Use Your Damn Skills

There are a variety of misconceptions that float around out there about self-esteem.

A common one is that self-esteem is the same thing as “ego” or “narcissism.” That people who have unearned, unrealistic perceptions of themselves and who behave in an entitled, arrogant way suffer from an excess of “self-esteem.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The fact of the matter is, people who demonstrate narcissistic characteristics have trouble truly “esteeming” anyone or anything, including themselves.

The essence of self-esteem is honesty and respect. When we have genuinely high, healthy self-esteem, we respect ourselves (and treat ourselves with respect), and this respect is borne out of honesty and genuineness. One of the essential characteristics of genuine self-esteem is that it is borne out of unrelenting, uncompromising honesty; that is, the esteem in which we hold ourselves is derived from a genuine, uncompromising appraisal of ourselves and the world in which we live.

That is to say, dodging and overlooking the facts of reality, as we perceive an understand them, is fundamentally inimical to self-esteem. To develop real self-esteem is to make a firm, no-questions asked approach to honesty with one’s self and others.

Narcissists, by contrast, do not approach the appraisal of self and world with uncompromising commitment to honesty.

If you’ve ever known any narcissists, you know that no one can hold a candle to their uncanny ability to twist and mold facts to reflect their warped, self-serving version of reality.

At the core of narcissism is a sense of entitlement. In fact, the diagnostic criteria for narcissism specifies that narcissists experience a sense of entitlement that is disproportionate to any objective achievements or earned accomplishments.

Narcissists like to pretend they have expertise. When you try to pin them down on the limits of their expertise, they tend to get annoyed. “How dare you question my authority?” Or, in the more charming variants of the narcissistic disease, it becomes, “If you dare to question my authority, it’s evidence of your own lack of faith.”

Let me be very clear: questioning things is a sign of high, healthy self-esteem.

Questioning is a mark of healthy self-esteem because it indicates that you are not willing to subvert the functioning of your magnificent mind to the passive influence of someone else— that is, you’re unwilling to go on autopilot. Thinking for yourself is one of the fundamental traits of people who maintain high self-esteem, whereas going on autopilot is something that tends to be incredibly damaging to self-esteem over the long term.

Questioning things is not a sign of “lacking faith.” In fact, it is the sign of someone looking to form a more intelligent, durable sense of faith, because concepts worth having faith in can withstand some skepticism.

If you want high, healthy self-esteem, I’m telling you: question things at every turn. Question qualifications. Question processes. Question conclusions.

(Yes, even with things I write…especially with things I write!)

If your goal is to develop high, healthy self-esteem, and if you do your due diligence and learn with self-esteem actually is, you’ll realize that there is little danger with conflating egotism and narcissism on the one hand with true self-esteem on the other. In fact, doing the things you need to do to develop high, healthy self-esteem almost guarantees you’ll stay away from the fundamental characteristics of the narcissistic disease.

Narcissists tend to discredit and mock the accomplishments of others. The accomplishments and credentials of others are endlessly threatening to narcissists. Whereas people with genuinely high self-esteem acknowledge and celebrate the expertise and accomplishments of others, because they represent not threat to them— genuine self-esteem is secure and confident in its own value.

Narcissists tend to offer vague justifications for their opinions and pronouncements. They don’t want you thinking too deeply about how they know what they know. Genuine self-esteem welcomes scrutiny, debate, and questioning, because it is committed to honesty, examination and reflection.

Genuine self-esteem only exists in an environment in which reality is respected, truth is valued, and scrutiny is the norm. Narcissists often do everything they can to keep things hazy, vague, and superficial.

The good news is, narcissists can only function as long as people stay ignorant of what all is involved in the development and maintenance of genuine self-esteem.

Once people understand that self-esteem is all about living consciously, treating oneself with respect and compassion, respecting the boundaries of oneself and others…they realize that they have little room in their lives for the bullying of narcissists.

They realize narcissists really don’t have much to offer them.

They realize narcissism only flourishes in environments of obfuscation and codependence.

They realize they can be free of narcissists— and they don’t need anyone’s permission to liberate themselves.

How do we create self-discipline? It’d be convenient if we were just born with it— but, sadly, self-discipline is the kind of thing that can only be learned and conditioned.

Our culture has an interesting relationship with self-discipline. We’re led to consider self-discipline a mark of “character,” evidence of “good upbringing,” an admirable trait. What’s interesting about this is that self-discipline is pretty much the same as any other trait that exists in human beings— it exists on a continuum, is pretty much normally distributed in the population, and some people are born with a greater capacity for it than others.

Despite its glorification in our culture, there’s not much evidence that “good” people are more self-disciplined than others. There are plenty of people who have done plenty of atrocious things that have demonstrated a great deal of self-discipline (for that matter, the most successful criminals and con artists tend to demonstrate a great deal of self-discipline— they have to, in order to avoid being caught). And there are plenty of people who struggle with self-discipline who are otherwise benevolent, caring, and well-intentioned.

