Use Your Damn Skills

How do you know when to persist in a project, a prayer, or a goal, versus when to give it up and move on to something new? 

You won’t know. 

Not for sure, anyway. 

I WISH there was some easy way to tell when we’ve done everything we can do, and when it’s just time to let something go. As those who follow this blog know, I’m an enthusiastic proponent of letting things go when that’s the thing to do. 

It’s realizing that letting go is “the thing to do” that tends to be the tricky part. 

As much as I believe in letting things go, I’m also a believer that many people tend to give up too easily when their results aren’t as instant and gratifying as they expected or would prefer. 

Our culture, for better or worse, has kind of led us to this place where we expect instant results. We can barely handle the WiFi not functioning the way it should for a few minutes. 

The times when someone might be expected to persist in focus or prayer or effort for days, months, or even years seem very, very far away. 

Yet, persistence in the face of no immediate results is often exactly what we need in order to achieve the goals we’ve set. 

Around the Doyle Practice, one of our primary mantras is “patterns over time.” I encourage everyone who works with me, professionally or as a patient or client, to focus not on the immediate ups and downs they observe, but to focus on the patterns they’re observing over time. 

If someone is dieting, one instance of uncontrolled eating is one instance of uncontrolled eating. In itself, it’s barely a blip on the radar. 

Thirty five instances of uncontrolled eating over the course of a week is a pattern over time. That’s the target we’re interested in. 

If a couple has an argument or exchanges harsh words with each other, that’s one occurrence. It may not mean anything in itself. 

If a couple is mostly communicating via arguing or exchanging harsh words with each other, that’s a pattern over time. That’s the target we’re interested in. 

If you get freaked out and neglect to use your grounding skills one time, that sucks and is probably unpleasant, but it’s just a thing that happened. 

If every time you get freaked out and neglect to use your grounding skills, that’s a pattern over time. That’s what we need to change. That’s the target we’re interested in. 

Patterns aren’t going to shift overnight, nor should they. That’s why the whole phrase to remember is “patterns over time.” Time seems to be the one tool so many people in our age of instant gratification simply refuse to use, often because they feel like they shouldn’t “have” to. 

“Shouldn’t have to.” Says who? 

It’s not that I’m a glutton for punishment, by the way. I don’t believe in hitting one’s head against any given wall for any longer than one might have to. If you can produce a result in quick, emphatic fashion, be my guest. 

Teach me how to do it, in fact. 

But the quest for excuses to neglect the “time” part of the “patterns over time” equation usually winds up with people hurt, frustrated, and— most importantly— with their goals unfulfilled. 

Maybe you won’t know exactly when to abandon the quest to change a pattern over time. It’s true that we’re often called to abide and persist and believe in a state of results-less purgatory for what may seem like intolerable periods before we start to see shifts. 

But it’s also sometimes the case that when we don’t see results after a period, it’s a sign that we might need to reevaluate our goals and priorities. 

That judgment call is yours, and it’ll sometimes be imperfect. 

Let it be imperfect. 

Perseverance in focus, prayer, and effort; hacking away at patterns over time; judiciously choosing to switch up your goals or reevaluating your priorities; these are all tools you have available to you in building your life experience. 

None of these tools is inherently better than any others. Just like the array of tools in a physical tool box, they each have their purposes and limitations; they have things they’re good at and intended for, and things that you can’t do with each of them. 

And knowing when to use each tool takes training and experience. 

Give yourself the time to learn to be a craftsperson. 

And remember: patterns over time. 

 

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Many times, people are sold a vision of what “success” requires that includes running oneself ragged; not sleeping much; working oneself into the ground. 

We’re told that we have to “pay the price” for success, which involves “working hard” to the tune of sacrificing our basic mental health, let alone rest and comfort. 

Sometimes we’re told this by mentors or gurus who claim to have experience in guiding people to success. 

“No days off,” we’re told. “Embrace the grind.” “Go all in.” 

I’ll be the first to affirm that for every result, there is a price. These gurus aren’t wrong in their basic premise that nothing of value is free. 

However, anyone who tries to tell you that “success” in any field requires the sacrifice of those things that make life worth living might want to reevaluate their expertise. 

Put another way: anyone who tries to sell you on a vision of success that will leave you exhausted and myopically obsessed with your goals 24 hours a day, might not have figured out a path worth following. 

Sleep, for example, is not a luxury that can be sacrificed in the service of achieving goals.

Sleep is necessary for survival.

