What doesn't kill you actually leaves you crippled so don't push yourself too hard.
If you are weak, skinny and try to lift 400lbs you will collapse with pernament injuries. Most people experiencing traumas they can't bear actually have more likely to turn crazy and damaged rather than strong. In fact stress physically damages our brains and hearts.
So baby steps motherfuckers, do only what you can physically and mentally bear. Learn to swim before throw yourself into oceans or be drowned and devoured by sharks. Good luck!
No they wouldn't, and for good reason. You don't grow in your comfort zone. Sure, you can't go out and run 13 miles if you haven't gone in a year, but if you can run 3, you're not going to improve unless you go out and decide to run 5, exhaustion be damned.
Self-improvement hurts. There's nothing for it.
That said, I also don't like this as a metaphor for mental and emotional trauma, because in PT, you're struggling to pick it up; in trauma, you can't put it down. Dealing with trauma is a matter of working through your feelings and being honest with yourself. Often that hurts, because the cyclical nature of these things is that some exterior source is at the top of the spiral, but the rest of it is a cycle of negative emotions that are directed at each other and ultimately at oneself: I'm hurting, and I feel weak for hurting, and humiliated for feeling weak, and angry at being humiliated, and silly for feeling angry, and angry for feeling silly, and so on.
Workings through trauma is a matter of being honest about that cycle, and all the feelings that come with it, and that is going to hurt. There's nothing for it.
No one is ever prepared for pain, and therefore no one is ever prepared for life. If you wait until you're ready, you'll die without moving.
Those upvotes triggered someone..
For the record.. If you’re not a runner and you push yourself to running 13 miles you’d severely injure yourself and hamper your training for weeks to come.
Even if your daily average is 3 miles and you run 7, you’ll still not improve as much as if you ran 4-5 consistently. “No pain, no gain” and “what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger aren’t the same”
Thats OPs point. You don’t have to be drowning in discomfort to improve. That’s also what a lot of cliche motivational quote fail to acknowledge.
Really good points here. I joined track in high school as someone who never exercised before and was running/jogging for a couple hours every day. It was nearly impossible to keep going from the pain in my legs. Now I walk weekdays and every other week try to up my time exercising. Nothing wrong with gradual success :)
You need to find that right balance. You can't push yourself to the extent that you'll burn out or won't stay motivated, but you definitely need to push yourself out of the comfort zone to see some growth.
The key to meaningful progression is not to work within your established comfort zone, but to find that Goldilocks zone that's outside your comfort zone but still inside what your body can sustain without permanent injury. Most workout cycles include a deload phase to allow your slower-developing tendons, ligaments, and bones to catch up to your muscles so you don't eventually sustain injuries that produce long-term damage.
does this apply for a job that you know is gonna be very hard? just jump in and deal with the pressure later?
Honestly, that's just a really general question, so it's hard to say, but on the whole I think that that's right. It's not getting less hard, nor are you going to be more prepared later.
Now this is to say, I don't think of running a marathon as an isolated hard thing. I think of the training for the marathon as the hard thing. Going from not running to running 26 miles is really, really hard. But you have to just start running and see what you can do, then go from there.
It's honestly a shit sub, this one is much more motivating
I also really appreciate the Jonathan Coulton quote "If it doesn't kill you it'll make you stronger, but if it kills you you'll be dead."
Ha! Or also, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but it almost kills you.” Really need to stress it almost kills you.
I was angry at myself and the world for not being the person I was supposed to be at 25 ( long story short I was disconnected fro my emotions) so I imploded some day.....my parents were fighting and I realized I couldn’t express what I was feeling, I got so angry inside that I was left paralysée partially on the face... I think I had a stroke.....so yeah.....maybe baby steps would have been better......but maybe it would have taken way longer for me to get where I am today, reconnecting myself with myself, with my emotions. So...yeah don’t push too hard but don’t be afraid either of trying
This is a commonly misunderstood quote attributed to Nietzsche. Yes, you can cripple yourself and experience terrible things, but out of that you can also experience Posttaumatic Growth. There is always a yin to the yang.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_growth
https://www.thebestbrainpossible.com/what-doesnt-kill-you-makes-you-stronger/
It's your life, make the decisions most relevant to you and your goals.
Yes that's what I believe in as well, there is always hope.
It would be terrible if you crippled yourself from pushing too hard, but I also think you would learn a tremendous amount from that experience continuing on into the future. It might even change you into an overall "better" person from the path that you were on. We have no way of knowing or predicting the future related to that.
Make your own decisions carefully and deliberately.
Decisions are soooo important, I've made major bad decisions that caused me years of pain and traumas, however I still believe nothing I've done is wasted, the mind just need time to heal and reintergrate before it could find sense in all past sufferings.
This is the Whole30 in a nut shell. Ppl who need to eat better start this Ultra strict diet that only lasts 30 days. So when they finish you’ll be sure they never do anything like that again. So stupid
I’d say that stress doesn’t physically damage our brains by itself. Too much stress, either all at once in a single big traumatic experience, or lots of it over a long period time will cause damage, but the right amount of stress under the right conditions will stimulate neurogenesis.
So we’re telling the full story if we focus on either one of those things, the truth is it’s more nuanced and there are other variables than just “stress is bad”. Because under other circumstances stress is actually good. So it’s not one or the other, it’s either, and it depends
You have to take the long view on improvement. If you improve only 1% per week, at the end of a year that's 52% better and more likely to have created a lasting, easily sustainable habit.
Like my grandpops always said, "what doesn't kill you makes you STRONGER. unless it causes you to contemplate dark existential realities that rip and tear at the very fabric of your morality & worldview, and you never recover" but he was a drunk lol.
Some people dont know when to quit and thats why they quit. Nobody decided to be better by staying in their comfort zone.
The first half of this title made me think I was on the Norm MacDonald subreddit for a second.
I got a different mindset. For me it’s “What doesn’t kill you dies horribly/gives you EXP” depending on the situation. Works for me hahahaha
Reading this post didn't kill me, what kind of crippling disability do I get?
Find the most you are capable of doing, and do a little more, or find your limit, and do a little less
Some trauma can be good for you, but, as you said, a person can only handle so much. Baby steps for sure 👌🏻
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