It’s true that people who have a lot of self-discipline tend to be more successful in achieving long-term goals, which makes sense: long-term goal achievement often requires prioritizing tasks that are less gratifying over choices that are more fun or interesting in the moment. But there is little evidence that the choice of which goals to pursue— “good” or “bad” goals— is correlated with a person’s level of self-discipline.

Self-discipline is not an inherent signaler of virtue. It is a tool. An approach to solving problems.

What is the essence of self-discipline? It is the ability to say “no” to oneself in the moment, in the service of a chosen long-term goal.

Not every time a person says “no” to themselves is an example of self-discipline. We say “no” to ourselves all the time, for various reasons. Many of these instances have nothing to do with long term goals; many times, we say “no” to ourselves out of fear, feelings of obligation, or the absence of any other realistic choice. For example, the choice to eat healthfully is not a particular feat of self-discipline if no unhealthy alternatives are available, and/or if it’s not part and parcel of a larger commitment to achieving a greater state of health.

The presence and visibility of other choices is a key element of developing self-discipline. The service of a long-term goal is a key element of self-discipline.

What makes self-discipline so tough for so many people?

In order to be self-disciplined, we must believe 1) choices other than the immediately gratifying choice we’re trying to resist actually, realistically exist for us in the moment; and 2) there is an upside to choosing the “less sexy” choice in the moment that will be more gratifying in the long run— that will make up for missing out on the pleasure of the choice we’re passing up.

Many people struggle with that second thing above. They have difficulty convincing their brain that giving up the pleasure of an immediately gratifying choice will be worth it, because the “pleasure” of achieving a long-term goal seems abstract and unsure.

Put another way, we often figure that immediate gratification is a sure thing, a sure shot of pleasure for us in a world frequently short on pleasure. We figure the long-term goal may or may not happen, and we’d feel silly if we gave up a sure shot of short-term pleasure betting on it. And, in fairness, our brains aren’t wrong about that: nothing in the future is guaranteed. The long-term goal may or may not come to pass, and may or may not be as ultimately gratifying as the immediate gratification.

Our brains aren’t dumb. They know there are no guarantees in life. And they know the pain of missed opportunities for pleasure. They’re often unwilling to play the odds on achieving long-term gratification at the expense of short-term pleasure, because they also do the math and realize that achieving that long-term goal is dependent on you delaying gratification again, and again, and again.

Our brains prefer sure things to iffy things. And if we haven’t worked hard to develop healthy self-esteem and a great deal of self-trust, our brains have no reason to put stock in our ability to make good decisions time after time instead of taking the immediate shot of “feel-good.”

The good news is, self-discipline can be learned. Every scrap of research we have suggests that it can.

The even better news is, it can be learned in small increments. You don’t have to “learn” self-discipline by resisting huge, overwhelming temptations. You can start with small things.

Start as small as possible. Do some thinking, and come up with the smallest possible example of how you could say “no” to yourself in the service of a larger goal.

Maybe it’s getting up in the morning five minutes earlier  than you do. Maybe it’s going to bed twenty minutes earlier than you do. Maybe it’s turning off your screens at a certain time every night. Maybe it’s passing up one soft drink a day for a glass of water. Think about one adjustment you can make that is tied to a larger goal— then resist that temptation once, and check in with yourself. See how it feels.

In particular, take note of the thoughts and feelings that come up as you try to resist your inclination toward immediate gratification. Those are your real culprits when it comes to sabotaging your decisions.

Developing the self-esteem necessary to trust yourself to follow through on good decisions time and time again is not easy. We don’t come “wired” for it, any more than we come “wired” for self-discipline in the first place. But research and practical experience all point to the fact that developing the skill of saying “no” to ourselves in the moment pays off.

Even if it is in the long run.

One of the most insidious techniques manipulators use to gain control of your time and attention is trying to pressure you into making decisions before you’re ready, before you have adequate information, or before you’ve put thought and reflection into your decisions.

It makes sense, as a strategy for the manipulator. If you’re forced to make a decision before you’re ready, you’re more likely to go on half-formed impressions and emotional arguments than you are to stick with your own values, long-term priorities, and individual needs.

Of course there are some decisions that need to be made within certain time frames. We live in a world of deadlines, and we frequently must adjust our behavior to meet other peoples’ timetables (especially when we have a responsibility toward specific others, such as our employers or our family). Taking all the time we need to make any given decision is not an option many of us have available all the time.

This fact simply makes it more important than ever that we do take the time to make good, well-thought out decisions that are congruent with our values and priorities whenever we do have the opportunity to take our time and really consider our alternatives.

I have an acquaintance in the personal growth field whose latest shtick is that “leaders” make decisions quickly, often with limited information, and remain committed to correcting errors made in this process later rather than avoiding them in the first place. He sells this approach as part of a larger spiel he does about the characteristics of “leaders,” and what “real leadership looks like” (yes, I was thinking of him when I wrote the Facebook post about “leadership” earlier this week).

