Author: drglenndoyle

There are lots of things that can feel out of our control. 

Memories that turn into flashbacks. Anger that blossoms into rage. Depression that spirals into despair. Tiredness that sinks into fatigue. 

When we start investigating ways we can possibly keep these things from ruining our lives, we often come up against a brick wall when we realize that so much feels so out of our control. 

It can feel overwhelming when we come up against this wall. It often makes us want to give up the project of personal growth or therapy altogether, and just retreat back into a cloistered existence where the main objective is to get through the day hurting as little as possible. 

If you’ve experienced this, you’re not alone. Many people find themselves confronted with the wall of how out-of-control our emotional and physical existences seem to be. 

Therein lies one of the great paradoxes of personal growth and therapy: in order to have any hope of mastering the knowledge and skills necessary to get our lives back on track, we need to learn to deal with that feeling of powerlessness. 

We need to accept that, at least for a minute, we are going to feel powerless, and maybe a little hopeless and alone. 

But there’s also something we need to accept in this process that seems even more difficult for many people to accept: the fact that because we FEEL powerless doesn’t mean we ARE powerless. 

Because it FEELS like our memories, our anger, our depression, and our fatigue are beyond our control, that doesn’t mean they truly ARE. 

It may be true that we don’t YET have the tools we need in order to change our lives…but that doesn’t mean those tools don’t exist. 

Many people resist embracing these truths. 

For some people, accepting that they can develop knowledge and skills that will eventually put them in charge of their emotional lives feels tantamount to blaming themselves for not ALREADY having that knowledge and those skills. If those skills exist, they reason, it’s my fault for not already having them— thus my misery is on me. 

This is what cognitive therapists call a “personalization distortion.” 

Why on earth would it fall on you to have already mastered skills you didn’t even know existed? 

That’s like blaming a child who hasn’t yet learned to read, for not knowing how to read. I.e., the fact that a kid doesn’t yet know how to read doesn’t mean they can’t learn to read…and it would be silly to expect them to know how to read without instruction and practice. 

Believe it or not, the various skills that we need in order to grow as a person and/or recover from emotional difficulties aren’t “common knowledge.” 

We are not, as children, taught particularly strong emotional regulation skills. 

(Many of us, as children, were taught and rewarded for OVER-regulation of our emotions…but that’s not the same thing.) 

Accepting the fact that there are things we can do to feel and function better is NOT the same as blaming ourselves for currently being miserable. 

Nor is it a legitimate pathway to blaming anybody else for their misery, although there is definitely a subset of people who love trying to blame vulnerable people for their own unhappiness. 

The fact that tools exist to help us live more livable lives is useless to us unless we happen to have also come across the resources that teach us those skills and show us how to use them in the real world. And the fact is, many people who do end up connecting with those resources often end up doing so by chance. 

They happen to stumble across the right blog. 

They happen to get hooked up with the right therapist at the right time. 

They happen to read the right book which happened to be on the shelf that happened to be at eye level. 

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that your difficulties have to be either beyond your ability to deal with them, or else it’s somehow your fault that you’re not yet dealing with them in an optimal way. That’s a false choice. 

Instead, err on the side of assuming that every problem you’re facing may have a solution. 

If you haven’t found the solution to the problems facing you yet, err on the side of assuming that you simply haven’t stumbled across the right resources at the right time— and keep looking. 

It’s okay to feel intimidated when you look at the array of stressors crowding in on you. It’s normal. ANYBODY would be intimidated to be facing such adversarial forces. 

But don’t assume that those feelings— being intimidated, even being discouraged or feeling momentarily hopeless— actually mean that you cannot learn the skills and use the tools that truly are out there to improve your life. 

Feeling powerless is not the same as being powerless. 

Repeat this as necessary. 

 

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If you insist on clinging to the metaphor of yourself as a warrior, don’t be surprised when your entire life feels like a war. 

Maybe that’s okay to you. Maybe, for that matter, the reason you chose to self-identify as a “warrior” in the first place was because life ALREADY felt like a war, and you needed to adapt to your circumstances. 

Branding yourself a “warrior” is certainly preferable to branding yourself a perpetual victim of your circumstances. It’s proactive, and carries with it overtones of fearlessness and passion. 

