What a cold, muddy pong taught me about how adaptable we are.
I had my plan set. Coffee in hand, cosy jumper on, ready to settle into a morning’s work.
Then my Dad appeared asking for help to drain a very sludgy pond – pulling out rocks, moss, and years of accumulated slime. Knee-deep in cold water, on a grey March morning that had just started to rain.
Truthfully, it was the last thing I wanted to do.
My hot coffee was sitting on the counter getting cold. A warm room was waiting. I had a plan, and this was not it.
But I did it anyway.
And here’s the thing – after about fifteen minutes of being in the mud, I stopped resisting. I started noticing. I found all sorts of wildlife. I learned how to pull up lilies carefully without disturbing their roots. I got completely absorbed in a task that, twenty minutes earlier, I had been dreading.
An entirely unexpected morning that I almost missed – because I was too attached to the one I’d planned.
What the resistance is really about
That pull towards staying put – towards the coffee, the desk, the familiar – isn’t laziness. It’s deeply human. Research on comfort zones shows that our boundaries aren’t fixed walls but dynamic thresholds, shaped by how we expect to feel before we do something, not how we actually feel once we’re doing it. The value we place on pushing ourselves outside our comfort zone is closely tied to self-efficacy — our belief in our own capacity to handle what we find there.
In other words, the resistance isn’t really about the pond. It’s about the story we tell ourselves before we step into it.
Research in positive psychology has found that engaging in brief activities at the edge of our comfort zone – and realising it is within our capacity – builds confidence in our ability to thrive in challenging situations. Not grand, life-altering leaps. Just small, slightly uncomfortable steps. Like climbing into a cold pond on a Friday morning!
The neuroscience of the new
There’s something else happening when we say yes to the unexpected, too. Research published in the journal Neuron found a direct connection between novelty and the release of dopamine — suggesting that new experiences aren’t just challenging, they’re genuinely rewarding. Our brains are wired to find this kind of thing pleasurable, even when our minds are busy convincing us otherwise.
A study in Frontiers also showed that learning tends to arise precisely when there’s an element of surprise involved — that adaptation of our beliefs occurs when we step outside the expected and encounter something that genuinely catches us off guard.
The satisfaction of pulling up a lily root without breaking it caught me off guard. The fact that I was enjoying myself caught me off guard.
These moments are shifts towards how we evolve and expand, while building a mechanism of growth.
Shift, not change
Almost everyone I speak to at the moment is navigating some kind of professional or personal transition. A role that no longer fits. A relationship that has evolved. A version of themselves they’re outgrowing.
We tend to call this change – and that word has started to feel heavy to me. Almost abstract. We are in such constant flux right now that talking about “change” feels like trying to name the weather while you’re standing in the middle of a storm. It disconnects us from the very thing we’re trying to describe.
I’ve been using a different word lately: shift.
Shifting feels more honest to the experience. It’s not a before and after. It’s gradual, directional, sometimes imperceptible until you look back and realise you’re standing somewhere entirely different from where you began. It acknowledges that we are not static – that we are always in motion – without making that motion feel like a crisis.
The pond was a small, muddy, completely unplanned shift that reminded me of something I sometimes forget:
We are more adaptable than we think.
And in these uncertain times, adaptability is our superpower.
A question for you:
Where in your life are you holding onto the plan – the coffee, the cosy jumper, the familiar – when something unexpected is asking you to step outside?
You don’t have to drain a pond. But you might be surprised what you find if you do.
If this resonated with you, I’d love to hear what your version of the pond is right now.
