Self-Talk? Anyone do this?
What all do you do to avoid accidents?
Like a said once before peformance-fatique-distractions lead to accidents.
Got any special tricks to help you thru the tricky bits?
This is a great question and a great thread Thomas.
I focus on the result I want and what it will take to get that result. I have read and heard that an inordinate number of ‘high wire acts’ and other cutting edge ‘performers’ that have died have first started to ‘flirt with’ or imagine their own demise (Mind drifting to a terminal result.) I have, partly for this reason, chosen not to spend much time watching titillating videos or reading detailed accounts of how to screw up a tree job and ones self. I picture and focus on the result I want. When my mind strays from that, I bring it back.
I purposely limit distractions that could lead me to miss something. And I have it be ok to just “bag it” on any given day when I feel I am about to go over my limit of distractions to “juggle” and still keep my focus. Interestingly, though I am willing to quit on any given work day and it is ok for me to do so, I can’t think of any times I have chosen to after going through my checklist of options. (I have told people if they wanted me to get the tree done they needed to stop laughing and talking so loudly etc..) Being sick with the flu or some such always equals no work for this reason for me.
I have done quit a few Tony Robbins programs where we prepped for and walked on fire as a metaphor for being able to do a thing you want to do in life. I like how he expressed one thing. After about an hour or hour and a half of detailed and elaborate explanations of the different theories that allow for a human being to walk on burning hot coals without having their feet melt he finally says, “I don’t care which theory you believe as long as you believe one of them.” I used to feel ‘‘indestructible” and have jumped from one tree to another untethered on a couple of adrenaline/testosterone induced occasions. I used to feel I could rip a tree apart with my bare hands. I used to equate myself to a machine in this way or that and I often used to think that I had conversations with death and that day at least, death blinked. Today I think more of “style and grace” that I bring to bear to get my result.
On some occasions when I think it’s really close or dicey I stop, I consider backing out, I think of alternate approaches or other possibilities, if I am committed to going forward I talk to God. I thank him for the life I have gotten to live, I sincerely tell him I appreciate it and wouldn’t want it any other way. Then I acknowledge - yes, that is a form of me begging for my life.... I start up the saw and let her rip with all of my senses functioning at their peak.
One of the biggest things I do to avoid accidents is I believe I CAN avoid accidents - and further, it is MY responsibility to do so. I have been surprised to come across thoughts expressed on the forums that provided for the idea that we will get hurt in our tree careers. Or that our bodies will break down. I flat out reject this line of thinking for myself. Instead I look for examples of safely working through a life career and having ones body function well till the day of ones death.