Author: couillard

Many of my clients (and many corners of my subconscious) think that in order to grow, we need to beat ourselves up, and deserve to suffer whenever we’re not good enough (which is most of the time). We think that if we’re not hard on ourselves, we will turn into blobs, the world will fall apart, and we’ll die and go to hell.

Essentially, we tend to use fear to motivate us into doing better work, accomplishing our goals, and growing in the ways we want to grow. For example, we beat ourselves up over imperfections, because we fear that if we don’t do so, we’ll never learn. We get caught up in believing that it’s OK to hate ourselves as long as that pushes us to grow into a better version of ourselves.

This way of thinking seems to work, at least on a superficial level. Domination, coercion, and exploitation can work in getting your way with others. It can even work in terms of forcing yourself to change. But is that the kind of relationship you want with yourself?

This fear-based approach leads to anxiety, self-loathing, and general suffering. Furthermore, this type of change is not sustainable. Think of the people who hate themselves into a smaller waist, only to gain all the weight back and then some couple months later. Here’s one example of the long list of scientific research that backs up the idea that self-criticism is no bueno.

The alternative to fear-based motivation is values-based motivation. Values-based motivation is when we stay focused on what’s important to us and use that to motivate our behavior. For example, if you’re trying to lose weight, you can focus instead on how being healthy is important to you. If you keep that in mind when you’re at the grocery store, you can buy foods that are in alignment with that value. If you keep that in mind throughout the day, you can follow through on your promise to go to the gym or do a workout at home.

So how do you put this into practice? My next few posts will get into some of the details that make this method much more effective. But here’s the big picture. When you want to make a change, ask yourself – what the values are behind this desire to change? Then anytime it’s relevant, remind yourself of those values and let them guide your decision about what action you want to take. Here’s a list of values for reference.

For example, if you’re trying to get back into exercising, maybe the value behind that is wanting to take better care of yourself, wanting to be a better model for your kid, or simply enjoying what your body can do. When it’s time to exercise and you find yourself resisting, you can ask yourself, what were my values again? What behavior is going to be in alignment with those values right now? Oftentimes simply remembering this will be enough to get you to do the thing you’re working on.

This probably won’t always work, however – mostly due to the fact that we’re sometimes unaware of the internal resistance and the decision making process to do or not do our target behavior. In the rest of the articles in this series, I’ll be talking about how to beef your awareness up without beating yourself up. Stay tuned for more!

I used to think I needed to have higher self-esteem in order to be successful in life. But according to the science, that’s simply not true:

“Laboratory studies have generally failed to find that self-esteem causes good task performance… Self-esteem has not been shown to predict the quality or duration of relationships… Leadership does not stem directly from self-esteem”

Why does this matter? Often we see growth in the following way: goal –> feel confident about it –> practice –> growth. We see that high self-esteem, that ‘evaluating ourselves positively’ as a necessary step. And so we work on self-esteem instead of the skill we actually want to develop – communication, playing guitar, or beating the last level in Mario (why is the last level so much harder than all the other ones?).

The problem is, working on self-esteem is unnecessary. Even if we can change it, it doesn’t help. And we end up wasting lots of time trying to control our thoughts and feelings with very little to show for it.

For example, I might think to myself, “Why do I even bother trying to write this post, I’m such a lousy writer, I might as well just give up.” If I believe self-esteem matters, then instead of writing, I might try to work on my self-esteem first. I might try to get rid of my negative thoughts, to improve my mood, to tell myself that, “doggone it, I am a good writer!” But the problem with all of these behaviors is that they take me away from doing what’s important to me – actually writing.

So if you’re still hooked on thinking you need to think positively about yourself before you can achieve growth, try to stop allowing that thought to guide your behavior. Instead, focus on the behavior that will move you toward actual skill development – practice.