YOU ONLY NEED REASSURANCE IF SOMETHING IS WRONG

I’m going to take you into my personal life a bit here, dear reader.  I have a friend that I love dearly.  They are incredibly close, have been there through thick and thin, and they are very loving and nurturing.  However, when I’m driving, this person is terrifying, and it’s BECAUSE of their loving, nurturing, and caring nature.  You see, this person wants to ensure that the driver isn’t worried, and so, when I drive, they spend the entire trip reassuring me.  If we see a police officer, they’ll be quick to point out “Don’t worry: you’re going the speed limit.  They have no reason to pull you over.”  If we go through a traffic light that is yellow they’ll say “Don’t worry: the light was yellow.  You didn’t run a red light.”  If we’re driving by a cyclist they’ll be quick to let me know “You’re on your part of the road.  You’re in the right.  You get to share the road with them just like they do with you.”  But all this serves to do is get me wondering about WHY I need this reassurance.  If all of this stuff was obvious, wouldn’t it need to NOT be said?  The only time you NEED reassurance is if something is wrong.

Dude needed no one's opinion but his own

Am I wrong?  And did you appreciate the irony of such a question?  Perhaps I’m just completely off base on this one, but getting reassurance I did not ask for simply means, to me, that I’m doing something wrong.  Why?  Because correctness is self-evident, and typically further exemplified by results.  I pour the cereal into the bowl, then pour the milk into the cereal and breakfast is made: no one needs to reassure me.  Meanwhile, if I pour the milk into the bowl first, someone needs to say “Hey, its ok: you just have to pour the cereal in carefully now.”  Well crap folks: it’s pretty obvious I f**ked up.  It’s NOT ok.  I’m being reassured because something is WRONG and now someone is coming around to help damage control the situation.

And I bring all this up because those of you seeking “reassurance” are, in fact, seeking ASSURANCE.  Specifically, you KNOW you’re screwing up, and now you’re hoping someone can come around and make everything better.  You post your training plans online KNOWING that they’re a dumpster fire and hope that someone will come around and say “Hey, its ok: you just need to swap preacher curls with hammer curls!”  You haven’t eaten a vegetable since the last time a good Star Wars was in theaters and you hope someone will come and (re)assure you that vegetables are overrated and protein and carbs are all that matter.  You would not seek reassurance unless you already had the seeds of doubt sewn, and the reason you doubt is because you KNOW you’re making a mistake.

That's why there are two people in this photo

The power of positive thinking is real, as is the detriment of negativity.  You possess the ability to MAKE results occur, but when you seek reassurance, you, instead, take the very action needed to cripple your results.  BE your own reassurance.  When you decide on a plan of action, know that it’s the right one and seek no one else’s approval on it.  The sheer act of asking for a sanity check, reassurance, a second opinion, an expert eye, etc etc, is an admission of even the slightest possibility of error, and has no room in the place of an infallible conqueror.  When the decision has been made by YOU, that is the assurance.

And this means, if you’re unwilling to make that decision, DON’T act until you are.  My goodness folks, nothing hinders results better than “committing” to a plan that you won’t actually commit to.  And I know that’s going to chap a bunch of readers out there, but I am telling you that it does not matter HOW well put together a plan is if the person executing it does not believe in it.  I know we want to think that science dictates belief is unnecessary for outcomes, and that a trainee that performs the best approach (as dictated by science) in their training will get better results than someone employing an inferior approach, but I’ve seen it first-hand enough to know that it simply is not true.  Programs that I’ve witnessed first-hand result in fantastic growth with the majority of trainees will fail catastrophically when a trainee sets out and says “I don’t really think this program will work, but I’ll give it a try because everyone says it will.”  The “everyone says it will” is the reassurance that trainee sought because they KNEW they were doing something wrong.  In turn, that reassurance was worthless, because the trainee STILL couldn’t commit themselves to the training and, in turn, could not get the benefits of it.  You need to find something you’re willing to sign off on, and then execute it with full faith and confidence.

No matter HOW much it upsets everyone else

Abandon all plans and actions that require reassurance.  Let THAT be your reassurance.  “If I need the approval of others, then this is not a good plan.”  And let the inverse be true as well: if it IS a good plan, it requires NO approval of others.  Hell folks, the majority opinion is worth so little that it honestly has an INVERSE value.  I’m at the point in my training career that, if I hear enough people say something is a good idea, I quit doing it.  I genuinely don’t know WHAT a scapula is, but I’ve heard so many weak people say that I’m supposed to retract it that I’m about to open up an anatomy textbook and learn some latin so I can find my scapula and detract it when I lift.  If the majority starts reassuring you on something, you KNOW you messed up.  And, in turn, if they start questioning things, there’s a fair chance you’ve made the right call.  Among the accomplished?  I’ve got a feeling a fair majority of them will say “if it works for you: keep doing it.” 

Isn’t that reassuring?