What we need to remember when we’re choosing which metaphors we embrace for ourselves and our lives is, life requires a great deal of flexibility. 

Metaphors that are useful in one context sometimes don’t translate well to other circumstances. 

You may have to be a “warrior” when functioning at work or when confronting aspects of your past in therapy. But to take that metaphor of self-identification into your intimate relationships may be asking for a level of tumult that you don’t need or want in your close connections. 

“Warriors” primarily problem-solve by fighting. They use their training and passion to identify and nullify threats. 

You probably wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with someone whose primary mission in life was to seek out and deal with threats or was most comfortable on the attack. 

Be a “warrior” in those times and places when it pays to be one. But remember that the “warrior” side of you is, in fact, only one aspect of the complex human being you are— and you are free to connect with and bring out other aspects of yourself as needed. 

What other aspects of you are there? 

Who are you beyond the tough exterior you’ve had to develop in order to survive life so far? 

What aspects of yourself might you have forgotten about in your struggle to make it through? 

Who is in there besides the proud, passionate “warrior?” 

Is there a lover inside of you, who values romance, sensuality, and passion? 

Is there a priest, monk, or hermit, who values contemplation and who holds wisdom? 

Is there a nurturer or caretaker inside of you, who creates meaning from the role he or she is able to play in making life more livable for those close to him or her? 

The fact of the matter is, there are multiple versions of us inside us all. 

When we grow up struggling with traumatic or dysfunctional relationships, emotional difficulties like depression or anxiety, or physical limitations such as disability or illness, we tend to kind of phase out multiple “layers” of who we are and focus on the tough, proactive “selves” inside of us. Pushing aside the vulnerable versions of ourselves for the tough, proactive versions is a defense mechanism we use to increase the odds that we’ll survive day to day. 

The thing is, though, we can get kind of “stuck” in those tough, proactive versions of ourselves after awhile and forget that there are many layers to who we are. Many layers that require acknowledgement if we are to feel whole.

As far as I’m concerned, the process of healing is in large part about becoming flexible and intentional about the metaphors and images we all use to construct our reality. 

Trauma, depression, and anxiety have a way of convincing us we have to live life reactively— that all we have to work with is what life or our experiences handed us. Often negative thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and images. 

It’s my view that, yes, we have to react and respond to those negative things. But we can also proactively use our own images, metaphors, and narratives to construct a different reality. 

You may need your “warrior self” to endure a subset of your memories. You may even need your “warrior self” to endure a subset of your current relationships and circumstances. I’m not in any way suggesting you leave your “warrior self” aside. 

I’m saying that flexibility in toggling between our various “selves” is a skill that can be cultivated and used judiciously and intentionally. 

Be your “warrior self” when you need to. 

But be willing and able to be your “lover self” when you want to. 

Be willing and able to access your inner priest, monk, or Jedi, as your life and relationship needs warrant. 

Healing is about learning to use the vast array of images, voices, and identities available to you at any given time as a function of your magnificent mind. 

Be the “you” you choose to be— based on your real needs in the real world. 

 

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Our success will largely be determined by how we handle relapses and setbacks. 

Yes, yes, I know. The “positive thinking” paradigm insists that we shouldn’t even acknowledge the POSSIBILITY of relapse or setbacks, because to acknowledge them is to devote energy to them and make them more likely. 

Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a place for positive thinking in personal development. But let me assure you: if you don’t have a strategy in place for handling relapse and setbacks BEFORE they occur, you’re going to be at their mercy once they invariably DO occur. 

The fact of the matter is, relapse and setbacks really aren’t that big a deal. 

But they FEEL like a big deal, and that’s one of the reasons why they tend to be so deadly. 

Anything that FEELS like a big deal can knock us off our game plan and make us waste valuable time getting back in the driver’s seat. 

Relapse and setbacks are among the most common things to happen to anybody who is in recovery or trying to improve their lives. Anything that happens as commonly as relapse and setbacks CAN’T be that big of a deal, because if they really were such a big deal, no one would ever succeed after them. 

Why do we let relapse and setbacks get to us so much? 

Because most of us have some very well-worn conditioning in our heads about what relapse and setbacks MEAN. 

Many of us think relapse and setbacks MEAN we can’t eventually succeed. 

