Use Your Damn Skills

Creating healthy self-esteem demands that we give up our addiction to denial. Healthy self-esteem cannot be created as we overlook important aspects of reality.

Denial, understand, is not a function of “character.” It’s not the case that “good” people have an inherently easier time acknowledging and accepting reality, and “bad” people tend to fall back on willful ignorance.

The fact of the matter is that denial is seductive to everyone, and it’s not hard to understand why: life can be painful.

Life involves loss.

Life involves stress.

Life involves fear, at least for psychologically normal and healthy people. (Anyone who says they don’t experience fear is either lying, or has sustained some sort of brain damage.)

Our brains have evolved to help us continue functioning day to day, to survive and flourish. As part of this function, our brains do have mechanisms in place to limit our awareness, particularly of painful things. After all, it wouldn’t be terribly adaptive if we went through every day acutely aware of every little ache and pain, physical and emotional.

(As a marathon runner, I can tell you that this ability to limit awareness of pain is the main thing that allows people as crazy as I am to run 26.2 miles at a time.)

Most of the time, this cognitive ability to limit awareness of pain functions automatically, subconsciously. Our brains are enormously adaptable, and they’re wicked smart. They learn, day to day, how to mold our perception and awareness so that we’re not going down in agony every time we stub our toe. The ability to limit awareness of pain is an example of the miraculous ingenuity of our magnificent minds.

However, there’s a difference between taking advantage of our brain’s ability to limit awareness of pain as a survival mechanism that helps us achieve goals; and engaging our brain’s ability to selectively pay attention as a means to stay in the dark from unpleasant realities that we need to face.

We cannot change unpleasant realities until we face them.

This is particularly true of unpleasant emotional realities, which frequently intrude upon our consciousness in the form of anxiety and depression until we make the decision to face them with eyes wide open.

The cognitive ability to be selective about our attention, to choose our focus, is like pretty much any other tool we humans have: it can be used, and it can be abused.

Why is it so important to self-esteem that we not use our brain’s capacity for selective attention to aid and abet denial?

Self-esteem is an odd duck, psychologically speaking. Many people seem to think the self-esteem equation is pretty straightforward: that if they do things that garner them approval, they’ll approve of themselves. If they do things like they were taught by their parents, they’ll approve of themselves. If they achieve thus and so, meeting or exceeding such and such a standard, they’ll like and respect themselves.

As it turns out, self-esteem can’t be “earned” by outside accomplishments, conforming to our parents’ wishes, or meeting some sort of external standard. Self-esteem is actually always and only an “inside job”— it is generated when we consciously make decisions that enhance our feelings of authenticity, efficacy, and worthiness.

The battle for lasting, stable self-esteem can only be waged within— it literally can’t be generated any other way.

If we are to effectively wage this battle within, if we are to make decisions and lead lives that are consistent with our perception of reality and our values, it is essential that we’re not copping out by selectively attending to the facts of reality as we understand them. We can try to lead lives of high authenticity, courage, and meaning, but if we’re shutting out important facts, our brains are going to register that…and the padlock on the self-esteem box will remain intact.

Refusing to live in denial doesn’t mean facing reality is always easy or comfortable.

It doesn’t mean that we can’t be tired or discouraged— in fact, if we are tired and discouraged, it’s important to our self-esteem to acknowledge that. The failure to pay attention to the signals our body and our minds send us indicates a lack of self-respect, and our self-esteem simply will not put up with that.

Refusing to live in denial doesn’t mean you have to always feel confident or secure. Even high self-esteem individuals experience times of doubt and frustration.

What refusing to live in denial does mean is that if we see an issue in our lives that needs to be addressed, we do not minimize, hide from, or dodge it. We confront it— even if our knees tremble.

Refusing to live in denial means that life may not always be pretty or comfortable— but it will always, always be authentic. It means developing the self-trust that comes with knowing that you will never lie to yourself— and that any solutions to problems you generate will be authentic and real, because they’re based in an unvarnished approach to living life.

We don’t have to be super heroes to give up our addiction to denial.

We just have to take it one day at a time.

 

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Our brains are wired to create meaning out of chaos.

They’ve evolved to help us navigate the world, and survive— and one of their primary tasks is to figure out why things happen. Especially things that are violent, ugly, and scary.

We can’t help ourselves from asking “why?” It’s hardwired into our neuropsychology.

It’s important to remember, however, even as we ask “why” in the wake of tragedy, loss, and trauma, that the answers our brains come up with are going to be biased. The fact is, we don’t always, or even often, really know “why” bad things happen. But our brains will furnish answers to us that have less to do with facts, than they have to do with helping us survive, cope, and go on functioning in the world.

The fact is, we can’t read anybody else’s mind.

The fact is, no human institution in history has come up with perfect answers to the problem of awful things happening— whether those awful things happen behind closed doors, in public venues packed with hundreds of people, or in the skies.

