Confronting Fears with Paradoxical Intention

SOF selection requires that you develop a close relationship with pain.

This doesn’t just mean lots of dramatic grimacing for the camera. Eventually, successful experiences teach us that pain can be just a signpost along a familiar path. It tells you something about where you are, but it’s not a stop sign or even a warning sign. It’s just a signal to be calibrated.

If the painful sensations of fatigue make you feel stressed and reactive and increase your desire to quit, then that stress response will worsen the feelings of fatigue. Pain triggers negative self-talk and shines the spotlight of your attention on your discomfort, which heightens your perception of pain, which turns up the volume on the self-talk, and on it goes.

Paradoxical intention is meant to break this cycle by having people try to do what holds them in fear. 

In this podcast, we explore this concept and how to apply it in your own life.