Beware psychological barriers

The concept of psychological barriers is well known in the realm of science. Recently, a marine biologist placed a shark into a large holding tank and then released several small fish into the tank. As you would expect, the shark quickly swam around the tank, attacking and eating the smaller fish.

The biologist then inserted a strong piece of clear fiberglass into the tank. This created a separate area on each side of the barrier. She then put the shark on one side of the fiberglass and a new set of bait fish on the other.

Again, the shark quickly attacked. This time, however, the shark slammed into the fiberglass divider and bounced off. Undeterred, the shark kept repeating this behavior every few minutes with no apparent luck. Meanwhile, the bait fish swam around unharmed in the safely partitioned area. Eventually the shark gave up.

This experiment was repeated several dozen times over the next few weeks. Each time, the shark got less aggressive and made fewer attempts to attack. Eventually the shark got tired of hitting the fiberglass divider and stopped attacking altogether.

The marine biologist then removed the fiberglass divider, but the shark didn’t attack. The shark was trained to believe a barrier existed between it and the bait fish. The bait fish swam wherever they wished, without having to be concerned about further attacks.

The Moral:

After experiencing setbacks and failures, many of us, emotionally give up and stop trying. We begin to believe that because we were unsuccessful in the past, we will always be unsuccessful; like the shark in the story. In other words, we continue to see a barrier in our heads, even when no ‘real’ barrier exists between where we are and where we want to go.

Enjoy Your Journey :)