Look at our national leadership in Washington DC, a jurisdiction in which I am licensed as a psychologist, where I still have an office and an active consulting practice, and in which I practiced for years at the start of my career. Whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat, or any other political affiliation: do you really think that we need MORE impulsive, emotional, half-baked decisions coming from our leaders?

A problem many people run into in their lives is that the direction their heart, instinct, or “gut” tells them to take seems to clash with the direction their intellect, analytical brain, or common sense seems to recommend. Instead of taking the time to sort through these conflicts, and use our magnificent, multifaceted brains in the complementary way those brains are designed to work, many people cave to the pressure of the moment and go with what “feels” the most right— usually, what their “gut” recommends. The problem being, our “guts” weren’t designed for decision-making— they were designed to save us from evolutionary threats via fear and promote reproduction via arousal. Any decision made exclusively from our “gut” will thus be tinged with fear and/or arousal…and will be an incomplete, imprecise use of our magnificent minds.

Decisions made in haste, in other words, tend to be poor decisions.

Is this what we want from our “leaders?”

We live in a world that induces an awful lot of fear and anxiety every day. These complicated emotions are often magnified by the echo chambers of social media, which tend to prioritize aspects of reality that induce the greatest emotional response from us— i.e., the stuff that is the most enraging, the most fear-inducing, the most stimulating.

We don’t need more decisions made in the haste of the moment, with limited information. We get enough of that already, on both the national level and in our individual lives. Most of us are unfortunately very good at making quick decisions with limited information, and those who would manipulate us know this fact very well.

What we need practice with, rather, is tolerating anxiety long enough to make good, considered decisions.

We need practice with resisting the pressure put on us to decide quickly among alternatives that we may not even realize are purposefully limited.

We need practice remembering that, in many transactions, we’re the ones with the power— even if a salesman is trying to force us into an impulsive decision based on emotion.

It’s not a sign of “weakness” to take your time making a decision. It’s true that delay and procrastination can sometimes turn into habits that impair our ability to meet our goals, but there’s a significant difference between procrastination and asserting your right to take your time to make an intelligent decision. Choosing to “sleep on” a decision is often the most intelligent thing to do when you’re unsure— giving yourself the time and space to really reflect on your priorities can make the difference between an impulsive decision that is harmful and an intelligent decision that works in the long run.

Don’t let manipulators pressure you into decisions you’re not ready to make. Remember that you’re the one with the power to decide what’s right for you— and you have the right and responsibility to make those decisions when you’re ready to do so intelligently.

You don’t have to find your “dream job” in order to be happy.

You don’t have to find your “dream mate.”

You don’t have to own a particular kind of car; you don’t have to gain anybody in particular’s approval; you don’t have to acquire a particular skill.

Many people make the mistake of assuming that the reason they are unhappy is because they don’t yet have something. They hypothesize a world in which their perceived “lack” is adequately addressed, and this leads to happiness. They assume life is a kind of competitive game— that the objective is to cross a finish line, or a number of finish lines. They imagine that once they cross these finish lines, they’ll feel better about themselves. Accomplished. Secure.

It’s an understandable assumption, given our cultural conditioning. These aren’t stupid people. In fact, these are often people who have contributed an awful lot to our world, as byproducts of their assorted quests.

Unfortunately, the idea of life-as-competition-with-finish-lines doesn’t pan out in the long run.

People often achieve what they assumed would make them happy— and find themselves still feeling empty.

Every scrap of research, and every bit of practical experience I have, points to one conclusion about a happy life: it’s about creating meaning, not about achieving stuff.

This…doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. After all, the notion of “creating meaning” feels much more complex, much more involved, and much less straightforward than the “accomplish stuff, feel good” formula we were conditioned to believe growing up.

What does “creating meaning” even mean?

This was a question asked by the Jewish psychiatrist Viktor Frankl in the 1940’s. He became obsessed with the question of “how do people create meaning in their lives?” when he had the unbelievably unfortunate experience of being imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps in 1944 and 1945.

In order to endure the experience, Frankl decided he was going to approach it like a scientist. He was going to pay attention to the variables that seemed to bear on the question of whether his fellow inmates survived, or perished in the camps.

What Dr. Frankl discovered as he observed his fellow prisoners was telling. He realized that a commonality prisoners who survived seem to share was the fact that they were determined to survive, because they decided that even this horrific experience was going to have meaning for them.

Dr. Frankl tells of one prisoner who decided that the “meaning” associated with his experience was that he needed to survive, in order to make sure that this never happened again on the planet earth.

Dr. Frankl recounts another prisoner who decided the “meaning” associated with his imprisonment was going to be, he needed to survive in order to ensure his family’s safety and escape.

After his own liberation from captivity in 1945, Dr. Frankl decided that the “meaning” associated with his own experience was, he was going to take the essential role of creating meaning into his field of psychiatry, and impress upon his colleagues how important it was that we help our patients find “meaning” in their own experience. Consequently, Dr. Frankl went on to develop a technique of psychotherapy called “logotherapy,” which emphasizes the quest for meaning (in fact, the book in which Dr. Frankl recounts his experiences and the development of logotherapy, he ended up titling, “Man’s Search for Meaning”).

