A friend got me thinking about the term “turtling” that I sometimes use to describe the process that people go through to hide out and feel secure. We all turtle up in different ways, and one of the challenges of being a coach is to figure out when the turtling is instrumental and when it’s detrimental.
The reason why this is so tricky is because one of the things that coaches have to do is to make people uncomfortable so that they’ll grow. Creative tension isn’t particularly comfortable, but it’s from that position that positive change happens. Yet if you make people too uncomfortable, they’ll turtle up and start resisting you and their own growth.
And some people have a tendency to get overwhelmed and not let me know about it. Their turtling process is a coping mechanism – instead of engaging with the things that are overwhelming them, they shut everything off. If you poke at them in the wrong way when they’re turtling up, they just ignore you until something breaks. But if they’re not telling you they’re overwhelmed, you don’t know that they need help.
In other cases, people need to turtle up so that they can process what they’re feeling and figure out what they need to do next. It’s not that they’re scared or overwhelmed, but merely that they have a tendency to turtle up, plot, and then run like hell when they’re ready. If you don’t let them do their thing, they’ll never take off running, yet you also have to be careful that they don’t put their blinders on once they start running. (This is me, in case you’re curious.)
Of course, to make things even trickier, you sometimes have to recommend that people turtle up so that they don’t do things they’ll later regret. This is especially true for people who wear their heart on their sleeves. Their emotional intensity can be too much for some people to handle, and many people aren’t nearly as forgiving of the things that are said during emotionally intense times as the people who process their emotions socially and openly. It’s easy for them to resent the fact that you’re asking them to play it cool because they can’t process things by playing cool, yet you know that them emotionally unloading on other people will only make matters worse. Even though you’re saying “not here and not now,” they hear “not ever.”
Turtling up is neither good nor bad, and we all need to do it sometimes. The real question is not about whether you’re turtling, but instead, whether your turtling is helping you grow or keeping you from growing. If you’re too secure and comfortable, you’re not growing in the ways that you could, but if you’re not taking the time to process and integrate experiences – or to give people space away from your emotional intensity – then you’re also not growing as much as you can.
How do you turtle up? Can you tell when it’s instrumental or detrimental? If you know that your turtling is detrimental, do you know how to come out of your shell?
Please share this with a friend who needs to hear it.
Photo credit: Rami
If you liked this post, you might like these, too:
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
This resonates a lot with Johnathan Mead’s latest post. Part of “growing” is taking time to just be. So often we get caught up in always doing something, when the most effective thing to do is just take sometime off and process what it is that we have learned.
The turtle truth is we can’t always be going at full speed. As much as we may think we can this only burns us out. Going slow is essential for going fast.
@Bud:
Dead on! It’s too easy for people to get caught up in trying to be efficient (fast) without realizing that efficiency should rest upon effectiveness (slow).
Also, thanks for reminding me about Jonathan’s post. In case anyone else is curious, it’s The Number One Self Development Mistake and The Fake Growth Addict.
Ever heard of Post-Practice Improvement? It’s a process in your brain, leveraged by professional pianists and other master learners.
You know how in bodybuilding your muscles don’t grow during the workout, they grow in between workouts? Well, the same happens with skills in your brain. You need your “downtime” to grow skills properly. (It takes a while for the neurons in your brain to form fully. Up to 48 hours. And you need a bit of downtime at first to get that process started.)
Which brings us back to turtling up and taking time off from doing stuff
Vlad Dolezal´s last blog ..5 Simple Ways to Have Tons of Fun Every Day
Precisely. As an aside, this is why I read multiple books in pushes – I’ll read a book and let it sit for a couple of days while I’m doing the same with other books. This route makes it harder to get the “YAY!” feeling from finishing a book, but it turns into a much better reading process.
Thanks for letting us know about Post-Practice Improvement!
I lean toward turtling as instrumental, mainly because the culture comes down so strongly on the forced-growth, play-bigger side. Yet your post is causing me to ask myself to what extent that’s a reactive position. I see the opportunity for greater flexibility in moving between the two poles of instrumental-detrimental turtling — both in my coaching and in moving my own projects forward. Thanks for this.
You’re welcome – it’s a fine balance, really, and something you have to be pretty intuitive about, especially in working through turtling with others.
Interesting concept and nice blog! I look forward to reading more from you in the future.
Steven Handel´s last blog ..How Stress Ruins Everything And What You Can Do About It
Thanks, Steven! Welcome to the conversation.
I procrastinate. I avoid doing the work that is most important. I’ll read a book, watch TV, or go for a walk. I know what I need to be doing, but I can’t wrap my mind around it.
During this time (usually a walk) I self talk and try to get myself in the right state of mind. This may take 30 minutes or 2 hours, but eventually I crawl out of my shell even stronger.
Karl Staib – Work Happy Now´s last blog ..The Secrets to Workplace Leadership