It’d be much easier if we could read others’ minds. If we could pinpoint the factors that went into people making decisions that led to trauma, suffering, and death. My field has devoted a great deal of its resources to developing valid “profiles” of people likely to harm other people, and psychologists have differing opinions on how well those profiles predict anything.

The real truth is: we have to learn to live in a world that, no matter what laws are passed, no matter what psychological assessment tools are developed, no matter what religious or moral movements are prevalent, is volatile and unpredictable.

Often grotesquely volatile and unpredictable.

We have to learn what it means to accept the world that we live in.

“Acceptance,” understand, does not mean “like.”

“Acceptance” does not mean “approve of.”

“Acceptance” does not mean “stop trying to change.”

What “acceptance” truly means is to deal, unflinchingly, with the facts of reality as we understand them. To acknowledge in a meaningful way that things exist— even things we hate, things that are unfair, things that are heartbreaking, things that should be otherwise.

You cannot change a situation you refuse to accept exists.

The unpredictability and uncontrollability of the world exists.

So much pain goes unattended to, because people refuse to accept that it exists in the first place.

People refuse to get treatment for addiction, because they are overwhelmed and terrified to admit they’re an addict.

People refuse to get treatment for depression, because they’ve been told to be depressed is some kind of “character flaw” that they should be able to simply “rise above.”

People refuse to admit they’re wrong, or they were wrong, or that there’s a different perspective that may be valid, because they’ve come to believe that they need to dig in and defend their positions to the death.

The 12 step traditions often discuss the differences between “pain” and “suffering.” The well-worn slogan goes, “pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.” The idea being that every life involves a certain amount of pain, just because pain comes with the package of being alive; but how we approach pain, how we deal with it, can prolong that pain into true “suffering.”

It’s a lesson that is reinforced by the Serenity Prayer: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

The first step to dealing with the pain and fear provoked by this unpredictable, uncontrollable world of ours is to accept that all those things— pain, fear, unpredictability, uncontrollability— they all exist. No amount of wishful thinking, legislation, good intentions, or denial will change that.

The upside of radically accepting that these things exist is that, if you make acceptance your starting point, your brain knows you’re being honest. Trust me, your brain’s not dumb. It knows when you’re trying to sugar coat things in order to feel better. It won’t let you get away with that, not over the long term.

I believe there are answers to the kind of suffering that the world is experiencing right now.

I believe there is tremendous reason to hope.

I believe we are greater, more ambitious, more beautiful, have more potential than anyone believes, especially after tragedies like Las Vegas.

But I believe our greatest challenge is accepting that the world is exactly as it is.

A is A.

Let us start the healing with our eyes wide open.

 

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Don’t negotiate with emotional blackmailers.

There is a sizable subset of people out there who wish to control what you think, feel, and do.

Sometimes they have the best intentions— they might be family, or friends, or professionals who honestly think they have a better way for you to exist than the way you would otherwise live, left to  your own devices.

Sometimes they have self-interested intentions— they’re selling a product or service that purports to increase the pleasant feeling states and decrease the painful feeling states in your life.

And, yes, there is a subset of people who will seek to control you simply because that’s what they do. They like controlling people.

Whatever other peoples’ reasons for wanting to control what you think, feel, and do, there tend to be some consistencies about their methodology. The most striking feature of how they do what they do is, they rarely offer their path to you as an option for you to freely choose, based upon your own perception of reality and values system. And it’s not hard to see why they don’t go about it this way: that would require them to respect your autonomy, intelligence, and dignity.

Pesky little obstacles— autonomy, intelligence, and dignity— when you’re trying to control someone.

Far easier, and more effective, when it comes to controlling people is to appeal to their sense of guilt.

Far easier still is to prey upon peoples’ instinctive reluctance to set and enforce boundaries.

Even easier yet is to exploit peoples’ feelings of inadequacy or incompleteness to get them to think, feel, and behave as they’d prefer.

This is what I call “emotional blackmail.” And it’s a behavior change lever that’s used by advertisers, politicians, family members, and even therapists, guides, sponsors, and gurus, every single day.

The thing about emotional blackmailers is, whether they are well-intentioned or not, their “means to an end” is always and only harmful to our self-esteem. Nobody has ever made the “best choices of their life” because of the tactics of emotional blackmailers.

How do we recognize when emotional blackmailers are up to their tricks?

There are a few telltale signs.

One of the most glaring signs is that the appeals of emotional blackmailers are almost never rooted in respect for thoughtful, considered reality testing. Almost always, their appeals are based on getting you to make gut-level, reflexive decisions, without doing any of that pesky THINKING that sometimes gets in the way.

