During a research experiment a marine biologist
placed a shark into a large holding tank and then released
several small bait fish into the tank.As you would expect, the
shark quickly swam around the tank, attacked and ate the smaller
fish.The marine biologist then inserted a strong piece of clear
fiberglass into the tank, creating two separate partitions. 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 to no avail. Meanwhile, the bait fish swam
around unharmed in the second partition. Eventually, about an
hour into the experiment, 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 the bait fish, until eventually the shark got tired of
hitting the fiberglass divider and simply 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, so the
bait fish swam wherever they wished, free from
harm.
The moral: Many of us, after experiencing
setbacks and failures, emotionally give up and stop trying. Like
the shark in the story, we believe that because we were
unsuccessful in the past, we will always be unsuccessful. 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.