184 Part III: Opening the Toolkit
Practising the right behaviours until they become habitual increases your
capability. How many great sports people or musicians are born wielding a
tennis racket or violin? Tennis star Andy Murray is renowned for the dedica-
tion he puts into his gym work as well as the number of tennis balls he hits in
preparation for tournaments. Olympic-medal-winning rowers can be seen out
on the cold river as early as 5 a.m. when ordinary folks are tucked up safely
in their beds. Top violinists begin by squeaking out the notes as they practise
for hundreds of hours (often to the despair of their families!). Constant hard
practice keeps top performers ahead in their games.
Modifying unwanted behaviours
What about the unwanted behaviours, the things you do and those you’d
prefer not to do, silly habits such as smoking or eating unhealthily? They
become hard to change because they’re linked to other, higher, logical levels
involving beliefs or identity:
‘I’m a smoker’ = a statement about identity.
‘I need to have a cigarette when I get stressed’ = a statement about belief.
‘He’s a big, strong lad’ = a statement about identity.
‘He can’t live on salad and fruit’ = a statement about belief.
To make change easier, create a new identity for yourself such as ‘I’m a
healthy person’ and adopt beliefs such as ‘I can develop the right habits to
look after myself.’ Chapter 3 tells you how.
Capabilities and skills
Capabilities are talents and skills that lie within people and organisations as
valuable assets. These behaviours may be the ones that you do so well that
you can do them consistently without any seemingly conscious effort. Like
walking and talking, you learned these skills without ever understanding how
you did so: humans are naturally great learning machines.
Other capabilities you learn more consciously. Perhaps you can fly a kite,
ride a bicycle, work a computer, write a blog, or run a business. You have
deliberately acquired these skills. Or maybe you’re great at seeing the funny
side of life, listening to friends, or getting the kids to school on time. All these
capabilities are valuable skills that you take for granted and other people can
learn. You’re likely to remember the time before you were able to do these
things, whereas you probably can’t recall a time before you could walk or
talk. These individual capabilities also benefit you in employment, because
organisations build core competencies into their job specifications, defining
essential skills that people need for the company to function at its best.