Many think relapse and setbacks MEAN that we’re going to lose way more ground in our project than is actually probable. 

Many addicts in particular think relapse MEANS that they’re simply not wired for sobriety; the fact that they were unable to stay clean means they’ll never be truly clean. (This train of thought is unfortunately encouraged by some peoples’ rigid interpretation of the Twelve Step tradition, which emphasizes and publicly celebrates “clean time” in very specific terms of days, months, and years.)

We live in a culture that values the ability to get things right, preferably the first time. We worship competence and expertise. If someone screws up or if things don’t go as planned, we consider this a mark of diminished competence or expertise. 

That is, our brains get conditioned to associate relapse and setbacks with failure. 

And Lord knows we have a cultural phobia of failure. 

I’m certainly not gong to try to sell you on the idea that relapse and setbacks are fun or desirable. They’re often not. If we can avoid relapsing and experiencing setbacks, of course we should. The GOAL of doing anything is to get it “right.” 

But the fact that things don’t go as planned most often means that, well, things didn’t go as planned. 

It doesn’t mean they won’t go as planned in the big picture. 

It certainly doesn’t mean you’re “wired” to fail at your project. 

It doesn’t mean anything beyond what it means in the very short-term, specific context in which it occurred. 

Taking as an example relapse: most relapses happen not because of “big picture” variables, but due to combinations of little, daily, micro-variables. Usually a particularly stressful situation combined with unusually easy access to one’s substance of choice. When those variables find themselves in the same room together, it’s an easy recipe for relapse. 

No more, no less. 

What tools do we need in order to handle relapse and setbacks such that they are kept in their proper perspective? 

The tool of self-talk is your first line of defense. 

Self-talk bolstered by self-compassion, realistic expectations of yourself and others, and consistent but supportive personal accountability is the beginning of making yourself emotionally bulletproof. 

Notice what you say to yourself when you relapse or experience a setback. 

Notice if you’re talking to yourself in black and white terms. 

Notice if you’re talking to yourself in overgeneralized terms, assuming that this situation truly represents ALL situations you might face. 

I can’t say it enough: it matters what we say to ourselves. 

Relapse isn’t the end of the world. Setbacks are not the end of the world. 

Don’t let anyone convince you you need to be afraid of either. 

 

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We never know how much time we have left. 

That’s not a feel-good self-help clche’. It’s a literal truth. 

People are snatched from their lives at relatively young ages for a variety of reasons. People who by rights should have lived shortened lives live into relatively older age. There are no guarantees about how long we have left. 

We THINK we have a fairly good idea of how long we MIGHT have left. We tell ourselves we’re young, middle aged, or old. But really all we’re doing is just observing the average lifespans of other humans and making a guess. We don’t actually know. 

And yet: how often do we let those imaginary labels— young, middle aged, old— get into our heads and impact how we feel, how motivated we are, what we’re willing to plan for and devote effort to? 

Whatever age you happen to be, you have the same twenty four hours that everybody of every other age has available to you today. 

Whatever age you happen to be, there are people who are going to die before you and people who are going to die after you. 

Whatever age you happen to be, you still have values and goals that require your attention. 

Whatever age you happen to be, there are still knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will make your life more livable. 

It’s never too late to improve your day to day life. Again, that’s not just a feel-good cliche’. It’s a fact. 

It’s true that people in different age brackets tend to prioritize different kinds of goals. It’s also true that human biology makes it more practical to pursue certain kind of goals at different life stages than others. It’s silly to pretend otherwise. 

That said, a large subset of people fall into the trap of believing that because the culture around them has decided they aren’t in the ideal advertising demographic, that they’ve somehow been “passed by” by the world. 

There are people who believe that because they’re not as young as they once were (NOBODY is as young as they once were, incidentally) they’ve somehow “missed their chance” to live a life of pleasure and purpose. 

That’s not true. It’s just a narrative. 

Granted, it’s a narrative that gets pushed by popular culture a lot, because popular culture has always been preoccupied with identifying the “next big thing” that will be profitable. That is to say, media and entertainment companies have always been disproportionately interested in what motivates younger people to spend money. 

No matter your age, you wake up every day with the same challenge we all face: how am I going to nudge toward my goals and life my values in this twenty four hours? 

