From the Latin… Translation (kinda): Always Wear UnderWear<\/p>\n
Twice today someone asked me, “But if you feel confident and visualize getting what you want, don’t you believe that you will, at least, increase the probability that you’ll get it?”<\/p>\n
The shortest answer I came up with was: No.<\/p>\n
The longer version is this story:<\/p>\n
I started a program of heaving weightlifting last fall. Typically, I only do the deadlift, and I try to lift as close to the maximum amount I can handle for 1 repetition and no more.<\/p>\n
I also began keeping a meticulous journal about my inner state prior to each workout. So, before I’d hit the gym, I’d have notes like, “VERY excited! Ready to tackle a new 1-rep max!” or “A bit under the weather,” or, “I’d rather be napping,” or “Okay, I guess,” or “Good energy,” etc.<\/p>\n
On the days that I set new personal records (I’m up to about 340 pounds… and I weigh in at 143 at the moment), guess what thoughts I was having.<\/p>\n
If you guessed the positive, full-of-energy, ready-to-tackle-anything thoughts, then you clearly haven’t been reading this blog \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
10\u00c2\u00a0times out of 10, a new personal best was on a day that I felt weak, tired, injured, distracted or otherwise “negative.”<\/p>\n
“OH!” my one friend said, “So the way to set a new best is by feeling negative.”<\/p>\n
The fact that I set PBs on “weak” days doesn’t mean that “feeling weak” leads to PBs… because I had 50 other days where I felt weak and did NOT set a personal best.<\/p>\n
That’s a subtle one so let me say it again… setting a PB when I feel week does not mean that feeling week leads to PBs… and the proof is all the other days I felt weak and did not set PBs.<\/p>\n
To highlight the distinction, substitute “wearing purple underwear” (which I don’t own), for “feeling weak,” like so:<\/p>\n
I set PBs on days that I was wearing purple underwear, so clearly, wearing purple underwear is the cause of lifting more weight! (Except that on other days when I wore purple underwear, I didn’t set a new record.)<\/p>\n
My other friend had a different explanation. “Ah,” he said, “your subconscious had a counter-intention to overcome your bad feelings.”<\/p>\n
HUH?!<\/p>\n
How ’bout this: What I think when I’m doing the deadlift doesn’t squat (a weightlifting pun for those who got it).<\/p>\n
I’ll leave it to you to see how this same idea carries over into the world of “creating what you want.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From the Latin… Translation (kinda): Always Wear UnderWear Twice today someone asked me, “But if you feel confident and visualize getting what you want, don’t you believe that you will, at least, increase the probability that you’ll get it?” The shortest answer I came up with was: No. The longer version is this story: I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,12,29,20,7,35],"tags":[49,100,50,51],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-argument","category-cognitive-psychology","category-goal-setting","category-manifestation","category-self-improvement","category-sloppy-thinking","tag-creating","tag-goal-setting","tag-manifesting","tag-subconscious"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}