In 1996, when Tony Dungy took over as coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the team was in terrible shape. Yet within a few years, they went from being one of the worst teams in the league to one of the best. What happened?
In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg writes about the approach that Dungy brought to leading the team. Instead of trying to add complexity, Dungy actually strove to simplify the system. The goal was to have each player learn to play instinctively, taking action without even a split second of hesitation. To do this, they simplified the scheme and the reads that each player was responsible for, and had them focus in on just a few key things. Then they practiced these few things over and over and over.
In time, the players reached a place where what they were doing what they needed to do quickly and without a second thought. And this in turn helped them to outperform their competition and win many games.
The same principle applies to other areas of life. When we do something over and over and over again, eventually it will become automatic—we’ll be able to do it without much thought. And this is something that can be extremely valuable in whatever context we’re in, be it sports, or business, or other personal relationships.
When it’s crunch time, and we have to act quickly, we’re going to want to be able to do what needs to be done and say what needs to be said without hesitation. But that kind of performance doesn’t just magically happen. Rather, it’s the result of repetition—of making habits of doing the things we want to do, and of responding the way we want to respond. Because by practicing these things now, we’ll be more likely to do the very same things later, when we may not have time to think about what we’re doing.