Generally speaking, many don't look to science when being introspective (unless your field is in the area of science, of course). What can science teach us about personal growth and perseverance? A lot, actually. Personally, I think we can take a page from Schrodinger's cat and Pavlov's dog about grit and motivation.
Before we get scientific, let's do a little a refresher.
Schrodinger's cat is a thought experiment in which a cat is imagined to be in a box with some sort of radioactive material inside (cue the angry vegans). The belief is that so long as the box remains unopened, the cat can be considered both alive and dead. Science! But how does this relate to life?
What the living/dead cat demonstrates is that if you have a great idea but never implement it, then the idea is both a failure and a success. This goes for taking chances as well. Sometimes we let opportunities pass us by out of some sort of fear, whether it be fear of failure or doubt about our capabilities. I've been guilty of it myself. There have been times I haven't taken opportunities simply out of fear of rejection or failure, but in never trying or giving it a chance, what could have been floats in a limbo of could of, should of, would of. Looking back, what was the worst that could have happened? Maybe it wouldn't have worked out, maybe it would of. One thing's for sure, all those missed opportunities due to my own insecurities could have served a purpose, even, if it was to prove to myself that it was something I didn't want to do for the rest of my life. In other words, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So take a shot, it's 50/50 chance.
Next, we will revisit Pavlov's dogs. Pavlov conducted an experiment to conditionally stimulate a dog to drool at the ring of a bell. Conditional stimulus—in this case, the dog drooling—is triggered by an unconditional stimulus, the sound of the bell. Drooling in response to the sound of a bell didn't come naturally to the dog; Pavlov trained it to respond in that way by ringing a bell before feeding it, therefore, causing the dog to develop an unconscious response. What this implies is that we have the ability to train ourselves to respond differently to certain stimuli like stress or conflict. Like that dog, we are trained to react negatively to stressful situations by the norms of society. We are taught that stress is bad, period. However, what if instead we view it differently. What if we train ourselves to respond positively to stress. Instead of trigger flight or fight, we harness the "nervous energy" to push us to do better.
Allowing yourself to take on opportunities that take you out of your comfort zone and restructuring the way you react to certain stimuli can really help take you to new and exciting places. So, apply to those jobs where you may only meet half of the requirements, act upon all those great ideas kept hidden in your brain and recognize situations in which you can benefit from changing your reaction to a response. You may notice a big change.