I’m not talking about respecting your instincts. I’m talking about people who encourage you to just “go with” a gut feeling, without asking reasonable questions about what that feeling may or may not be all about. Emotional blackmailers LOVE to tell people that their “hearts” are superior to their “heads” when making decisions— because they know that when people start integrating their intelligence with their instincts, they have a tendency to make better, more autonomous decisions. This is contrary to the agenda of emotional blackmailers.

Another telltale sign of the emotional blackmailer is that their appeals are almost never designed to take you to another, higher level in your life. Almost always, their appeals encourage you to avoid being “one of THOSE people”— i.e., some out-group that the emotional blackmailer knows you want to avoid being part of. They may imply that if you don’t’ think, feel, and do what they’d prefer, you might be unintelligent, or uncompassionate, or otherwise a “bad person.”

The key to the kingdom of controlling people, as far as the emotional blackmailer is concerned, is figuring out a way to make someone feel like a “bad person” if they don’t do what the blackmailer would prefer. Many people will go to great lengths to not feel like “bad people.”

This is why it’s so important that we don’t just rely on our instincts when it comes to decision making. While it’s true that our guts have invaluable information for us that come from primal emotional perceptions and cues, our instincts are designed to work in concert with our magnificent minds in order to make good choices.

We need to decide what it means to be a “good” or a “bad” person based upon our own values system, derived from a purposeful integration of our instinctive and intellectual capacities. Only WE can do this for ourselves.

Understand, emotional blackmailers don’t like it when people catch on to their tricks. Usually what happens when they get a wife that someone is on to them is to double down on their manipulative tactics. Exasperated sighs, eye rolling, head shaking, tsk-tsking. The “shaming” machine gets thrown into high gear.

But ask yourself this question: if someone has your best interests in mind, would they really be encouraging you to NOT to think, to just accept their judgments and carry out their wishes?

Would anyone who wants to ENHANCE your feelings of personal power, autonomy, and dignity be frustrated that you want to think something through for YOURSELF?

Would anyone who really respects you be ANGRY that you want to take the time to think for yourself, especially about what constitutes a “good” or a “bad” person?

Don’t take my word for it— think it through.

You deserve the time and space to think it through.

 

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No one can accurately tell you what you want. But that won’t stop plenty of people from trying.

These people are usually selling something.

Who is anybody else to tell you you “should” want something? Either a product, or an experience, or a goal?

I have an acquaintance in the personal development industry who spends a great deal of time and energy attempting to sell potential customers on his vision of what they “should” want. He’s big on telling them that if they want want “most” people want, they’ll wind up unfulfilled; and that, if they’re truly interested in going to the “next level,” they should want the kinds of things and experiences he is selling.

I’m not passing judgment on his vision, understand. I give this guy the benefit of the doubt that he’s coming from a place of seeing many people misled into unfulfilling existences by wanting the “wrong” stuff, and he’s only trying to spread the “truth” as he understands it. My issue with his teaching is, there is literally no way he can know what will make for a fulfilling life for all the people reading his words.

Only you are the expert on you.

Lots of people will try to make you doubt your expertise. Sometimes these are even people with degrees and credentials, which makes their judgments kind of intimidating. After all, if these “experts” say I should want something, who am I to say I don’t?

I repeat: you are the expert on you.

Part of building, or rebuilding, self-esteem is about reclaiming your right to assert what you want and who you are, even if it contradicts the wishes or assertions of those considered “experts.”

Why is this important? It’s important because people frequently come to a place of wounded or deficient self-esteem after years of being told who they “should” be, what they “should” want, what are and are not acceptable goals and aspirations for their lives.

Sometimes they fulfill others’ expectations of their lives, sometimes they don’t; but in the end, they usually wind up feeling unsure of themselves, anxious, unconfident. And the reason for this is, they’ve been living a life someone else designed for them. They’ve not been taught the importance of living an authentic life of their own design and momentum.

The people who try to tell us who we are and what we “should” want are usually well-intentioned. I’ve seen plenty of personal growth writers do it. I’ve seen therapists do it. I’ve definitely seem well-meaning family and friends do it. Almost never, in my experience, have these people done so with ulterior motives: they usually want the best for us, and they feel that by pressuring us into a life THEY approve of is, well, the best for us.

Again, it doesn’t have to do with whether they are right or right about what kind of life would make us happy. The issue involved is one of autonomy and choice. It is impossible to life a life of high self-esteem if you’re not living a life you chose— thoughtfully, purposefully, and consistent with your values.

Therapists, teachers, guides, mentors, sponsors— they can all show us alternatives for our lives, help us develop our visions, provide modeling, support us in developing the knowledge and skills necessary to construct our own unique life visions. In an advisory capacity, our teachers are irreplaceable resources. But in order to really utilize them as the valuable resources they are, we must keep their roles in our lives very clear: advisors and guides.

They can be our navigators, in other words. But we must be the captain and command the helm of our own ship.