Your day to day experience doesn’t have to be as dramatic as surviving a concentration camp in order to take advantage of the insight that we get to choose what our experience means to us. That we can chase after shiny objects all day long, but unless we devote some serious thought to what meaning our experience has, we will still likely be unfulfilled.

What meaning could your experiences, even your painful ones, serve in your life?

What good can come out of what you’re struggling with right now?

What purpose could your suffering serve?

Understand, I’m not suggesting that our lives and experiences have inherent meaning. Some people believe that, and some religious paths teach that; as I’ve said many times in the past, issues of existential meaning are above my pay grade. I can’t speak to the “ultimate” meaning of our lives in the Grand Scheme of Things.

I’m talking about the day to day, practical level. I’m talking about shifting away from the idea of life as a race with a finish line— and toward the idea of every day as an opportunity to create meaning.

It’s actually less complicated and intimidating then it seems.

For example, part of how I, personally create meaning out of the experiences I have, is to write about things and post them on the Internet— thus my day has meaning in that I have the opportunity to connect with people who might benefit from my words.

That’s what I’m talking about. Practical meaning.

Meaning that speaks to you.

Meaning that motivates you.

Meaning that transcends stuff.

Meaning that you choose.

 

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I’ll be the first to concede: setting goals is a pain in the neck.

It’d be far easier if we could just glide through life and have pleasant, meaningful experiences just happen to us. If we were just born to experience pleasure and fulfillment, and it came to us effortlessly.

Many people harbor this fantasy, even as adults: that good things will just happen to us. That a fulfilling life shouldn’t be this thing that takes effort and focus to create. Many people believe we “shouldn’t” HAVE to set goals in order for good thing to happen to us.

It’s kind of fascinating, all the “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” to which people steadfastly cling when it comes to life.

Life “should” be this. Life “shouldn’t” be that. The rules for happiness “should” be this. That “shouldn’t” happen.

The reality is that life rarely, if ever, cares about our arbitrary “shoulds” and “shoudln’ts.” Especially when it comes to being happy.

Yes, it’s inconvenient that goal-setting seems to be necessary in order for us to live happy, fulfilled lives. I wish it was as easy as the universe just taking care of us, and delivering to us experiences that we enjoy and value. It’s kind of a harsh awakening when we figure out that, sadly, life doesn’t work like that. Choosing goals that align with our values and figuring out steps to fulfill those goals are, as it turns out, completely necessary steps to creating a life worth living.

Why do so many of us find setting and pursuing goals so onerous? Why do we keep retreating to this fantasy of not having to bother, of having good things just happen to us?

Setting goals is unexpectedly tough for a few reasons.

The process of setting goals is intimidating. It requires us to take responsibility for our values and happiness— meaning, if we achieve our goals and find ourselves not happy, then we’ve opened ourselves up to admitting we’ve somehow screwed up, somehow failed. Taking responsibility for our lives by setting goals gives us the opportunity to succeed, yes— but it also gives us the opportunity to fail. This freaks a lot of people out.

The wish that life would just deliver good experiences to us, without goal-setting or proactive effort— part of that wish is a fantasy of easing back into a life place of not having to take responsibility for our happiness.

It’s very similar to the fantasy that we are “born to” do or be certain things. If we are “born to” be a success or failure, “born to” have good or bad things happen to us, “born to “ be a certain person with certain characteristics and proclivities, then we don’t have to take responsibility for how our lives turn out.

Not having to take responsibility for our lives is a seductive, and ultimately very destructive, fantasy for a lot of people.

Setting goals is also though because it forces us to clarify our values.

Many people are so intimidated by getting clear on what they value that they spend entire lifetimes avoiding it. They cruise along, pretending that the values they were handed by their parents, or their religion, or their culture, are their own personal values, without ever pausing to consider whether this is actually the case.

In fairness, there are institutions in the world that actively discourage people from clarifying their own personal values, for the very reason that sometimes when people get to thinking about values, they really do discover that they hold disparate values from those they’ve been taught over the years.

We’re not exactly taught that clarifying our own values “should” be something that we prioritize; to the contrary, we’re often taught that we “shouldn’t” question authority or tradition. Many of us grow up with an instinctive, conditioned disinclination to clarify our values; thus the process of setting values-based goals is not something that comes naturally to many people.

The good news is, goal-setting is not as hard as we imagine it to be.

The even better news is, goal-setting is a discrete skill that gets better with practice.

To set an effective goal, you don’t have to think about the big picture all the time. You don’t have to be thinking “major life goals” with every goal. It doesn’t have to be “what am I committed to accomplishing in this next year?” It doesn’t even have to be “what are my goals for this next week?”

Start small. Set a goal for these next ten minutes.