No matter your age, you wake up every day with the same fundamental questions we all face: what do I want to feel? What are my needs? 

Shifting your focus from what the culture or the people around you think you “should’ want and need, based on your age or generation, and refocusing on your unique understanding of what YOU want and need, is super important to building and maintaining our self-esteem. 

If you’re reading these words, you’re still in the game. No matter how it feels, your clock hasn’t run out. 

You are more than an advertising demographic. 

You are more than the cultural attitudes toward your generation. 

You have things to offer the world and other people, just like everybody of every age and generation does. 

How others view you based on your age or generation might be an inconvenience or hassle. But it’s far deadlier if we let the views and attitudes of others creep into our heads and become our OWN estimation of our worth. 

Remember that you are you. You are still a work in progress. You are still learning, maturing, figuring out what you want and need and value on a day to day basis. 

Remember that you STILL need to develop the skills necessary to make your life more livable. 

Remember that you CAN still develop skills to make your life more livable. 

Age is more than a number. It does have real world implications. But it’s also not the defining statistic so many people assume it is, either. 

Don’t sweat the time you have left. Because you don’t know, and you’re not going to know.

Focus on this twenty four hours. 

No matter how old you are, you have TODAY. 

 

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Communication matters. 

How you communicate to others matters. 

How you communicate to yourself very much matters. 

We’re communicating all the time, both to ourselves and to others. We don’t even need to be talking. Our expressions, our body language, the background noise going on in our heads, our choices. They all communicate to us and to the people around us who we are, what we’re all about, what’s important to us, what reality is all about to us. 

The problem is, the vast majority of our communication, we don’t think all that much about. 

Sure, we think about some aspects of our communication, especially to others. We agonize over how to word emails and rehearse how to say certain things to certain people. Many of us spend an awful lot of time thinking, maybe even obsessing, about the impression we’re making on others. 

Many of us spend more time than we’d like to admit crafting social media posts. 

But that communication that we pay so much attention to is rarely the communication that is most important. 

Most people pay precious little attention to the communication that happens inside our heads— to ourselves, from ourselves. 

Which is a shame, because it’s that communication— the communication that is received, processed, and invested in by an audience of one— that overwhelmingly has the greatest impact on our lives. 

What comprises the communication that happens inside our heads? The communication that we transmit from ourselves, to ourselves? 

When events happen in our lives, from the mundane to the profound, we are tasked with deciding what those events mean. 

We have to figure out what the events of our lives imply, and how we’re expected to respond. This can only happen with dialogue within our own noggins. 

Think of your internal communication as a constant stream of questions and answers going back and forth within your own head— and the vast majority of this back-and-forth happens outside of our awareness. 

“What does this mean? How should I respond? What is needed here? What are the implications of this? What do I need relative to this?” 

Our brains are essentially designed as question asking-and-answering machines. It’s literally how we think: we ask and answer questions of ourselves, all day every day. We communicate with ourselves all day, every day, whether we know it or not. 

Where does our brain get its answers from, then? 

Our brain searches for answers to the never-ending stream of questions in the past. 

Our brain searches for answers in our beliefs. 

Our brain searches for answers by consulting what it believes to be true about others who share our values systems or backgrounds. 

All of which is to say: if we’ve been hurt by trauma in our pasts; if our beliefs are distorted by depression or anxiety; if we have an over-reliance on the thoughts and opinions and judgements of others…the answers that our brains furnish us won’t be the highest quality. 

The answers our brains give us to these important questions will be tainted, contaminated, an distorted by the biases, inaccuracies, and pathologies of the material our brains consult in order to communicate answers to our questions. 

Do you begin to see why it’s so important that we take conscious control of how we talk to ourselves— and how we talk back? 

Almost every form of empirically validated psychotherapy, from cognitive therapy to psychoanalysis, depends heavily on us becoming aware of our internal communication and learning to direct it in ways that are congruent with our health, goals, and values. 

One of the few relatively original contributions I’ve made to the art and science of therapy is a method of internal communication among dissociative self-states in people who have been badly traumatized. My method hinges on acknowledging, honoring, and working with parts of ourselves that have been alienated and that “hold” various feelings and memories. Only later did I realize that this is a very necessary skill for everyone to develop, regardless of their trauma history. 

