting a teacher isn't high.
- Set a beginner's goal. Not "get good at this." Not "lose 20 pounds by swimming." Just: I will show up for this for four weeks. Give the restart enough time to actually work before you evaluate it. Beginnings feel uncomfortable precisely because they're new — don't mistake the discomfort of novelty for evidence that it isn't working.
What's been accommodated in your life? What restart have you been avoiding because you'd have to be a beginner again? Hit reply or come find me in Circle — I'd love to hear where your restart button might be hiding.
