Chevreaul's Pendulum©

Originally Written by Jim Earley in 1999


Communication is at the heart of coaching. Actually, communicating to the heart, is at the heart of coaching. It's fairly easy to find words that another person can understand and even accept in their head. Having our heart accept an idea is a more difficult matter.

My excitement for the little exercise this issue is based on how easily it communicates a very important point right into the heart. I hope it will touch yours.
1. We possess some kind of sub-conscious processing power.
2. That sub-conscious power is essential to producing results.
3. We do not have a choice about using (or not using) this power.
4. We do have a choice over how and to what end we use it.

Bill Gjetson is a friend and the manager of human resources at Caterpillar Paving Products in Brooklyn Park. Some weeks ago, Bill called me and left a voice mail saying something about how it turns out I was right, he was wrong, and he was ready to eat crow. He said he had come to that conclusion after doing an exercise with 500 other HR professionals at a prestigious national conference. I wondered what I was right about.

When I later met with Bill, he reminded me about how I've preached to him that planning is not thefirst step to success. The first step is being clear about what you want. Bill reminded me that he has always argued that one needs to plan first, to see if success is possible. Bill also reminded me that I, on theother hand, have insisted that being clear about your desired result comes first, and planning follows. (Frankly, I didn't realize there had been any debate between us, but I was happy to hear I was right.) The point I'd been making to Bill comes from many authors, including Robert Fritz in his book The Path of Least Resistance. Fritz maintains that the way people actually produce results is by first knowing what they want and knowing where they stand (their curren t reality) relative to their desired result. Fritz says that, from those two elements, a tension is created, and that tension naturally leads to us figuring out how to reduce the tension, thus solving our problem, or producing our desired result.

That brings me to the exercise Bill shared with me and that's where Anton Chevreaul (pronounced SHEV-rul) comes in. Here's a little information I found about Chevreaul on the Iinternet. Anton Chevreaul first discovered in the eighteenth century how to use a pendulum to magnify ideomotor movements. [Note: "Ideomotor" refers to the connection between our having an idea or thought that leads to some physical action or movement.] The pendulum as used here has no power of its own. It simply enlarges the magnitude of natural body movements, which are, in turn, the result of one's thought processes. This "ideomotion" is brought about through subconscious thoughts. Below, you'll find a grid labeled "Chevreaul's Pendulum." The actual pendulum is a 10-inch string tied to a washer or nut. Let's use Chevreaul's Pendulum! Please pause here, and follow the instructions below as you do the exercise.

If you don't have one, (just point your mouse at the underlined words to the right) create a pendulum by tying about 10" of string to a small metal washer, nut or bolt. Something with around the weight of a nickel (See image below). Get comfortable at a table. Pick up the pendulum in whatever hand you write with. Rest your elbow on the table. Holding the string between your thumb and forefinger, suspend the pendulum about a half inch over the grid. Hold the pendulum with the washer suspended over the paper, look at it (keep your eyes open), and ask yourself to have the string move in one of several directions. Don't try to make the pendulum move, and don't try to keep it from moving. You might start by saying (to yourself or out loud) "pendulum move from side to side between point A to point B." When the pendulum is moving in that direction, you might switch to an instruction to have it move in an up-and-down motion between points C and D. Once it's moving that way, you might "instruct" yourself to have the pendulum swing in a circle clockwise or counterclockwise. If you want, you can demand the pendulum swing very widely or you can keep the motion smaller. The diagonals are there so you can try those, too. What you probably found was that, without consciously doing anything to have the pendulum swing in a particular direction, it did anyway. This kind of exercise demonstrates the existence of the subconscious mind and just hints at its power. For Bill Gjetson and the other 500 people who participated in the exercise with him, this was a clear (if tiny) demonstration of our ability to produce a result without planning, analysis, or knowing what to do. All we do is think of the result we want.

The first conclusion here relates to the power of goal setting, or at least the power of being clear about what we want.

Most people are amazed at how quickly the washer starts moving in the direction they want. It almost seems to move on its own. Robert Fritz says that, once we are totally clear about what we want and have made what he calls a "primary choice," we naturally start moving toward what we want.

"There is tremendous power in knowing what results you designate as primary. Once you make primary choices to create those results, you may effectively and naturally rearrange and reorganize your life in ways that help bring those primary choices into reality," The Path of Least Resistance, by Robert Fritz. Maxwell Maltz in his book Psycho-Cybernetics said essentially the same thing. He said people are almost like machines when it comes to goal attainment - if we're clear about what we want.

"The new science of 'Cybernetics' has furnished us with convincing proof that the so-called 'subconscious mind' is not a 'mind' at all, but a mechanism - a goal-striving 'servo-mechanism' consisting of the brain and nervous system, which is used by, and directed by mind...[an] automatic, goal-striving machine..." Psycho-Cybernetics, by Maxwell Maltz. In one of the most popular financial/success self-help books ever printed, Napoleon Hill writes we naturally produce whatever we think about and truly believe in. "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve," Think & Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill.

Again, lesson number one is that being clear about what we want and focusing on it is the foundation of the power of goal setting.

As I've played with this exercise, it's occurred to me that the pendulum never swings in a direction I'm not thinking about. The pendulum does not have a mind of it's own, it only responds to my thoughts.

Given that, doesn't it make sense that, whatever results I'm actually producing in any area of my life must reflect what I'm actually focusing on? Thus, if I say I want to spend more time with my family, but I continually find myself spending extra hours at work, perhaps I'm getting that result because that's what I'm actually focused on? That idea is one reason mind experts warn us about concentrating on something we do not want.

As Maltz wrote:

"this creative Mechanism within you is impersonal. It will work automatically and impersonally to achieve goals of success and happiness, or unhappiness and failure, depending upon the goals which you yourself set for it. Present it with 'success goals' and it functions as a 'Success mechanism.' Present it with negative goals, and it operates just as impersonally, and just as faithfully as a 'Failure Mechanism.' A piece of self-help jargon captures this idea: WHAT YOU RESIST, PERSISTS. The idea here is that we get more of whatever we focus on. To resist something, we must be focused on it. To be focused on it, we get more of it!

Thus, you may have heard it said that:

  • In trying to avoid failure, we fail.
  • In trying to avoid struggle, we struggle.
  • In trying to avoid being a workaholic, we spend more time in the office.

So, instead of having a goal to avoid doing something, you should have a goal to start doing something. Instead of trying to work less, aim at being home more.

I invite you to play around with Chevreaul's Pendulum. Then I suggest you consider your most important goal, make sure it's focused on what you want more of, and then focus on it.

When it comes to commitment, I most appreciate a quote from Goethe. I turns out that the presenter my friend Bill heard used this quote, too:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. In the end, one is always ineffective. Concerning acts of initiative, there is one elemental truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans - that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves all. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come his way.

Whatever you can do or dream you can do, do it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Do it now!

Where Goethe says "the moment one definitely commits oneself" is the key for me. That is the moment when we choose our result.