Just finished watching the two season TV drama series “Pachinko” on Apple TV. It’s a story of a multi-generation Korean family that moves to Japan and covers the time period from the early 1900’s to the 1980’s. A few of the episodes take place during World War II, where it shows the family preparing for the Allied invasion by making bamboo poles into spears. They are told they must get ready for the invasion because the Allies will capture them and tear out their hearts. The Americans are seen as evil and barbaric. Lies told to the Koreans time and time again. At first, the lies don’t seem believable, but as they are told over and over again, they become more believable, are cemented in their hearts, and are taken for granted as Truth.
In hiking most of the lies I believe are focused on hikes I don’t think I can do, so I begin to tell myself I don’t care about doing Class 3 14er’s or any 14er’s for that matter. And then there are the local hikes like Cameron’s cone, a 7mile out and back with 4200 feet; meaning you climb 4200 feet in 3.5 miles. All hikes that I know I can train to do, but I make up stories to tell others why I can’t/don’t want to do them. So not only am I believing the lies I’m telling myself; but I’m also telling others my lies and getting them to believe the lies about me. Talk about a process that feeds on it’s self and makes the lies worse day by day.
In my personal life, there are lots of areas where I tell myself lies. Areas such as family relationships where we don’t speak to each other for months and years because of simple misunderstanding that can began to be healed when there is a willingness to start talking to each other. And then there is the social media where we start doing the comparisons of other people’s lives versus my own and I tell myself the lies that I don’t measure up to others.
In my professional life, I tell myself that I don’t need this certification or “that” certification. And I’ll get along fine without it, yet I know it can make a difference in my professional growth and open new “doors” for me. A specific example is the Project Management Professional certification. For the past 7 years I’ve told myself: I can’t afford it (versus there are scholarships to be found), I don’t have time (versus what else have I been doing during the past 7 months of unemployment), I don’t need it (versus half the jobs openings I’ve seen have PMP certification as a requirements), or it is too hard to get (versus there are excellent local trainers who have very high success rates.
There are two quotes that come to mind when I think about lies I believe about myself; both from Timothy Ferriss in his book The 4-Hour Workweek. 1) “Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre.” 2) “I believe that success can be measured in the number of uncomfortable conversations you’re willing to have.” Uncovering lies in our lives is hard work and not something you should do by yourself. Who are the people in your life that can help you uncover and bring to light the lies you are believing? And when are you going to meet with them to start having these uncomfortable conversations about the lies you are believing?
This and other “Trail Tips” can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/alfredandersen and www.alandersen.co
Also, a collection of my first 101 tips have been published in a book and is available at Amazon or you can contact me to get an autographed copy of the book.
Al Andersen 