It’s a period of time in which our brains cleanse themselves from toxins (a process they physiologically can’t do when we’re awake) and consolidate and process the experiences and memories from the day (a process that is necessary to literally remain sane). 

Would you trust a mechanic who blithely advised you to not put gas and oil into your car? That’s what gurus who are telling you to “sleep less” are advising. 

Similarly, gurus who tell you to do without rest and recreation, who tell you that evenings and weekends should be spent working instead of spending quality time with families and hobbies, don’t seem to understand the essential roles connection and recreation play in creative thought and productivity. 

Cutting time for rest and play out of our lives is one of the WORST things we can do if our goal is to be successful. 

Trying to go without enough sleep is one of the WORST things we can do for our intelligence and judgment. 

Why do some personal growth gurus offer such bad advice? 

Part of it is, they know very few people are willing or able to follow their advice to the letter.

They know it’s unrealistic to ask most people to go without sleep and fun and connection in the way they’re advising— so when those people fail to reach their goals, the guru can always point to this and claim, “Well, you weren’t willing to go ‘all in’ and ‘pay the price for success’…what did you expect?” 

Another part of it is, many of these gurus have business models that depend on their clients buying more and more expensive services from them— and people who aren’t getting enough rest and don’t have a lot of diversion in their lives are easier to sell things to. 

There is a subset of personal growth teachers who are very big on dietary supplementation with vitamins and other substances.

Many of these teachers don’t have training or credentials in nutrition or biology, of course, but they often swear by their supplementation regimens and advise their clients to follow suit. 

There are often a few reasons for this. Sometimes, gurus have an economic stake in the nutritional products and vitamin supplements they’re recommending. 

Other times, they know full well that the clients who are most amenable to taking their nutritional advice are probably feeling pretty lousy physically in the first place; thus, when their recommendations don’t pan out, the guru can point to the basic discomfort the client was already in as the primary culprit. 

Personal growth is a touchy industry. By its very nature, self-help products and pages (like this one!) invite audience of seekers who are probably in some degree of pain or discomfort.

When people think they might have found a way out of their pain— such as through the teachings or recommendations by a guru— they can be more willing than most to invest money in this potential escape…and more inclined than most to blame themselves if the remedy doesn’t work out. 

I know I sound like a broken record on this blog, but I’ll say it again: check out the credentials, experience, and basic soundness of individuals who put themselves out there as “experts” in the field of personal growth. 

Many “gurus” are great at building feelings of hope within their potential client base…then using that sense of hope to push basically (or profoundly) unhealthy recommendations on them. 

The truth is, the best advice offered by the best experts do not require massive departures from what is commonly known about mental health and well-being. 

The truth is, the best advice offered by the best experts does not require you to purchase things or transform your very self to take advantage of. 

The truth is, the best advice offered by the best experts brings you back to your strengths and what you have done WELL or RIGHT in your life…not your weaknesses or your shortcomings. 

You’re smarter and stronger than you think. Don’t let any guru convince you otherwise. 

 

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“Negative thoughts” don’t make you a “negative person.” 

They make you a normal person who has normal thoughts. 

When people in therapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy, begin learning how their thoughts impact their moods and behaviors, they very often start to worry that if they have negative thoughts, let alone more negative thoughts than neutral or positive ones, that they’re doomed to being depressed and anxious indefinitely. 

Relax. Even the most well-adjusted, positive people in the world have negative thoughts at times. 

Especially when we’re going through periods of stress or when we’ve experienced trauma or losses, negative thoughts are a normal part of life. 

Recovering from depression, anxiety, post traumatic disorders, and addiction doesn’t mean we don’t have negative thoughts. It would take the removal of some pretty important parts of our brains in order to accomplish that. 

Our thinking patterns do change in recovery…but you’ll always have negative thoughts. 

The difference is that when we’re in recovery, we don’t allow ourselves to be controlled by negative thoughts. 

We don’t allow our decisions to be made exclusively by negative thoughts. 

We don’t consider negative thought to be objective barometers of where our lives are or where they’re headed. 

When we’re in recovery, we’re able to keep negative thoughts— as well as positive and neutral thoughts— in their proper perspective. That is, they’re just thoughts…no more, no less. 

We wouldn’t want to banish negative thinking from our brains even if we were able to. Some negative thinking is pretty important to our survival. 

For example, if we’re about to cross the street, and we notice a bus barreling in our direction, we might have the “negative” thought, “Hm, if I cross the street right now, there’s an excellent chance I’d wind up flattened.” 

I would recommend you pay attention to that thought, as “pessimistic” as it might be. 

