Why I Had to Relearn to Tie My Shoes as an Adult

Sometimes the most embarrassing problems teach us the most important lessons.

For years, my shoes never stayed tied. I'd constantly be stopping to retie them, feeling frustrated and a little embarrassed. I tried different laces, different shoes, tying them tighter - nothing worked consistently.

Then my friend Angie watched me tie my shoes and said, "Well, there's your problem - you're doing it backwards!"

Turns out, because my left-handed mother taught right-handed me, I'd learned to wrap the loop in the wrong direction. The knot looked right but structurally couldn't hold. I'd been practicing the wrong technique for decades, strengthening a neural pathway that was fundamentally flawed.

Angie showed me the correct way, and I was determined to fix this once and for all. My strategy? I decided to "feel my way" through the correction - deliberately tying in the direction that felt wrong, since wrong had become right in my case.

It worked... for a while. But here's what happened: gradually, as this new way started feeling "right," my attention drifted. I'd be rushing or distracted, and without conscious awareness, I'd slip back into the old pattern. My shoes were untied again.

That's when another friend introduced me to a completely different approach. Instead of relying on feeling, she suggested I give myself a verbal cue - a simple mantra to follow regardless of what felt natural.

My mantra became: "Go to the right."

Every time I tied my shoes, I'd repeat this phrase and follow the instruction, even if it felt awkward. And you know what? It worked! My shoes stayed tied consistently.

This taught me something profound about how we actually create lasting change: emotions and intuition aren't always reliable guides when we're trying to rewire established patterns. What feels "natural" might just be what we're used to, not what actually works.

When we're in the process of creating new neural pathways, we need something more concrete than feelings to guide us. Sometimes that's a verbal cue, sometimes it's a visual reminder, sometimes it's changing our environment - but it needs to be specific and actionable.

The backwards bike guy couldn't trust his "feel" for balance and steering. I couldn't trust what felt "right" for tying shoes. In both cases, conscious, concrete guidance was more effective than intuitive approaches.

This doesn't mean emotions aren't important - they absolutely are. But when we're actively rewiring our brains, sometimes we need to temporarily override our emotional guidance system with something more reliable.

What pattern in your life might benefit from a "go to the right" mantra instead of trying to feel your way through change?