Image what it would feel like to be part of something that you could never talk about and then finding out 30 years later it wasn’t true. Or coming home from being on an extended assignment and not being able to tell your family about the most important thing that happened during your time away. And that is what happened on June 20th, 1970 when the USS Tautog Attack Submarine was trailing a Russian missile submarine (K-108) in the Pacific Ocean and they collided. Sonar operators on both subs heard noises sounding like the other sub had sunk. But instead of surfacing to search for survivors to exchange: name, rank, serial number, and insurance cards; they both hurried home and were told to never tell anyone. Then with the breakdown of the Soviet Union, the truth was revealed that both subs; while seriously damaged, made it back to home ports with no loss of life. Which gets to this Trail Tip about what False Beliefs are we believing now and how can we prevent them.
In hiking, a lot of my false beliefs are around the conditions; it’s too cold, too hot, too dark, too early, too cloudy, too far, too… Or thinking I’m not fast enough, I’m tired, or no one wants to hike with me. Then someone or some event pushes us over the hump, we go out and do it; then find ourselves catching a sun rise above the clouds on the Manitou Incline and saying to ourselves; “why didn’t I do this hike at this time years ago…” So what false beliefs are stopping you from getting out on the trails?
In our personal life, a lot of false beliefs come from the rushed judgements we make because we don’t have all the information or we don’t take time to get all the facts. Like the submarines that collided and didn’t stop to check on each other, we rush off and make our instant decisions that we carry around for years weighing us down. I remember laying on the ground after I broke my right tibia and fibula in 2013; immediately thinking I’ll never hike again and would have to use a cane; a belief I held for months. Family and friend relationships are damaged for years because we have made judgements without getting all the facts. We think it’s easier to carry false beliefs for years instead of taking the time to ask the hard questions right away. Or as Timothy Ferriss says “I believe success can be measured in the number of uncomfortable conversations we are willing to have.” What false beliefs are you carrying because you haven’t asked the hard questions?
In work, I think many false beliefs come from our lack of confidence in our abilities and skills. We don’t apply for the assignment, the new job, ask for help or start the new business because we think we will fail. So often we would rather settle for mediocre then aim for greatness. Then years later, we get a taste of what it would have been like, and then wonder why we wasted all those years. What false beliefs are holding you back in your career and what steps are you going to take to break out of them?
We all live with various false beliefs in our hiking, personal, and work lives. The first step is to acknowledge them and find a confidant that you can tell them to; someone who will hold you accountable to the actions you need to take to break free of them. Then create action plans and goals to dismantle these false beliefs. Doing these hard steps will set you free from the load of them on your mind and enable you to move forward to new levels of growth across these areas in your life.
For more information on this story of the USS Tautog; see the book “Blind Man’s Bluff, the untold story of American Submarine Espionage.”
Al Andersen 