Similarly, we’re going to have thoughts about what might happen if we make certain decisions, or experience certain losses, or if things go a certain way. They might be “negative,” pessimistic thoughts…but they might also illuminate to us what’s important to us, or what the stakes are to a given decision. 

The problem isn’t with negative thoughts. 

The problem is when we begin to assume that negative thoughts are somehow more true than positive or neutral thoughts. 

An even BIGGER problem is when we lose sight of the fact that all thoughts— negative, positive, and neutral— are simply thoughts. Because we’re thinking those thoughts doesn’t make those thoughts irrefutable facts. 

When we lose perspective and forget that thoughts are just thoughts, not facts, that’s when we really get into the soup. 

The people who ten to be the most psychologically and emotionally healthy aren’t those who never have negative thoughts. Rather, they tend to be people who have highly developed reality testing skills. 

They know that not everything that crosses their mind should be believed. 

They know that feelings aren’t facts. 

They know that thoughts are only their brain’s interpretations of input, and might be mistaken. 

When we spiral down into depression or abreaction, part of what’s going on is, our reality testing has been compromised. We’re suddenly buying into thoughts like “things will never get better,” “I must be defective,” or “the world is out to get me.” 

There are people who have those thoughts, but who don’t spiral into depression or abreaction— because they can keep those thoughts in their proper perspective. 

Some people are afraid that if they get into therapy, their therapist is going to tell them to just think positively all the time. That the version of psychological “health” that is offered by therapy and therapists is one of delusion, because we’ve simply trained dour patients to ignore or overlook negative thoughts. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. 

I’ll never ask my patients to try to blot out negative thoughts. 

Nor will I ever ask my patients to blindly buy into their positive thoughts. 

I will, however, always, always, always ask my patients to keep their thoughts in perspective. 

I’ll ask my patients to reality test the hell out of their thoughts. 

And, above all, I’ll train my patients to dwell on thoughts that support their goals— rather than letting their thoughts control their focus by default. 

We can’t always control our thoughts, and this isn’t a particularly big deal. 

We can, however, often influence our focus. 

 

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It’s important to remember that progress is rarely, if ever, found in momentary flashes of brilliance or insight— but rather in the daily grind of habit and incremental gains. 

There is a large subset of people who think that therapeutic progress is made in the room with the therapist. That in therapy sessions, things will be said or done that will suddenly make everything “click,” thus enabling huge leaps of progress all at once. 

It almost never works that way. I WISH it worked that way. 

Important things are said in therapy sessions, no doubt about it. In fact, part of the point of therapy sessions is to create an environment in which it’s more likely that important, helpful things are said and talked about. 

But no matter how important or profound anything that is talked about in a therapy session may be, the therapy session still has to end, and the patient has to return to the real world. 

It’s out there, in the real world, where 99.9% of the actual work takes place…and the actual progress is made. 

Why do people keep persisting in believing there is “magic” in a therapy session, or on the inside of a therapy office, that somehow doesn’t exist in the outside world? 

I think part of it is, it’s not interesting or sexy to contemplate that real “progress” is actually the work of minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, of grinding, grinding, grinding away at our lives, working to change our habits and patterns. We like the idea that there are shortcuts to making changes in our lives, that shift the focus away from that daily grind. 

Thinking there’s something “magic” about therapy or a therapist is a way of making the progress seem less boring, less tedious, less centered on nose-to-the-grindstone work. 

It’s not that people are lazy, understand. To the contrary, most of the people I’ve known who have had the courage to honestly engage in psychotherapy are some of the most industrious and motivated people I could possibly ever HOPE to meet. 

It’s just that, when given the choice, people prefer the idea that there’s some sort of magic or mystical answer to their problems, rather than an answer that signs them up for day after day of hard work. Hard work that is often unrewarding in the moment. 

Believing that there is “magic” in a therapist or in the therapy session is also, I think, for some people a hopeful thing. They’re hoping that the answer to their problems lies in some bit of obscure knowledge or expertise a therapist has, that can only be revealed within the sanctum of the psychotherapy session. It’s the same impulse that draws some people to mystical gurus on mountaintops. 

They want their answers to be found somewhere just outside of their understanding, because we’re conditioned to believe things that eclipse our understanding have the power to transform us more profoundly than things we already know. 

The truth— that we will mostly be transformed by applying, day in and day out, in sustained, habitual ways, things we already DO know— seems prosaic and uninspiring by contrast. 

I’ve seen some therapists and hospital programs take advantage of the belief of their patients that there is something special and sacred that happens within their clinical space that cannot happen without it. It’s an unfortunate fact of the mental health field that some providers really do cultivate an air of mysticism about how and why they work, without which patients would be at an existential loss. 