It’s really, really hard to build a quality life without quality internal communication. 

The good news is: becoming aware of how we talk to ourselves is a skill that is very learnable. 

As with most communication, getting better at internal communication starts with listening. 

I know, easier said than done. 

But super, super important to do. 

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Focus on the interval of time you can wrap your brain around. 

Many people get overwhelmed in therapy or personal development because they think of it as a process of dramatically transforming their entire life— forming new attitudes and habits that they’ll have to maintain from here on out, for years. And years. And years. 

When you tell your brain that the way it’s been conditioned to respond and function has to dramatically, fundamentally change, and it’s going to have to function in a new and unfamiliar way, and it’s going to have to keep up that pattern for years…and years…and years…your brain is very likely going to freak out. 

It’s not that your brain doesn’t want a better life for you. It’s that your brain is a realist. 

Your brain knows that sweeping changes are hard to maintain for long periods of time. And your brain is right: making a huge change and expecting that change to stick for the long haul, especially when we’re inexperienced with the change, is a tall order. 

Imagining staying sober when your primary coping mechanism has been a habit or substance is overwhelming enough. People in recovery often have trouble imagining staying sober for another minute, let alone years into the future. The same holds true for anyone trying to make changes in well-established, over conditioned behavioral patterns. 

Imagining keeping those uncomfortable changes up over a long period can be a discouraging, depressing thing. 

The good news is, there’s no real reason to imaging keeping those changes up over the long haul. 

There’s no reason to imagine NEVER having your substance again. 

There’s no reason to imagine NEVER engaging in your self-defeating behavior again. 

All you need to think about is however long you can think about. 

Can you realistically imagine not taking a drink for the next ten seconds? Then start there. 

Can you realistically imagine using your day planner to plan out the next three hours? Then start there. 

Can you realistically imagine exercising for ten minutes? Start there. 

Can you realistically imagine going twenty minutes without cutting yourself? Then start there. 

Can you realistically imagine going thirty minutes without killing yourself? Then start there. 

Whatever interval of time seems realistic for you— even if it’s a period of seconds to minutes— then start there. Then when the next interval comes around, deal with that interval then. 

Whereas your brain might balk at making certain changes “for the rest of your life,” it’ll usually make a deal with you to try something out for a specific, relatively shorter, manageable period of time. 

Part of the skill of internal communication is learning how to deal with your brain when it’s developed certain habits and dependencies as a way to cope. Your brain didn’t evolve addictions and self-defeating habits just for the hell of it or to make you miserable. It developed those patterns to defend against uncomfortable feelings and memories. So when you ask it to give up those coping patterns, it gets scared and defensive…and you need to deal with that reality. 

Asking a scared, defensive brain to give up its security blankets indefinitely is usually a recipe for frustration and relapse. 

On the other hand, asking a scared, defensive brain to tentatively try out some new patterns— with compassion and empathy for what that brain is going through— is a more realistic, more doable approach. 

Using specific time windows in which to experiment with new behaviors can often open the door to forming new habits in a way that is less overwhelming and more productive than trying to induce “shock and awe” in our nervous systems by making too many changes or incredibly dramatic changes all at once. 

It’s odd, how often people think they need to make dramatic changes all at once. Our addictions, emotions, and habits didn’t develop all at once; it’s unreasonable to expect them to change all at once. 

Recovery is a process of finding what works, minute by minute, and progressively making the kind of little changes we can realistically live with. 

We need to trust that the little changes will all add up to significant changes over time. 

And the best way to ensure that the little changes “stick” and add up to bigger changes is to make the changes little enough that we can imagine wrapping our brains around them without flipping out. 

Just focus on the interval you can realistically imagine. 

Let the next one take care of itself. 

 

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You’ve heard it said that “hard work pays off.” I tend to agree with this— generally. 

The thing is, there are lots of ways to work “hard.” And not all of them “pay off.” 

Not all of them can possibly pay off, when you think about it, insofar as there are plenty of people in the world who are working equally hard, but at cross purposes. If “hard work” was all that was needed to succeed, everyone would. And we know that’s not the case. 