Be mindful when you consider the input of a therapist, guide, teacher, mentor, or sponsor. Are they asking you questions, encouraging you to develop your own vision of what is real and important, based upon your own values and experiences? Or are they hard-selling their own vision of what you “should” want (which, not coincidentally, is often only available through their exclusive mentorship)?

I realize I might sound like a broken record to some readers of my blog, insofar as I link so many issues back to the central importance of self-esteem. However, there simply is no escaping the fact that unless we establish and nurture a sense of ourselves that is stable, reality-based, and worthy, it simply doesn’t matter what else we do with our lives.

Without self-esteem, it doesn’t matter what techniques we master, what philosophies we employ, what deities we pray to. We will always undercut ourselves, sabotage ourselves, sell ourselves short.

In case there is any doubt, let me remind of you something that you maybe haven’t been told for a few years, if ever:

YOUR vision is important.

YOUR goals are important.

What provides YOU with pleasure and meaning is important.

All the tools that psychology and the personal growth field have to offer you should be at the service of YOUR vision for your life.

You. Are. Important.

 

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Black and white thinking is not just a distorted pattern of cognition that contributes to anxiety and depression. It’s a killer of dreams.

When we think in black and white terms, we’re going the “all or nothing” route. We assume that if a situation is bad, it must be all bad, and nothing can salvage it. Or we assume a situation that is good is all good, and there are no shortcomings or challenges that we have to deal with.

Sometimes we fall into black and white thinking because a situation has been so challenging to us, that we can’t possibly see any opportunities or upsides in it. It’s a defense mechanism that we use to shield ourselves from further disappointment and pain by limiting our awareness of nuance. When a situation has been consistently challenging or painful for a long enough time, it becomes hurtful to hope or to keep looking for opportunities to change things, thus slapping a black and white “filter” on the situation seems like a logical thing for our brains to do.

However, black and white thinking most often robs us of any chance we might have to actually change a painful situation.

Black and white thinking leads us down a fatalistic rabbit hole where all our defeats are final and fatal.

Black and white thinking leads us to a place where, even when presented with a potential course of action, we kind of shrug our shoulders and say, “Easier said than done.”

It’s true that many, if not most, things are “easier said than done.” If personal development and emotional growth were easy, there’d be no point in writing or talking about it.

But when we fall into the “easier said than done” pattern of thinking, it’s as if we’re proclaiming to the universe, “Because this thing is hard, it’s impossible to do.” It’s a form of black and white thinking: “all hard things are too hard.”

The truth of personal development and emotional growth is even more complex: yes, it’s hard, and often complicated.

Yes, our pasts often leave us with debris that we have to clear away en route to a more empowered life.

Yes, those are very real and non-trivial obstacles.

However…because personal growth is often hard, that doesn’t mean it’s as hard as it seems.

Because personal growth is hard, that doesn’t mean it’s as hard as some people make it out to be.

The fact of the matter is, personal growth is just like anything: when you understand the principles of behavioral psychology involved and get practice chopping big tasks into smaller tasks, and smaller tasks into even smaller tasks, all the way down to the point where all that’s in front of you is one teeny tiny step that you truly feel is doable…that’s when it becomes realistic.

That’s when progress is made.

In getting to that place where all we’re focused on is the next teeny, tiny little step, it’s essential to remember that each new moment is an opportunity to start over. No matter how many times we’ve “screwed up” in the past. No matter how we’ve been abused or neglected. No matter what messages we’ve received about our worth and skills. The bottom line is that everybody reading these words has the ability to chop big goals down into littler goals, and little goals down into realistic, achievable steps.

Nobody can take your ability to take baby steps away.

Black and white thinking is insidious. It discourages us from trying to take baby steps. It says that if one thing feels overwhelming, then all things must feel overwhelming. If one thing feels undaoble, then all of the little tasks that comprise the thing must also be undoable. If you failed at one thing, that means you’ve failed at everything.

It’s baloney. Black and white thinking is one way of looking at problems…and very infrequently the most helpful.

How can you move away from black and white thinking? The same way we move away from any pattern of thinking that’s unhelpful…one little bit at a time.

The first step is just noticing when you’re feeling overwhelmed. That’s almost always a surefire sign that you’re thinking in black and white terms. When you do feel overwhelmed, take a few steps back, and examine the thoughts that are going through your head.

Are you trying to bite off more than you can chew?

Are you mentally trying to make a huge hurdle all at once, instead of chopping the obstacle down into smaller, more manageable hurdles?

Are you overlooking the nuances of a situation, and instead making a black and white pronouncement about the situation as a whole?

Thinking in shades of grey isn’t sexy. Chopping big goals down into littler and littler chunks isn’t fun. It’s often more fun to think about being able to leap tall buildings in a singe bound.

But…that’s how progress is made in the real world. That’s how goals are achieved in the real world.

One little bit at a time.

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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