Spoiler alert: no matter how much you like your therapist, now matter how attached you are to a particular program, your ability to recover is only incidentally related to how good your therapist is or how effective a particular program is. 

A therapist and/or a program can teach you things you need to know. A therapist and/or a program, ideally, can also provide you with an environment in which it’s safe and effective to learn and refine your ideas about what what works and what doesn’t. Therapists and programs absolutely have their place in recovery. 

But in the end, it’s not about the therapist. Its not about what happens in session. It’s not about what happens in group. 

In the end, your recovery is about what happens when your therapist, group, or program ISN’T there. 

Your recovery is about how well you can take whatever insight you derive from your therapy or program into our everyday life and USE it. 

In the end, if your therapist and/or program isn’t equipping you to function without their everyday support in your life— or if you find yourself developing a belief that you can’t function without the “magic” of a person or program— it might be worth looking at what’s really going on there. 

None of this is worth thinking about in black and white terms, incidentally. I think the role and effectiveness of all of our supports and tools— therapists, programs, groups, philosophies, whatever— should be in a constant state of evaluation and revision. I’m not a fan of making hard, black and white decisions about “I don’t need this support” any more than I’m a fan of making hard, black and white decisions about “I do need this support.” What supports you need at any particular time should be determined at that time, and should be determined by looking at the evidence. There are plenty of shades of grey involved. 

That said: remember where the “magic” really is. 

It’s in your everyday habits. 

It’s in your everyday routine. 

It’s in the work that goes in day in, day out, when nobody’s watching. 

The magic, always and only, is in YOU. 

 

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I cannot cure your addiction. 

No one else can cure your addiction. 

You cannot cure anyone else’s addiction. 

Whether we’re talking addictions to substances, to behaviors, to ideas, or to people, there is a stubborn myth that we can cure someone else’s addiction by simply “loving them enough.” That by sheer force of our commitment to a person, we can change their patterns and needs profoundly enough to “snap them out of it.” 

Likewise, many people hang on to the myth that somehow somebody will come along to cure their addiction for them. People think that if they get just the right therapist, or just the right guru, or just the right lover, or just the right dietician, that they’ll finally have the impetus they need to do the work of recovery. 

That’s not how it works. 

(If it were how it works, I’d absolutely get in the business of “saving” people from their addictions, because I’m betting it’d be pretty lucrative.) 

Don’t get me wrong: people can help us along the way. 

Words matter. Influences matter. Ideas matter. Philosophies and therapeutic approaches and spiritual paths matter. 

But in the end, it’s on us. 

One of the things I like about the Christian spiritual tradition (stay with me here, this isn’t a religious comment, this is about psychology) is that in several of the Gospels, when Jesus heals people, he takes care to remind them that he, actually, isn’t the one who healed them. Over and over and over again, he tells the people he heals that it is their own faith that has healed them. 

Similarly, it’s not Alcoholics Anonymous that gets people sober, or cognitive behavioral therapy by itself that yanks people out of depression. It is peoples’ willingness to actively understand and USE the tools offered by AA and CBT that does the trick. 

I have a pretty good track record as a therapist for helping people like their lives and achieve their goals better. But it’s not about me: it’s about them. 

It’s about you. 

There are PLENTY of people who see my posts and who read my blogs, but who don’t get “better.” 

The difference between them and the people who read my material and who DO experience some benefit has nothing to do with the material itself. I’m the same Dr. Doyle day in and day out on this blog and on my Facebook page. 

The difference is whether and how someone is willing and able to think about and USE what they’re reading. 

The good news is: we don’t need to wait for someone else to save or cure us. 

We don’t have to wait for the perfect therapeutic approach to be developed and researched. 

We don’t have to wait until we read just the right book or stumble upon just the right guru. 

We don’t have to restrict ourselves to the teachings of just the right therapist. 

All of those things might help, and believe me, I know what a godsend it is to stumble upon just the right tools at the right time to help us get where we’re going. 

But the fact that, in the end, our recovery is 100% dependent upon us is excellent news, in my view. 

It means we don’t have to wait. 

It means we don’t have to trust in someone else’s commitment or faith. 

It means we can start right here, right now. 

It means we can keep going even when certain people or approaches disappoint us. 

Thank goodness I can’t cure your addiction. 

Thank goodness it’s all on us. 

 

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Why do we avoid reality? 

It’s not because we’re weak, or invested in self-deception, or delusional. Though sometimes we are all of those things. 

