Gemma Spake

Why bother trying so hard if every time I do achieve something, the goalposts shift, if I'm never going to be that person?

I think this logic comes into play, which is like,

You know, it's better not to try at all.

You know, I'd rather feel unexceptional because I didn't try than unexceptional because I did.

And like that has revealed my inadequacy.

This is called learned helplessness or a version of learned helplessness called self-handicapping.

So this term was coined in like the 60s, self-handicapping, learned helplessness, coined in the 60s by these two researchers who basically realized that

Sometimes people get so adjusted and so used to being dissatisfied every time they do try that they just stop trying.

Like they just realize that they're never going to be this extraordinary person.

So they don't even try to be ordinary in a way.

When they were testing this theory on humans, Selgeman, who was one of the researchers, he would subject participants to really loud, unpleasant noises using a lever that would not stop the sound.

So basically, there was a lever, they were told, I can't remember exactly, but essentially-

They were told that the lever would stop the sound and they were sitting in this room and the sound was really annoying, really frustrating.

In the first round, the people were pulling, pulling, pulling the lever.

It wasn't working.

In the second round, the lever was working.

But by this stage, they just kind of learned to adjust to the circumstances and they'd stopped believing that they could do anything to change it.

So none of them pulled the leather or like a very few of them did, even though like if they had tried again, it would have worked and the sound would have gone away.

They just learned and really leaned in, learned in to this sense of helplessness that like nothing is going to change for me.

The biggest result of this