Don’t Be Too Harsh On Yourself.
In Focus, the author Daniel Goleman, best known for his seminal book, Emotional Intelligence, argues that fear and shaming are not great motivators for people to change and continue changing for the better. What works is positive feelings like self-compassion and high self-esteem.
Goleman writes,
“Fear is a negative feeling, people will take just enough action to change their mood for the better — then ignore it. For long-term change you need sustained action. A positive message says, ‘Here are better actions to take and with this metric you can see the good you’re doing — as you keep going, you can continually feel better about how you are doing.”
For example, people make new year’s resolutions in January. But the chance of failure is pretty high. Perhaps, it’s because they have set too many goals and they are overwhelmed. Or, they have set goals that are too high that they’re exhausted.
Goleman’s insight provides yet another likely reason why many people fail to keep up with their resolutions. For instance, Charlie’s new year’s resolution is to work out at the gym for 30 minutes every day. She’s been doing great for a few weeks. But for whatever reason, she missed going to the gym for a few days. Now, according to Goleman, how she responds to her failure is the key.
- On one hand, she feels bad about missing her workouts. Whether she blames the external circumstances or her own meager internal willpower, she responds in a negative emotion. By focusing on such negative emotion, she tries to motivate herself to get back on the workout routine. But the chance of her sustaining this habit is quite slim.
- On the other hand, she turns her focus on the positives. It’s unfortunate that she missed a few days of workouts. But she feels proud of the days that she’s actually showed up and worked out. She may have missed several days but, nevertheless, she pats herself on the back and treats herself with compassion. She reminds herself of her past successes and zeroes in on showing up the next day.
The chance of her getting back to the gym and actually sustaining her new habit to the end of the year is very likely in the latter case.
The lesson of the day? Be kind to yourself. It pays off better than using negative emotions as a kick in the butt.