“Working hard” is often very helpful on our personal development journeys. I consider diligent effort to be a tool, one of many that we have to learn and use wisely. 

That is to say: if you’re going to work hard, make sure you’re working smart. 

If you’re going to work hard, make sure you’re achieving results. 

If you’re going to work hard, make sure you’re heading in the right direction. 

The engine of a car can work plenty hard if it’s revved up to a hundred miles an hour— but all that hard work won’t do it much good if it’s pointed in the wrong direction. 

And why would a car be heading a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction? Often, because its driver didn’t consult a map, and hasn’t been paying enough attention to the landmarks they’re passing to know that they’re lost. 

We tend to glorify “hard work” in our culture. We consider the willingness to work hard a marker of good moral character. We tend to trust people who are hard workers more than people we don’t consider hard workers— they often strike us as more honest and virtuous than those we consider slackers. 

There’s an extent to which the willingness to work hard is certainly admirable, insofar as it’s not easy. 

But the fact is, people who are using “hard work” are simply utilizing one tool from their tool box that they happen to be good at using. 

What good is using the tool of “hard work” if we’re not also using the tool of “sensitivity to results?” 

What good is using the tool of “hard work” if we’re not also using the tool of “willingness to adjust?” 

People who are convinced that “hard work” is the key to the kingdom of results in and of itself are often faced with a harsh reality with their work is met with less success than they’d prefer. 

Often when people’s “hard work” doesn’t pay off, they get angry. They feel that because they used the tool of “hard work,” then they “deserve” a certain result. 

Unfortunately, life has a tendency not to care about what we “deserve.” 

Life rewards those who develop their skills and use their tools judiciously. 

(Life also has an annoying tendency to disproportionately reward those who are in the right place at the right time— but that falls squarely under the heading of “things we can’t control.”)

My point with all of this is, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that “hard work” is all you need in order to succeed. It’s a tool without which it tends to be more difficult to succeed— but it is one tool among a handful of important tools. 

Just like any tool, it’s important to know when and how to utilize the tool of “hard work.” 

If you use the tool of “hard work” in times and places when it’s not the tool that is called for, it’s very easy to burn yourself out. 

If you fail to use the tool of “hard work” in times and places when it IS the tool that’s called for, you’re going to get out-hustled. 

Tools can be tricky things to manage. They can make, say, building a house a lot easier— in fact, it’s hard to build a house WITHOUT using tools. 
But they can also smash your thumbs if you’re not using them mindfully. 

There are a lot of people out there who like to shame people for their supposed aversion to “hard work.” In their model of the world, the main reason why people aren’t succeeding is because they’re simply not working hard enough (this is connected to what I mentioned earlier, about “hard work” being connected to virtue in many peoples’ minds). 

I’m gong to suggest a different hypothesis: if you’re not succeeding at the level you prefer, your lack of “hard work” MAY be contributing. 

But it may also be your lack of another skill or tool as well. 

Think of “hard work” as a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. 

When you need the right tool for the right job, you definitely need to be able to pull it out of your toolbox. 

But make sure you’re stacking that toolbox with an array of tools for an array of purposes— and, even more important, make sure you’re developing enough understanding of and experience with your tools in order to be able to use them well. 

 

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The project of personal development entails paying attention to two variables: “what works for most people,” and “what works for me.” 

You’re doing yourself a disservice by disregarding either of these variables. 

However, most personal growth gurus and teachers focus almost exclusively on one or the other. 

It’s odd. You’d think if they were so cosmic, they’d know we really do need both. 

Why do we need both? 

“What works for most people” is important to pay attention to because human beings tend to have things in common. 

We tend to have the same types of nervous systems, generally speaking. We tend to have things in common when it comes to how we respond to reward and punishment. Our brains almost all run on basically the same neurotransmitters. Our bodies almost all require fundamentally similar nutrition and rest to function. 

“What works for most people,” when it comes to emotional and psychological development, is laid out in the reams and reams and reams of psychological and behavioral research my field has amassed in the last several centuries. 

It’s an imperfect body of work, the psychological research, I’ll give you that. But the fact is research psychologists have conducted enough studies and replicated enough results that we really do know a lot more than you might think about “what works for most people.” 

Why would you ignore that, the way many self-help teachers like to? 

