Fear

After working as the only doctor in the hospital the other day, I suddenly became much more confident at work. I stopped shying away from appointments that looked like they might have difficult medical problems, difficult clients, or both.

Before, in the way back of my mind I would think something like this:

"I’ve never seen a case like that before. I have no idea how to treat that! Besides, they’ve seen Dr. G before so it’s probably better if she sees them again, right? What if I screw it all up and kill the pet/get sued/lose my license?”

I guess working by myself was the most frightening thing I could think of and once that was over I realized I could handle a lot more than I previously thought.

Today at Crossfit I noticed the fear getting in the way again. We were working up to a 1 rep max split jerk. I easily lifted 65, then 85, then 95 pounds. My previous best was 95 pounds, so once I added on 5 more pounds for 100 I suddenly struggled. I could get the weight up high enough to get under it but didn’t drop under the bar.

I’m pretty sure the back of my mind was saying something like:

“Oh crap. 100 pounds? That’s really heavy. What if I drop it? More specifically, what if I drop it ON MY HEAD?”

I talked with the coach about it and he had great advice – STOP THINKING. So I did, and boom – lifted the weight.

It’s really amazing how your mind can either help or hurt your performance. I used to think all those quotes and sayings about attitude were silly. Not anymore.

p.s. I also set a PR on the push press and the snatch (don’t laugh) this week!