“My goal for these next ten minutes is to sit down with my journal and write about how Dr. Doyle’s blog post today made me feel.”

“My goal for the next ten minutes is to begin getting dressed to go outside.”

“My goal for the next ten minutes is to set a few more goals for the rest of the day.”

See? Every time interval, no matter how small, can have a goal attached to it. And having a goal attached to a time interval overwhelmingly increases the chances you’ll feel good about how you spent that time interval; and this, in turn, builds your self-esteem.

“My goal for the next minute is to abstain from having a drink.”

“My goal for the next minute is to simply visualize feeling good.”

“My goal for the next minute is to be kind to myself in one concrete way.”

You’ve probably been sold a bill of goods about what it means to set goals, and why you’re not up to the challenge. Perhaps it’s time to more closely examine that bill of goods. Perhaps it’s at the point where your self-esteem is demanding you start setting goals— because, as it turns out, you weren’t “born” to do anything.

You weren’t “born” to set goals. But you have the opportunity to.

 

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The one place where no one else can control us, dictate to us, or dominate us is in our magnificent mind. But we often forget this fact, simply because it’s the case that we are controlled in so many other contexts.

Often times, as a practical matter, other people have a fair amount of say about how we spend our time and how we expend our resources. That is to say, we agree to trade a certain amount of control over our time and resources to other people (such as employers and relationship partners) in exchange for certain benefits (such as a paycheck or participation in a relationship).

As a result, we get used to the idea that we’re not fully in control of our time and resources.

Sometimes this isn’t such a big deal, insofar as we accept that we’ve “signed up” for that particular exchange. Sometimes it’s an inconvenience that we’d prefer not to endure. Sometimes it’s considerably painful, and we expend a lot of energy trying to figure out how to escape unfair onerous tradeoffs.

It’s true that we often don’t have practical control over our external circumstances.

But we do have complete sovereignty over what happens in our minds.

There are times when this doesn’t FEEL true. When we battle depression; when we’re fatigued; when we struggle with the programming of years past. There are times when it feels as if we have no more control over what goes in inside our minds than we do over our external circumstances.

But the fact remains that we, and we alone, create our worlds within.

We decide what images get to linger on our mental screens.

We decide what soundtrack to provide.

We decide what narratives, what stories, endure in our mental worlds.

We decide which characters are more important and less important than others.

So if this is true— that we alone have control over the mental universe we carry around in our magnificent minds— then why does it feel so often as if our mental landscapes are dominated by people, places, and things that we did not choose?

Mostly because other people have programmed us to believe that we have far less power over our mental lives than we actually do.

The entire process of therapy— as far as I’m concerned, anyway— is training ourselves to take back both the power and the responsibility of creating and living in our mental worlds. Getting our magnificent minds to work for us, rather than against us.

Getting on our own damn side.

How do we harness our magnificent minds to begin creating our mental worlds, instead of being left at the mercy of other people, who would strongly prefer that our mental worlds reflect THEIR priorities, wishes, and models of reality?

First thing’s first: we need to fully accept that we do create our worlds within. We need to get past how intimidating that sounds. We need to get past the extent to which we’ve been conditioned to believe it’s not true. We need to open ourselves up to the possibility that, no matter how much others would prefer that our magnificent minds be at their beck and call, that our minds are our own, private domains, and only we exercise dominion over that landscape within.

Yeah. Sounds easier than it is. It’s one of those tasks that is simple— but not easy.

The next step is we have to make some choices, and do a little bit of research. We need to make choices about what images we want populating our mental “screens.” We need to make choices about what characters we want to be part of our story within. We need to make choices about what that story is— what our journey is all about. We need to make choices about what music is appropriate to that journey.

It’s a lot like writing your own script, producing your own movie. Which is daunting, given that a lot of us never even knew before that producing our own movie was even possible, let alone that we have to assume complete responsibility for it.

But, like conquering most daunting things— the key is to practice.

To be willing to let yourself be bad at it at first.

Then to practice, practice, practice. Visualize, visualize, visualize. Journal, journal, journal.

A good starting place is to sit down with your notebook and write at the top of a sheet of paper: “What do I want my mental world to look like?”

Then, set a timer for five minutes, and just let yourself write— write down anything and everything that comes into your mind. Don’t censor yourself. Just let whatever thoughts happen, happen, and write them down. Even if the first thoughts that pop into your mind are something like, “How should I know? I guess…”

Your brain knows what it needs out of your mental world, your mental movie. It might have “stuffed” this information, but when you give it permission to let it out…it will let it out. It may be slow at first, it may be a trickle… but it will come.

You can create your mental world.

You do create your mental world.

Now let’s get to it.

One of the consequences of failing to realistically nurture our self-esteem every day is that we become unnecessarily dependent upon other people.

Make no mistake, we need other people.

While we human beings exist on a spectrum from extremely introverted to extremely extroverted, most of us find that we don’t function particularly well in a total vacuum. The human beings in our evolutionary history who could form functional connections with other human beings were selected for; thus mot of us are wired, on a neuropsychological level, to want to connect on some level with other people.