Granted, the research is often not sexy; it often doesn’t lend itself to the, uh, creative sensibilities of a subset of people who prefer more metaphysical explanations for why humans do what we do; and it often confirms things that we already know. 

But ignoring the psychological research— “what works for most people”— sets us up to somehow believe that we are fundamentally different from the vast majority of our fellow humans…and I assure you, no matter how alone or special or alien you feel, you’re not that different from your fellow humans. 

“What works for me,” however, is important to pay attention to for a different reason: because no matter how similar you might be to your fellow human beings, your mileage is absolutely going to vary when it comes to how helpful any given tool will be. 

You have a history of associations, experiences, rewards and punishments that are unlike anybody else in the history of humanity. 

No one besides you occupies the highly individualized world you’ve built in your brain and mind. 

While you may be similar to your fellow human beings in that you respond to the same forces of reinforcement and punishment— and again, I assure you, that is the case— you have an unquestionably unique matrix of meaning that determines what you, specifically, find reinforcing and punishing. 

Why would you want to ignore that, the way many professional therapists do? 

Granted, professional therapy often falls into the trap of assuming that because humans are fundamentally similar, they must all then be the SAME, and because we’re “scientists,” we need to assume everybody is the SAME, unless we have empirical evidence to the contrary. 

Failure to take into account both extremes— “what works for most people” and “what works for me” — accounts for many, many therapeutic and personal development failures. 

On your own journey, one skill that is imperative to develop is the willingness and ability to flip back and forth, as needed, between considering “what works for most people” and “what works for me.” 

We need to be willing to take either approach when trying to understand an emotion or behavior. 

We need to be willing to take either approach when trying to create a useful plan of action. 

We need to deeply accept that we are both part of the human species and also a unique organism that has never existed before we, personally, were born. 

The skill of “flexibility of perception and approach” is a game changer. 

It allows us to both take advantage of the collective wisdom of the behavioral science paradigm— and also the years of data you have collected over the course of a lifetime of being YOU. 

If you’ve been reading me for any length of time, you know I don’t believe in ignoring any valid set of data. 

Be a scientist. Use all the available data. And be smart enough to know when to take a macro-approach…and when to reel it in to the population of “you.” 

 

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I don’t think you “deserve” a good life. 

I don’t think you “deserve” a bad life, either. 

I don’t think you have a “birthright” to happiness, nor do I think your “birthright” is misery. 

Whether you think you, or anyone else, “deserves” happiness or has a “birthright” of success…those questions are emphatically above my pay grade. Philosophers, theologians, and other people much smarter than I am have been thinking deeply about those questions for centuries. 

What I do know is the practical, day to day mechanics of constructing a better life. 

And it’s my experience that when we get overly preoccupied by what we “deserve” as our “birthright”…our heads aren’t in the place we need them to be in order to create a better life in the real world. 

When an elite athlete goes out onto the playing field thinking that they “deserve” a victory because they’re simply a “better” competitor than their opponent…then they’re not focused on the sequences and skills they need to be focused on in order to win. 

When a political candidate assumes their victory is assured because they “deserve” it, being much more qualified and intelligent than their opponent…then they’re often not focused on the strategies and efforts they’re going to need to turn out their voters and persuade the electorate. 

Life, as it turns out, doesn’t seem to care what we think we “deserve.” 

It doesn’t care what we think our “birthright” is. 

Focusing on what we “deserve,” far more often than not, pumps us up with a sense of entitlement that distracts us from the real world mechanics of how do we live our values and pursue our goals TODAY. 

Understand: I’m not saying your birthright ISN’T greatness. 

I’m not saying that humans don’t “deserve” to be happy, in the abstract. 

What I am saying, though, is that it matters where our head is, day to day.  It matters where our focus is. 

Where I want your focus, day to day, is how you’re going to make today work. 

Today. This day. 

Not the rest of the week, month, or year. Not the rest of your life. 

What are your goals and values that you’re going to act on TODAY? 

What are the practical, down to earth, doable ways you’re going to act on those goals and values, TODAY? 

That’s where I want your head. Not in a philosophical reverie about how you “deserve” to be lauded or punished. 

The fact is, for many reasons, we simply don’t get what we think we “deserve,” for better or worse. 

