The Law of Reversed Effort: How to Get Better by Doing Less
Why relaxation is the road to mastery
I relaxed my breath and lowered my shoulders. Instead of forcing my stride, I now began to relax it. Looking at my watch, I noticed my heart rate go down as well. Paradoxically, I was running faster.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Is it really possible to get better but with less effort, strain and worry?
The Problem With Trying
Improving is something most of us desire. And some of us would even like to achieve mastery — if not world-class level, at least to the best of our abilities.
But improvement doesn’t come for free. You know this — perhaps painfully so. In your quest for improvement, some days are harder than others. And though that’s only natural, you have a tendency to make them worse than needs be.
If you’re struggling, you try to force it. And though you might feel like you’re being productive for a while, you realize it doesn’t improve your output’s quality. Eventually, you give up. And then you make yourself feel bad for not doing “enough”; and guilty for not being as productive as you know you “should be”. This, in turn, spike your stress, wreck your self-image and obstruct your subsequent productivity.
