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Its even easier to fool yourself into thinking you can't handle things that actually can handle. At least when you take on something that's too much, there are

Its even easier to fool yourself into thinking you can't handle things that actually can handle. At least when you take on something that's too much, there are signs of failing or your wellbeing declining.

joe_the_user 13y ago
Its even easier to fool yourself into thinking you can't handle things that actually can handle. I don't know if that's true or not. It's probably too vague to be even true or false. But it also seems like a dangerous sort of symmetry to invoke because the consequences of going beyond your capacities tend to be a lot worse than the consequences of not quite reaching them. I recall you as fitness person from other discussion - what's worse, not stretching as much as your tendons allow or stretching more than your tendons allow? In the case of work, as noted by the people here mentioning studies, most people can push themselves for short periods. But that pushing is definitely going involving learning to ignore tiredness and such. But you take that skill and use it ignore your constant tiredness, you can get to a really bad place after a while. In other words, I disagree with any contention that a person's body provides a magic signal that distinguishes between "hard but you can handle it" and "too much for you, you must stop or suffer bad consequences". The degree to which people do harm themselves today shows this.
- stretchwithme 13y ago
  I guess if there are negative consequences and you aren't able to detect them and respond appropriately, then you'd not attempt anything. Its too dangerous for you.
  - joe_the_user 13y ago
    I'm saying that someone is going to attempt something that pushes them to significant physical limits, they need to have good controls. Feeling like you can do something should be supplement by some understanding. When I teach stretching and movement, I advice my student to only go to the edge of their "comfort zone" at any one point and I only teach certain stretches. It's known that most people's limberness can be gradually increased so that's relatively safe. It's pretty well known (see studies on this page) that most people can't "learn" to go without sleep and I wouldn't advice them to try to do so (the point of the article). And I can believe a few people who in the right place at the right time and brutally push themselves can get rich, rich, rich. That doesn't take away from the point of most people who work with extended years of sleep deprivation screwing themselves up (and this can include a fair fraction of the first group). Sure, push yourself to greatness. I like to push the quality of my activity, not the quantity anyway.

joe_the_user 13y ago

Its even easier to fool yourself into thinking you can't handle things that actually can handle. I don't know if that's true or not. It's probably too vague to be even true or false. But it also seems like a dangerous sort of symmetry to invoke because the consequences of going beyond your capacities tend to be a lot worse than the consequences of not quite reaching them. I recall you as fitness person from other discussion - what's worse, not stretching as much as your tendons allow or stretching more than your tendons allow? In the case of work, as noted by the people here mentioning studies, most people can push themselves for short periods. But that pushing is definitely going involving learning to ignore tiredness and such. But you take that skill and use it ignore your constant tiredness, you can get to a really bad place after a while. In other words, I disagree with any contention that a person's body provides a magic signal that distinguishes between "hard but you can handle it" and "too much for you, you must stop or suffer bad consequences". The degree to which people do harm themselves today shows this.

stretchwithme 13y ago
I guess if there are negative consequences and you aren't able to detect them and respond appropriately, then you'd not attempt anything. Its too dangerous for you.
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  I'm saying that someone is going to attempt something that pushes them to significant physical limits, they need to have good controls. Feeling like you can do something should be supplement by some understanding. When I teach stretching and movement, I advice my student to only go to the edge of their "comfort zone" at any one point and I only teach certain stretches. It's known that most people's limberness can be gradually increased so that's relatively safe. It's pretty well known (see studies on this page) that most people can't "learn" to go without sleep and I wouldn't advice them to try to do so (the point of the article). And I can believe a few people who in the right place at the right time and brutally push themselves can get rich, rich, rich. That doesn't take away from the point of most people who work with extended years of sleep deprivation screwing themselves up (and this can include a fair fraction of the first group). Sure, push yourself to greatness. I like to push the quality of my activity, not the quantity anyway.