The things we need from other people are diverse, but they’re not always inscrutable or complex. We want to be seen and acknowledged by other people. We want to be understood, at least to some extent. Sometimes we just want the company of other people. Our affinity for connecting with other people is so hardwired into us that one of the main symptoms of psychopathology therapists keep an eye out for is a diminished inclination or capacity to connect with others.

When we’re suffering a signifiant deficit in self-esteem, however, this hardwired need can get twisted.

Self-esteem is created when we establish a firm pattern in our lives of behaving toward ourselves with respect, dignity, and attention. We nurture our self-esteem when we treat ourselves like, well, someone we esteem.

It’s the phenomenon I frequently sum up by “getting on our own side.”

When we’ve created healthy self-esteem, we don’t need to reach outside of ourselves for basic human needs such as assurance that we are worthy. We know we are worthy, because we have made the decision that we are worthy and we treat ourselves as worthy.

When we’ve created healthy self-esteem, we don’t need to reach outside of ourselves for the assurance that we are competent. We trust our own judgment about whether we are up to life’s challenges, and we accept the reality of the feedback we get from the world about how we are handling life’s challenges.

As regular readers of my work know, one of the biggest mistakes most people make is looking outside of themselves for sources of “self-esteem.” As I’ve stressed over and over again, true self-esteem is not to be found outside of ourselves; it is created by the decisions we make, particularly the decisions we make about how we perceive and behave toward ourselves.

When our self-esteem is shaky, it’s usually because we’ve not been great at making decisions and behaving toward ourselves in ways that affirm our worth and equip us to deal realistically with the challenges of living.

So, when that inner core of self-esteem is missing…where do you suppose we turn for what we instinctively perceive is missing?

That’s right— other people.

The thing is, our connections with other people aren’t designed to withstand the stress placed on them when we try to make them our primary source of self-esteem.

Relationships with others are designed to provide us with company, support, feedback— but not to become our main avenue of assurance that we are worthy and competent as human beings.

When we try to make other people our primary sources of self-esteem, not only does it not work very well— because self-esteem is generated from inside, not outside— but it ends up frustrating, confusing, and burning out the people around us.

This, in turn, leads us to feeling unlovable, high-maintenance, and unworthy— because we don’t register that other people are backing off because we’ve asked things from them that they’re simply not equipped to provide. We simply register that they’re backing away from us. Our brains kind of panic, and we figure that we must not be worthy of esteem— or else why would they be backing up?

It becomes a vicious circle.

After awhile, many people come to believe that depending on other people is a setup for disappointment and pain. Which is a shame, because it is absolutely the case that we need other people…but we need to be realistic and grounded about what they can and cannot provide for us.

When we’re very young, we want other people (notably, our parents and caretakers) to fulfill all of our needs. Part of the painful process of growing up is learning that other people cannot be our be-all, end-all of need fulfillment— and we don’t need them to be.

We need other people for what we need other people for.

But that which we need to do for ourselves— generating real self-esteem from within, self-esteem that prepares us to relate to other people and cope with the world’s demands— we truly can only do ourselves.

 

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We all have voices in our heads.

I don’t necessarily mean the actual auditory hallucinations experienced by people diagnosed with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia. Nor do I mean the voices of dissociative alters, formed in the aftermath of trauma.

I mean that we all have programs running in our heads. Think of them like old tapes, running in the background. They’ve been running in the background of our heads for so long, most of us have learned to tune them out, consciously. They’re just always there, always have been. Few of us pay a lot of attention to what they say— at least, with our conscious minds.

They’re the voices of parents. The voices of teachers. The voices of peers. Sometimes it’s what we imagine the voices of God or angels might sound like. They’re the voices of historical figures. The voices of fictional characters, who we’ve heard in movies and read about in books and internalized as part of our inner tape collection.

Hundreds and hundreds of voices, playing on a loop in our heads, making sense of the world and its events for us. Telling us what life is all about, what we’re all about, what the possibilities of our world are, what we should do.

Over the course of our lives, we’ve internalized hours and hours and hours of programming about what things mean, and this programming plays on a loop in our head, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter.

Sometimes the voices we’ve internalized tell us helpful, constructive things. One of the prominent voices inside my head is Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi, as he tells Luke Skywalker about The Force in the movie Star Wars: “It’s an energy field that surrounds us, it penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.”

You’ll be amazed, when you stop and really look at the voices that make up your internal programming, how many of those voices come from pop culture.

Movies, books, stories, songs. The things we’re exposed to every day on television and in movie theaters and on the radio get far more opportunities to bore themselves into your unconscious than most people even start to realize.

Which, frankly, is part of the problem.

Because some of the voices in our heads aren’t so helpful.

Just as an exercise, look at the lyrics of any five love songs that might spring into your head.