Mostly we avoid reality because it can be painful, and we’ve been very effectively sold a myth that tells us that we can avoid the pain of reality if we refuse to acknowledge it. 

It’s not a totally crazy idea, in fairness. 

It’s absolutely the case that our cognitive and emotional reality is largely constructed by our patterns of focus. For example, steadfastly refusing to dwell on certain thoughts can drastically reduce their ability to upset us. This is the basic skill that cognitive therapy teaches: picking and choosing our thoughts in order to be more effective in life. 

However, as we learn to take greater control of our patterns of thinking and focus, it’s important to make a distinction between picking and choosing which thoughts to emphasize and deemphasize on the one hand, versus slipping into denying and disowning of reality on the other hand. 

Being intelligent about our focus means learning to critically evaluate our thought patterns for distortions and patterns that simply don’t serve us. Research into the thought patterns of people who suffer from chronic depression, anxiety, and trauma disorders suggests that emotional misery is often triggered and perpetuated by thought patterns that are unrealistic, self-downing, overgeneralized, and needlessly pessimistic. 

That said: learning to control our focus via cognitive therapy is always in the service of reality testing. That is, it’s only helpful to the extent to which it takes us closer to the reality of the world. 

Some people like to “control their focus” in such a way that takes them away from the reality of the world. 

That’s where we run into trouble.

Emotional relief that depends upon the denial of reality is only a short-term fix— and not much of one, at that. 

Life can be painful in ways that are completely un-distorted by our thoughts. 

Everyone experiences loss, failure, disappointment, and unfairness. 

These experiences may be painful, and the pain they cause us is NOT caused by our distorted or disempowering patterns of focus…they cause us pain because they’re fundamentally painful experiences. 

When we’re confronted by pain that is NOT the result of our maladaptive thinking, trying to bend over backwards to avoid that pain by reusing to acknowledge it almost always ends up causing a great deal more pain. 

Refusing to acknowledge reality seriously grates on our self-esteem. It’s virtually impossible to like and respect someone when they chronically live in a state of denial— even if that someone is us. 

Refusing to acknowledge reality robs us of opportunities to develop and practice healthy coping mechanisms. How can we ever expect to develop resilience and perspective if we never have the opportunity to practice or use those qualities? 

Refusing to acknowledge reality denies us realistic opportunities to solve problems. After all, how can we solve problems we refuse to admit even exist? 

It’s not the case that we should never use this tool of focus control that cognitive therapy teaches us to diminish the impact of painful situations. Of course we should adjust our focus in order to make it more likely that we can life an effective life, and part of living an effective life involves controlling the balance of pleasure and pain in our lives such that we’re able to function well. 

But it is the case that we need to constantly be on guard against using this powerful tool of focus control to avoid reality completely. 

Managing reality is not the same as avoiding reality. 

Managing pain is not the same as avoiding pain. 

Learning that difference isn’t always easy— but it’s an essential part of healing. 

 

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Who and what are influencing you? 

Who and what do you not only allow, but actively enable to influence you? 

It’s true that there are entire industries devoted to influencing us. I often use the Dr. Glenn Doyle page to remind my readers that we are constantly under siege from advertisers, politicians, religious leaders, and others who wish to make us feel certain things, usually because they want us to do certain things. Buy products, vote for a candidate, attend or financially support their church, what have you. 

It’s also true that, in addition to those who are actively seeking to influence us, we allow and enable certain sources to get into our heads. 

We all make choices about what to read. 

We all make choices about what to listen to. 

We all make choices about what to watch. 

Very often, these choices are driven by our desire to be entertained, soothed, and distracted. And there’s nothing wrong with being entertained, soothed, or distracted. A lot of undeniably great art results from humankind’s desire to be entertained, soothed, and distracted. 

But in mainly seeking diversion from our entertainment, we sometimes forget that what we put in front of our faces, what we allow into our ears and eyes and heads every day, can also exert powerful philosophical, ideological, psychological, and maybe even spiritual influences. 

We don’t have to be actively listening to the lyrics of a song to get those lyrics stuck in our heads. 

We don’t have to be actively buying into the values systems of characters in movies for those values to lodge in our brains. 

We don’t have to be actively looking for role models to allow the behavior of characters in our entertainment to influence how we think, feel, and behave. 

We are shaped, inevitably, by what we pump into our brains over and over and over again. 

How much of that shaping are we conscious of? 

How much of that shaping do we take conscious charge of? 

One of my favorite diversions is the TV show that used to be on NBC, “The Office.” It’s a comedy that follows the average workdays of an office full of office supply salespeople and their assorted support staff. 

