“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
I have been struggling with my confidence during Olympic lifts lately. I have been getting stronger and my technique is better, but I still sometimes doubt my abilities. When I was lifting on Saturday, I stood so long getting prepared to go, I was unable to even start the lift. Doubt was creeping into my thoughts and it was paralyzing my body. I don’t really know what I was afraid of… maybe failure. It did get better as I warmed up a little more, but I was definitely struggling. I finally made a heavy lift and my coach even got it on video. Being able to see a good lift seemed to be the thing I needed to see.
I know that I lift best when my confidence is high, but I am not always able to find that confidence. I look to my coach to remind me that I will increase my confidence as my technique and strength improves. I have to continue to attempt heavy lifts because as I make them, my confidence will improve also. I must continue to try things that I am afraid of and do things I think I can’t do. In doing so, I allow confidence to follow and grow.
What do you do when you are lacking confidence? Do you shy away from the things you are afraid of? Do you face your fears head on? A confident you is waiting for you.
Be Stronger2day!
2 comments
Al says:
June 20, 2012 at 7:01 pm (UTC -5 )
Rise, if you want, you can use this as a guest post instead of a comment to your post. I sent it to Adam for the RARE site, but for some reason (maybe it’s too long???) it didn’t make it up.
I have never been one to think that just because someone else is doing something that is working out for them that it means it’s something I should do — or that even if I do it, I would necessarily get the same results. If you put a different spin on my attitude, you might say that I have a strong independent streak.
So what helps to improve performance, when the standard reaction would be “why do it this way?” Or possibly worse: “why do this at all?”
This argument (we’ll call it the “why argument”) works in many other venues…business, health practices, science, technology, even military operations. But for the aspiring cross-fitter, where it takes time and real effort to make the changes required to perform, making the “why argument” is not valid, because unlike in (for instance) business, where by the time one achieves a certain level of expertise, it’s often more than likely that the best practice itself is no longer a best practice (the best practice organization having perfected an even better practice). To take the why argument further, for most organizations, if they do not move on and continue to evolve, the best practice is no longer best and it is no longer the bellwether. Perhaps the most flawed aspect of “best practices” is that they seem to be about avoiding mistakes. “Best practices” in industry are about learning from the mistakes of others, so you don’t have to make them yourself. But what if the only way you can really learn, really master anything is precisely by making mistakes yourself? What if it’s more risky to avoid making mistakes than to figure out how to become good at making them?
When people acquire new skills they typically progress through three stages:
Stage
Characteristics
1. Cognitive
intellectualize the task, discover new strategies to accomplish it proficiently
2. Associative
concentrate less, make fewer errors, become more efficient
3. Autonomous
become as good as we need to be, run on autopilot reaching a sustainable plateau
For a very long time, the autonomous stage was viewed as the highest level of innate capability. Sir Francis Galton identified it back in 1869 as a point beyond which an individual “…cannot by any education or exertion overpass.” However, it seems that hitting the wall is more a matter of belief than reality.
Very high achievers, those who continuously bust through limits, develop strategies to stay out of the autonomous zone. These masters use three main strategies: 1) focus on technique, 2) stay goal-oriented, and 3) get immediate feedback on performance. However, the first strategy is not as obvious as it might first appear and the way in which masters go about it is different from those who are good or even very good.
The key to the first strategy is technique. Observations of amateur and virtuoso musicians note that when amateurs practice, they typically play musical pieces. When virtuoso musicians practice, they play scales and difficult parts of pieces. Said another way: the amateur wants the kind of feedback that makes him feel good. The virtuoso is looking for feedback that tells him or her how to improve. The virtuoso is looking for opportunities to make mistakes and is paying close attention to why and how failure happens. Achieving mastery is very boring and tedious. That’s why very few have the passion and commitment to persist at it. Watch some of the CF elites and their workouts. While they are varied, they continually go back to the fundamentals and never shirk form for weight (as one example).
If what it takes to be the best is a constantly moving target and requires a huge amount of humility (how else can one persist in seeking out opportunities to make mistakes and then make them?), it’s clear that simple mimicry of a best practice is hardly likely to transform an individual or an organization. It seems to me that what DOES have the potential to transform performance is the process of making mistakes, and identifying and learning from those mistakes. But to do that, individuals and organizations MUST MAKE their own mistakes and never stop making them, something that is not readily apparent in the flawless performance that we see when we observe “best practices.”
Listening to the coaches is paramount, and it’s great to watch CF videos of the superstars. These are “best practices.” But these things alone are not substitutes for continuing to push up against the wods and movements that are particularly hard for us. And certainly they should not take the place of our own investigation and assessment of our individual problems with technique, recovery, wind improvement, flexibility, and every other aspect of this specialist-punishing obsession called Crossfit.
Rise says:
June 21, 2012 at 7:14 pm (UTC -5 )
Al,
I will put this up as a guest post on Monday. You have given me food for thought and once again, I am inspired. Thanks for reading and commenting on this blog. One day when I have a billion followers, we will both be famous!