Set aside the fact that they may be pretty songs, and look at the story being told by their lyrics. While there are some very appealing love songs out there, the overwhelming majority of them tell stories of people who are desperate for love, who feel empty without it, cannot imagine a world without their beloved— not, in other words, the inner monologue of adults who feel secure and confident in their self-esteem, regardless of what happens in their love lives.

Likewise, look at the great romantic movies many of us enjoy so much. I mean, I totally get it, I’m a sucker for a good love story. But the anguish experienced by characters when they are apart from their beloved in so many of these stories speaks to a lack of fulfillment that, unfortunately, romantic love is not going to fix— I guarantee characters who feel empty before getting into a relationship are going to feel probably even emptier once they get into one.

Now, I fully understand that this is entertainment, pop culture, we’re talking about. OF COURSE stories are going to be simplified and emotions exaggerated for the sake of a good narrative arc. My quibble is not with the artistic liberties creators take in order to make art that moves us.

My issue is, over the course of decades, we allow the voices of these desperate characters to sink deeply into our minds, to the point where they form many fundamental ideas we have about ourselves, the world, relationships, and the future.

More to the point, when we’re lonely, when we’re discouraged, when we really need some voices whispering into our ear to give us some guidance…a lot of the time the voices we get back are the voices of pop culture that have created the problem in the first place.

The good news is, we can pick and choose our voices.

We can break way from the default setting of just letting all of that programming sink into our heads, and use our magnificent minds to do some thinking: “Is this a premise about relationships I want to accept? Does it reflect my values? Does it reflect my goals? Does it reflect the life I’m trying to create?”

Part of developing high, heathy self-esteem is developing your own philosophy of life, one that reflects your values, your goals, and reality as you understand it. A big part of developing our own life philosophies is in becoming aware of the programing that has informed our default life philosophy up until now— and deciding if we really wanna keep it.

Luckily, you’ve been given the perfect tool for this task— your magnificent mind.

Listen for the voices in your head. Just quiet your mind, and listen for them.

Listen to them for awhile.

Then ask yourself if maybe it’s time to switch up the old tapes.

 

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Many people seem to have bought into an idea that if we don’t feel our best, or don’t feel particularly good, then we can’t enjoy any part of life, have any pleasure at all.

A similar idea that seems to abound these days is that if the world isn’t exactly as we would prefer it to be, then we can’t acknowledge anything good about it.

Take a look around, especially at our social media feed, and you’ll see many variations on this theme. You’ll see people furious that their political party isn’t in office or their political philosophy isn’t ascendant. You’ll see people furious because they feel their cultural values are being marginalized and disrespected. You’ll see people who, in addition to sharing their outrage, demand that you be as outraged as they are, in order to be a “good person.”

On an individual level, you’ll see people post, over and over and over again, about the imperfections in their lives. People who seem to be defined by their pain and losses.

It’s truly heartbreaking to see.

There’s no question about the fact that people have real pain in their lives, both on individual and cultural levels. It’s not my job or intention to judge their pain, or how they express it. One of the reasons I do what I do is because one of my core values is, I want to help alleviate suffering when I can, in whatever small ways I can.

That said, it bothers me, the undercurrent I sense in many expressions of pain out there: that because the world is not perfect, because there is very real and very important pain that exists for individuals and groups at the present moment, that we can’t take pleasure or pride in any aspect of our lives or culture.

It’s as if we’ve forgotten that we humans are multifaceted human beings, capable of living nuanced lives. It’s very rarely black and white for us humans when it comes to experiencing pleasure and pain. Most often, our lives are a combination of both— and the presence of one does not negate the presence of the other.

I remember, when I was in grade school, my grandmother died. It was my first experience with the loss of a family member. I remember, at her wake, being hurt and confused by the fact that there were people there, people who had known my grandmother, who, instead of being wracked with the sadness I felt at the moment, were telling stories and laughing. Laughing! It felt somehow like a betrayal. I could not, for the life of me, understand how laughter could coexist with the kind of pain I was feeling at the moment.

But laughter— and pleasure, more broadly— does coexist with pain. Just like pain coexists with laughter.

When it came time, in December 2015, for me to eulogize my father, I more fully understood this. At my dad’s funeral, I was among those telling stories about my dad and laughing— and knowing that this is absolutely what my father, a robust Irish businessman who loved stories and jokes— would have wanted.

Because we’re in pain doesn’t mean we can’t laugh. Because we’re in pain doesn’t mean we have given up the right to feel pleasure. In fact, if we’re in pain, we’re more in need of pleasure and laughter than at any other time.

The world is not perfect. I absolutely understand the strong impulse many people feel to dedicate time and energy to changing the world. I deeply respect the responsibility many people feel to make fundamental changes to the fabric of society, and how passionate many people are about protecting the most vulnerable members of society.

That said, changing the world does not mean we never get to laugh or feel pleasure until the world has changed. Changing society is a long-term project, and if we put off feeling good until that project is accomplished, we’re in the position of putting off pleasure indefinitely. That’s not what we’re designed to do as humans— as humans, we are equipped to take pleasure in little things even as we keep hacking away at our larger objectives.