Anybody who is a fan of “The Office” can tell you, it’s a show that is easy to watch in long binges. It goes down easy. The characters are generally agreeable, easy to identify with, and the stories are usually lighthearted and fun. “The Office” is on Netflix, making it even easier now to watch episode after episode after episode. 

The thing about “The Office,” though, is that most of the characters on that show exist in a state of numbness, frustration, or boredom. It’s played for laughs, and the characters’ pettiness and oscillations between narcissism and low self-esteem are usually presented in such a way that no one gets hurt— I mean, it’s just a SHOW. 

But when I watch episode after episode after episode of “The Office” because it goes down easy…does my brain really register that it’s “just a show?” 

Two episodes of “The Office,” which are easy to swallow because they’re the TV equivalent of sugar coated, means one hour of putting people in front of your face who have kind of given up, people who have kind of settled for a life that they’re often manifestly unhappy with, people who are defined by their (comedically exaggerated) frustration and boredom. 

And trust me: almost nobody only watches two episodes of “The Office” at a time.

Understand, I love “The Office.” Which is why it was a bummer to realize that devoting hours to it, even in the background, means pumping a lot of influence into my brain that, in the end, may not serve me well in the motivation and focus departments. 

Influence matters. 

What are you letting into your brain, every day? 

What are you taking time to PUT in your brain, every day? 

Good influences aren’t going to worm their way into your brain by accident. Or, at the very least, we can’t COUNT on them getting into our brains by accident. 

Create time to put things in your brain that are useful to you. Decide what those things might be— self-help reading, reading your faith’s holy Scriptures, reading Pinterest or Tumblr pages of people and organizations that inspire you, listening to motivational stuff, perusing the YouTube channels of people and institutions that align with your values— and pencil into your day specific time periods when you’re going to expose yourself to them. 

Remember that ten minutes a day of exposing yourself to something means, at the end of the week, having devoted over an HOUR of focus to that thing. 

Also remember that even if you do devote an HOUR a week to an influence…there are 168 hours in every week. 

How many of those hours are working for you…and how many might be working against you? 

 

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Who do you think you’re competing with? 

Your age group peers? Your coworkers? Your academic cohort? 

Are you competing with your parents’ vision of who you were “supposed” to grow up and be? 

Are you competing with your own arbitrary ideas of what you “should” have accomplished by whatever age you are? 

One of my drawbacks as a therapist is, I have limited patience for self-defeating competitions that people invent and perpetuate in their heads. 

We humans are really, really good at imagining competition. 

We’re constantly competing against what we imagine to be other peoples’ judgments of us— like it matters. 

We’re constantly competing against what we imagine we “should” have accomplished— like it matters. 

We’re constantly competing against what we imagine a “good” or “productive” version of us “should” have done with their imaginary lives— like it matters. 

Don’t get me wrong— other people might well be judging us. Our parents might well have a very concrete idea of what we “should” do with our lives. And the culture very often does have norms and assumptions about what people “should” have accomplished by arbitrary ages. It’s not that we make those fairy tales up out of whole cloth. 

But the fact is, wherever these fairy tales come from…they’re still fairy tales. 

And to try to live your life according to the standards set in fairy tales is a lousy idea. 

That doesn’t stop us, however, from clinging to these fairy tales in our heads and judging ourselves harshly based on them. 

What are we afraid of if we acknowledge that many of the standards we use to mercilessly judge whether our lives are on track or not are really just fairy tales we’ve conjured in our minds? 

Why are we so often afraid to admit that these arbitrary standards truly don’t matter? 

Sometimes we’re afraid that if we gave up the fairy tales by which we’ve been arbitrarily, harshly judging ourselves and competing against…that we’d suddenly lose all of our drive to improve ourselves or perform well. 

Yes, our imagined competitions and standards may be arbitrary, this logic goes, but don’t we need at least SOMETHING to motivate us to achieve and improve? 

At the risk of ruining yet another fairy tale for you, allow me to assure you: if you’re just striving to achieve and improve your life because you’re in an imagined competition with someone or something, that source of motivation is eventually going to leave you bitterly unfulfilled. 

Why? 

Because if the competition is imaginary it doesn’t matter if you win. 

For example, you may well outperform your parents’ expectations of you. Which might feel good for a minute. 

But what about the next minute? 

You may well outperform the culture’s expectations of you. Which might feel great for a minute. 

But what about the next minute? 

You may well outperform your age group, coworkers, academic cohort, whoever you imagine you’re competing against, and it might all feel great for a minute. 

