Liar in Our Midst!

I’ve found a liar in our midst!  “Our” meaning the numerous thought-producing motivations that float through the conscious window during waking life.

I noticed this voice for the first time while lifting weights with my apartment mates.  We were spotting for each other while taking turns doing sets of bench presses.  Toward the end of a set I was doing, I could feel my arms getting tired and said, “I’m going to try to do one more, but I probably can’t do it.”  It was sort of like a pessimistic Babe Ruth pointing to the bench to call that he was about to strike out.  If I couldn’t lift the weights, but had already said that I knew I couldn’t, then it would be less of a blow to my ego.

Of course, this wasn’t entirely conscious at the time.  I just blurted out the words based on the feeling of saving myself from an upcoming possible failure.  And sure enough, I wasn’t able to lift the weights again on that set.

My apartment mates and I got a kick out of what we started calling the “Whatisself motivation tapes”.  It was suggested that the military could send copies to Al-Qaeda as a new counterterrorism tactic.  New from the US Military: Terrorism motivational tapes.  Featuring such uplifting mantras as: “You can try to strap a bomb to yourself, but it probably won’t work,”  and “Best not attempt it, it’ll probably fail.”

So on the next set I tried an experiment.  I told myself that I’d make it to 8 reps, where on the previous set I had crapped out at 6.  And sure enough I made 8.

This voice has come up other places, most often noticed when I’m exercising.  While walking the stairs of the 36-floor Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh: “Let’s just do four sets, or maybe three; we know we can do that.”  (I ended up doing five).  While running a two mile loop up to a nearby track and back: “Let’s just go up to the end up this street and back; we know we can do that.” (I ended up doing the whole 2-mile loop).  While doing a solo backpacking trip: “Let’s cut across the river early and make this a 10-mile day like we did last year.”  (I ended up doing the full trail loop plus adding an extra mile due to a wrong turn – a 15.5 mile day).

This voice means well.  It’s just not very accurate.  The motivation here is to save myself from failure by sticking to the known, the familiar, the already proven to be possible.  And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  But this sort of overly cautious approach can in many cases keep me from accomplishing what I’m capable of, as I’ve seen several times.  And it’s especially unhelpful when the only danger I’m trying to save myself from is a hit to my pride.

Still, while it speaks I typically take this voice to be me speaking (i.e. I believe it).  But since this voice has proven to be wrong several times, another inner voice has started to take notice.  Now there’s a hint of doubt when I have the feeling of “I probably can’t do X, so let’s play it safe.”  There’s a reaction saying, “Maybe I can’t, but probably I can.  Let’s see who’s right.”