Cutting off your retreat

There’s a story I heard recently about a girl with long blond hair who wanted someone to coach her but didn’t have enough money to pay the coach his fee.

After a conversation between the two of them the coach told the girl that he believed that because the girl really valued her hair, he was willing to coach her if she agreed to bring a pair of scissors to the coaching session and let him cut off her hair at the end of it.

The girl duly turned up to her coaching session with a pair of scissors and at the end of the session she handed over the scissors for the coach to perform the dastardly deed.

At this point the coach gave the girl back the scissors and let her leave without cutting her hair.

What is the point of this story?

There’s a favourite quote of mine by William Hutchinson Murray that goes -

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”

When you enter a swimming pool, or the sea, to swim, there is a point where you become committed and YOU KNOW that you’re going to swim. Until you get to that point, it is far easier to turn round and retreat.

The coach knew that unless the girl who wanted the coaching wasn’t able to pass that point of no return, which she demonstrated through bringing the scissors to her coaching session, then she wasn’t committed to the process.

Without that full commitment she was unlikely to receive the benefit that was available to her from the coaching.

As Susan Jeffers said in her famous book, “feel the fear and do it anyway”!