But what then? Are you interested in conjuring up yet another imaginary adversary to compete against? 

Winning imaginary competitions doesn’t matter. And as a source of motivation, these imaginary competitions are extremely limited. 

So you hit your milestone you wanted to hit before age whatever. Congratulations. How long do you think that high will last? 

Don’t get me wrong: imaginary competitions can be excellent for short-term motivation and inspiration. I myself love checking in on the page of one of my competitors in the self-help industry, just to gauge the success and usefulness of my product compared to his. There’s nothing wrong with using imaginary competitions to motivate you in the short term. 

But I’m under no delusion that “winning” that competition, in the long term, is a particularly meaningful goal. 

What IS a particularly meaningful goal, to me, is the impact my work might have on the people who might use it. 

That’s not imaginary. That’s real. 

Keep it as real as you can. 

Don’t invest too heavily in imagined competitions. 

And don’t let imaginary competitions get you down— because in the end they truly don’t matter. 

 

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Your brain frequently looks for the easy way out when it’s anxious. 

Lots of things can cause anxiety— and they’re very often based in the concept of uncertainty. 

Your brain gets anxious when it’s uncertain what’s happening next. 

Your brain gets anxious when it’s uncertain what things mean. 

Your brain gets anxious when it’s uncertain what someone else is thinking. 

Your brain gets anxious when it’s uncertain what the right decision is. 

When things are uncertain and your brain gets anxious, your brain often tries to solve the problem of anxiety by simply opting out— by going down the “flight” path of the “fight or flight” response tree. 

These are the times when you find your brain suddenly making excuses for why it’s okay, or even imperative, to remove yourself from a situation. 

For example, if you find yourself talking with someone to whom you’re attracted, and your brain suddenly realizes there’s a great amount of uncertainty involved here— uncertainty about what this person wants to hear from you, uncertainty about whether this person is as attracted to you as you are to them, uncertainty about whether they’re out of your league and about to break your heart— you might find your brain suddenly making excuses for why you need to end that conversation, right now. 

Or, say you even NOTICE you’re attracted to someone, but your brain realizes IN ADVANCE all the uncertainty that MIGHT exist if you were to go up and talk to them— you might find your brain suddenly listening all the reasons why you shouldn’t even risk going up and talking to them. 

The anxious brain is very, very good at avoidance and attempted escape. 

Even when physical escape is impossible, the anxious brain tends to invent its own escape routes through the psychological defense of dissociation. 

The thing is: uncertainty is not as threatening as your anxious brain thinks it is. 

Yes, it’s true, that there are things out there that can hurt and traumatize us. I won’t even try to make the argument that it’s unlikely that those things will happen to us— I’ve met and worked with too many survivors of trauma to be naive about the supposed “improbability” of bad things happening. 

But it’s also true that we have absolutely no control over many of those things out there that can hurt us. 

No matter how anxious we get, no matter how frantically we attempt to avoid them— bad things can still happen to us. 

Even if we somehow perfectly predicted all of the bad things we could possibly imagine happening to us, based on the bad things that HAVE happened to us (or that social media incessantly warns us MIGHT happen to us)…there are bad things that might happen to us that we would have absolutely no idea exist, let alone how to prepare for. 

Anxious avoidance, in other words, is a terrible, terrible Plan A when it comes to keeping ourselves safe. 

Anxious avoidance, in fact, usually results in more anxiety, more avoidance, and, ultimately, the depression and exhaustion that inevitably comes with isolation and frantic attempts to flee. 

When we find ourselves driven, day after day after day, by our anxious brains’ attempts to avoid uncertainty, it’s important to be realistic about what we have to do. 

It doesn’t help to yell at our brains to be more realistic. 

It doesn’t help to be mad at ourselves for being so anxious. 

It doesn’t help to get frustrated with our brains for their attempts to keep us safe through avoidance. 

What does help is to be patient, compassionate, and understanding with our anxious brains…while at the same time gently reminding them that avoidance doesn’t actually DECREASE the level of uncertainty that exists in the world. 

In fact, avoidance makes us LESS able to live in and cope with an uncertain world. 

Think of your anxious brain like a scared child. You wouldn’t angrily scream at a scared child, “DON’T BE SCARED, DAMMIT!” 

No, you wouldn’t. Because if you did, that scared child would quickly learn to avoid YOU as well. 

Are you doing this to your anxious brain? 

If so, cut it out. Your brain is avoiding enough stuff. 