In fact, I would argue that taking pleasure in little things is essential to maintaining the health and perspective necessary to continue hacking away at our larger objectives.

It is entirely possible to be a happy warrior. It is entirely possible to be fully committed to making positive changes in society, while taking pleasure in things like humor, connection, and accomplishment.

On an individual level, it is entirely possible to, despite physical or emotional pain, also take pleasure in certain things. To laugh at a joke or to enjoy a friendship isn’t to diminish the presence or importance of pain in our lives.

To acknowledge that there is a lot of pain in our lives is not to surrender our ability to laugh and enjoy.

Chronic suffering— or even short-term, situationally driven pain— does not mean you abdicate the ability to take pleasure where you can find it.

Don’t let anyone convince you that the presence of pain, on a cultural or individual level, means you have some sort of obligation to blot out pleasure. Both pleasure and pain are integral parts to being human.

We can laugh at funerals.

We can smile even as we battle to make the world a better place.

We can feel good even if we rarely feel good.

Our magnificent minds have equipped us to do and feel more than one thing at a time.

 

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It occurs to me that I’m not the only therapist or personal growth teacher out there telling you you can live a better life. In fact, there’s no shortage of gurus and guides and teachers and mentors out there, all telling you a better life is, in fact, possible.

It is interesting to note, however, that there often seems to be a caveat appended to these teachers’ teachings: they maintain you can live a better life…IF you buy their product.

IF you read their book.

IF you sign up for their coaching sessions.

Or, on an even more basic level…a lot of gurus out there seem to be of the position that you can live a better life….IF you follow their philosophy. Which, of course, only they are in a position to teach you.

Which, I mean, is fine, conceptually, I guess. It’s certainly true that there are products and books and coaching approaches and philosophies out there that can enhance our lives. But something has always rubbed me the wrong way about gurus and guides who start out from a fundamental position of, “you’re missing something.”

Maybe they believe that. Maybe they think the people who come to them for help and guidance really are missing something basic, something only they can impart. There’s certainly a long tradition of esoteric knowledge being handed down to seekers who prove themselves worthy of enlightenment. The whole “gnostic” movement is based on this principle— secret knowledge that, when revealed, can change everything. Scientology built a whole religion on this approach.

I don’t happen to believe that. In fact, as I’ve posted on the Dr. Glenn Doyle Facebook page, I don’t believe I, or anybody else with my training and background, have any “special” knowledge for you at all that isn’t freely available in dozens of other places.

Nor do I believe you’re fundamentally “missing” something.

Maybe it’s just me, but I kinda believe that every person who walks in my office already has the tools they need to create the kind of life they want. I’ll even go so far as to state that, usually, I turn out to be right about this.

I think you probably have what you need, right now, right where you are. Without purchasing anything; without being given esoteric knowledge from a guru or mentor or shaman; without fundamentally changing who you are.

Yes, yes, I know, I don’t know you personally, at least most of you. But I’m telling you, I’m usually right about these things.

So if we already have what we need to live awesome lives, then why does it seem that we spend so much time spinning our wheels, struggling with our emotions, and wrestling with self-defeating behavior?

It’s usually not a lack of knowledge or skills that’s the culprit. It’s usually a set of beliefs we’ve developed over the years about who we are, what we’re capable of, and what we “should” and “shouldn’t” do in our lives that holds us back from really feeling and doing the things we’d like to feel and do in our lives.

Put another way: our emotional and behavioral repertoires are not defined by what we can actually do. They’re defined— and limited— by our beliefs about what we can actually do.

Our beliefs are everything. Once we get limiting beliefs stuck in our heads, everything gets filtered through those beliefs. And these beliefs are formed subtly, over years, shaped day in and day out by the things others tell us and the things that we tell ourselves. We often don’t even know we’re drowning in a sea of negative beliefs about ourselves, any more than a fish knows he’s immersed in water all day every day.

It’s just the way it’s always been, so we figure it’s the way it always has to be.

There have been entire books written about the types of beliefs that limit us. A whole technique of therapy, called “schema therapy,” makes challenging distorted beliefs its primary focus. Beliefs are so fundamental to how we think that it’s often very hard to make any therapeutic progress at all until we start chip, chip, chipping away at the negative things we’ve come to believe about ourselves, the world, and the future.

The good news is, beliefs change.

But not by accident.

The first belief that I’d suggest you start chip, chip, chipping away at? The belief that you’re somehow inadequate, incomplete, “not enough” just as you are.

I mean, what if that weren’t true, that you’re “not enough?” What if it was the case that, in actuality, you have exactly the tools you need to make your life awesome, right here, right now? What if the only thing really holding you back was a conditioned set of beliefs that sold you a bill of goods about yourself a long, long time ago?

Destroying the belief that you’re “missing something” or “not enough” might change your entire world.

And you wouldn’t even need to pay that sanctimonious guru who was trying to get you to doubt yourself.

 

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