When we feel that change is not possible it is because we react to challenges with already known responses, that is, reproducing the same behaviors experienced in previous situations. When faced with an urgent situation it is difficult to think of acting differently. This is due to our acquired automatic patterns that condition our motor responses.
Our brain is plastic and can generate new neural connections as well as recondition current ones. The problem is that our mind is not plastic and tends to cling to the known and to our own convictions which blocks brain plasticity. We feel secure when we control our skiing since to change is to momentarily disarm our habitual control of motor behavior making change unattractive.
We exhibit a propensity to be ‘apprentices’ when we are beginners and ‘repeaters’ when we are advanced skiers because we prefer feeling we have mastered our technique and have control over situations. Going back to feeling like a beginner is not generally well accepted. The reason is that the momentary feeling of confusion is not tolerated and, therefore, to invest more effort on our behalf to overcome this transitory stage.
The effort mentioned is not so much physical but rather cognitive and, above all, volitional. Inhibiting inefficient motor behaviors in order to replace them with more efficient ones requires some physical effort because at the beginning of change, the executions will tend to consume more energy. The fact of changing, that is, moving from the intention to the action itself, consumes energy, therefore, if we know what to change and how to do it, we will make better use of that effort.
Our volitional capacity necessary to face a change in our skiing is responsible for it. There are moments in which it is diminished so it is not advisable to initiate behavioral modifications since it is not convenient to struggle against these periods. They are necessary cycles for our energetic reestablishment from where a new volitive force necessary to face the desired modification will start. It is advisable to allow ourselves to feel this way, not to force but to wait for the cyclical reconversion of the situation, waiting for better conditions.
It’s not possible to change a motor behavior without first changing our own mentality. In order to understand a better way of skiing it is necessary to stop practicing the previous way by renouncing it. One of the main impediments we tackle when faced with behavior modification is the false belief that our motor behaviors are permanent attributes when in fact they are modifiable habits.
A habit is a pattern of behavior that, through repetition, has become a means of constant use but by no means unchangeable. The most difficult thing to modify a habit is to break the inertia of statism. To do so requires a simple and assimilable routine. Acquiring a routine is a habit to modify another habit. Many skiers hide behind the belief that to change their way of skiing requires a lot of willpower when, in fact, it is necessary to find an appropriate routine.
Our psychic life includes our volitional life
Our psychic life is not limited to thoughts and reasoning (intellectual life) as well as feelings and emotions (affective life) but also to our way of acting and our willingness to change our behaviors as well as the situations we face (volitional life).
Our volitional life is a continuous activity and an incessant tendency to achieve something. The components of this volitional activity are: a psychic reference toward something that we consider valuable, and a sustained effort toward that value, i.e., toward that object. The best known particular manifestations of volitional activity are: tendency, desire, impulse, inclination, aspiration, and longing.
Our will, in a general sense, includes tending and willing. The latter, in turn, comprises the desire and the will to do. The will to modify a behavior consists of an anticipated representation of the purpose we want to achieve by means of the image of something that is proposed, that is to say, the dynamic disposition that tends to the fulfillment of a previously represented end. Although in desire there is also an anticipated mental image of the goal to be achieved, there is no effort to realize it: we desire something we want but it does not necessarily mean that we want to do it.