Instead, work on developing a sense of CERTAINTY within yourself— certainty that, no matter what happens OUTSIDE of you, your INTERNAL response to anxiety will be compassionate, grown up, and reality-based. 

Certainty that the world might be uncertain…but that you have skills that you can, and will, use in the place of avoidance. 

Use your damn skills. 

 

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So many people get so frustrated because they seem to know what to do, but they resist doing it. 

“If only I did what I know,” they often say. “If only I APPLIED the things I already know. Why don’t I do the things I know?” 

Centuries of Freudian-influenced psychoanalytic perspectives have encouraged us to look for deep-seated, unconscious conflicts that drive our self-defeating behavior. We’ve been taught that if we’re not doing something we know we “should” be doing, it’s probably because we have some sort of unconscious “block” that we need to resolve in order to get back on track. 

Sometimes that’s true. There are definitely times when there is something unspoken and/or barely conscious that is impeding our ability to do what we know. 

More often, however, it’s my experience that the obstacles in our way are far more straightforward. 

It’s usually the case that we don’t do the things we think we “should” do because we figure it’ll be a bummer on some level. We think it’ll be a drag. We think it’ll be painful, inconvenient, a hassle. 

There are many ways in which we humans can be complex creatures, but the analysis of behavior is often pretty straightforward: if we think doing something is going to be more of a drag than not doing it…well, it’s really hard to get us to do that thing. 

Our brains reject inviting pain into our lives. 

To some people, this doesn’t make a lot of sense, insofar as we’re frequently aware that NOT making certain changes invites certain situations that are ALREADY painful to stick around. An example of this that frequently crops up is smoking: yes, quitting smoking may be a painful hassle, but isn’t it the case that NOT quitting invites longer-term, far more overwhelming pain to exist in our lives? 

Sure. But the prospect of health problems occasioned by smoking is, for most people, kind of a distant, kind of hypothetical pain. The pain occasioned by quitting, by contrast, means very immediate, very real, pain. 

Our brains aren’t good at looking past the immediate and certain to the distant and hypothetical. 

This also explains why we’re often so inconsistent with following through with our goals. 

Most of the stuff we need to do to achieve our goals requires sacrifice on levels that tend to be pretty immediate. An example of this is, for many people to improve their physical condition and lose excess body fat, it’s often necessary for them to change their eating patterns and eat less of certain foods they tend to really enjoy, less often. 

Doing without these foods is an immediate, visceral bummer. We FEEL that pain every day, when we want a snack; or when the people around us are having tasty treats; or when we see advertisements and social media posts that make us salivate for our favorite treats. Doing without a thing we really want is often a serious bummer— especially when we’ve gotten used to having it as often as we’re inclined. 

It’s totally true that NOT changing our dietary habits can, for many people, lead to bigger picture pain— the health and lifestyle challenges involved in caring around excess body weight over the course of years, blood sugar dysregulation and diabetes, increased health risks across the boar— but, again, those challenges for most people tend to be distant and hypothetical. 

The PLEASURE they’re forsaking is not distant and hypothetical. They’ve EXPERIENCED that pleasure. Doing without their favorite treats is a PAIN they also experience, right here, right now. 

It really is all about that pleasure and pain axis in the here-and-now. The American psychologist B.F. Skinner called this conundrum the “balance of consequences.” 

When it comes to pushing through this pleasure/pain barrier and doing the things you “should” do, you basically have two options: 

One: reorient your focus so that the PAIN occasioned by NOT changing your behavior becomes very real, very visceral. Make it less hypothetical, less abstract. Read and watch and expose yourself to things that thrust the PAIN of NOT changing right in your face. 

Make it real. Make it painful. Make it visceral. 

Or, two: develop skills to push you through the bummer, pain, and hassle of making the change in the short term, until your body and brain become used to the new behavior. 

This is how I managed my own addiction to certain foods, as well as my relationship to exercise. I knew it was going to be a bummer to give up my favorite treats, and I knew it was going to be an even bigger bummer to commit to a lifestyle that involved a lot of getting up early and moving, often when I didn’t feel like it. 

In order to manage these realities, however, I developed the skills of self-talk, distraction, visualization, and other techniques of focus management. Eventually, my body and brain got used to my new lifestyle— and I even learned to love the “exercise” part of the equation. 

All of which is to say: you probably don’t have massive unconscious conflicts when it comes to not doing the things you “should” do or you “know” how to do. 

It’s probably the case that your brain just hasn’t wrapped itself around the how’s and why’s of foregoing immediate pleasure in the service of avoiding long-term pain. 

Yet. 

 

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