I’ve been in professional and personal relationships where I was certain I “deserved” better treatment than I was getting. I was thoroughly convinced, in fact, that I had “earned” the right to be treated better than I was being treated. 

Guess how much it mattered, what I thought I “deserved?” 

Eventually we come to the realization that it simply doesn’t matter what we think we “deserve.” What matters is what we’re willing to do, today, to live our values and nudge toward our goals. 

If my work with patients and clients can be summed up succinctly, it would be in the statement “Get your head out of the clouds, and focus on the mechanics of how to make TODAY work.” 

The fact is, whether we are right or wrong about what we think we “deserve,” what our “birthright” is, we still have to identify strategies and skills to make it through this twenty four hours. 

No “birthright” is going to use your skills for you.

No level of “deservingness” is gong to free you from the necessity of being clear about who you are and what you’re working toward, today, here in the real world. 

Acknowledge what you think you “deserve,” if you must. 

But then go out and handle THIS day, THIS day right in front of you, one minute, one problem, one skill, one task, one goal at a time. 

 

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Our metaphors matter. They direct our focus. 

One of the reasons I so often speak in terms of training and coaching is because it’s a metaphor I find useful in directing the focus of my “athletes.” 

It’s my experience that many patients and clients find therapy and personal development daunting because it’s as if they’re being asked to develop a skillset that will handle EVERY PROBLEM THEY ENCOUNTER FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. Or they’re being asked to FIGURE OUT THE WHOLE “LIFE” THING. Or they’re trying to FIX THEIR LIFE. 

I mean…woof. Who wouldn’t be intimidated if that’s how you’re approaching the task of therapy or personal development? 

I point them in a different direction— instead of trying to tackle this big, overwhelming thing of FIGURING OUT LIFE, I encourage them to think of our work together as a coaching relationship. 

They’re an athlete, I’m their coach. 

Their life goals are the “score” of the “game” they’re playing. 

In order for the “game” to make sense, the scoring system has to be specific and make sense. It would make no sense to send an athlete out on the field with no idea how to score points, would it? 

This is why, in their work with me, my patients are asked to get very specific about their goals, and about the little goals that lead up to their goals— if we’re going to “train” properly, an “athlete” needs to know how to score and what tasks are required to get them past the goal line. 

The metaphor of me and my patients as “coach” and “athletes” also extends to the idea of “training.” 

Being successful at a sport involves a lot of practice. Practice requires getting clear and specific about what abilities and skills the athlete needs to develop in order to win at their sport (i.e., achieve the life goals the patient has come into therapy to work on). 

The idea of “training” speaks to developing a schedule and a disciplined routine whereby the athlete practices their skills every day, with the intention of sharpening those skills enough that they’ll score more points, more goals, more takedowns, more wins. 

This is exactly what needs to happen when we’re in therapy or working to improve our lives— daily work on the skills we need in order to move toward our goals. 

Sports involve victories and losses, just like life. 

The thing is, when we’re defeated in life, we tend to get discouraged and depressed…whereas when an athlete loses in a professional sport, yes, they may be disappointed, but they also realize that losing is as much a part of competition as winning, and they use that loss to go back and refine their training regimen. 

See? Metaphors matter. 

(And I’m not even a sports guy!) 

What are some of your metaphors? What are the lenses through which you’ve been looking at your life? 

Our metaphors shape our reactions to and interpretations of success and failure. They inform our judgment about what should come next. They feed our belief systems about whether the challenge we’re facing is conquerable or not. 

As a metaphorical “coach” for my “athletes,” I’m not in a position of knowing and seeing everything, any more than a professional coach can know or see everything that might impact an athlete’s performance on the field. 

Therapists, for some reason, aren’t that great at admitting they have blind spots.

But if my patients think of me as a “coach,” it becomes far less troublesome to admit that, of course I have blind spots— and just like any good coach of any good athlete, I’m in the position of adjusting and refining my own viewpoints and skills and understanding of the game, in order to better serve my “athletes.” 

Take your metaphors seriously. 

Ask yourself whether your metaphors serve you well, or burden you. 

Ask yourself if there are metaphors that might realign how you see the world and your place in it. 

And then…go out and win one for the Doc. 

 

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