My last two blogs both discussed habits, including how we form them and how they can be damaging or helpful. Today I’m going to discuss a habit that I’ve developed that I’m regularly working to dissolve, and it’s one that you may have developed as well. But, like many long-term habits, this one has been tough to break, as I’ve spent a lifetime of reinforcing my own harmful behavior. Would you like to experience perpetual exhaustion? Try carrying around an ever present feeling that actions, things, or people are simply not good enough. Feelings of craving more are not new to any of us, but when those feelings become ingrained in who we are as a person, we need to take steps to intervene so that we can view the world through a clear lens.
Have you ever received something, and been disappointed by it? Of course, we all have, whether it’s a birthday gift or a dessert at a restaurant. How does that make you feel? Perhaps it only bothers you at a surface level; you react briefly, maybe a turn of the corner of your mouth, and you move past it. If that’s your level of entanglement, you’re in good shape. Some of us will let that disappointment bother us more; you react in the moment, but you continue thinking about it for the rest of your birthday, or during the car ride home from the restaurant. If you’re not careful, those negative feelings may stay with you and develop into a problem. For example, there are some of us that not only wear our disappointment on our sleeve at the time of the event, and immediately afterward, but days or weeks or even months later as well. These individuals are treading on very thin ice, ripe to fall through into the chasm where disappointment becomes a way of life.
And you don’t want to end up there, trust me. I’m still finding a way to scrape and claw my way out, and it’s not a fun journey. Once you start letting disappointment stay with you, then it arises again and again and again, and you are on the path to the absence of satisfaction. Celebration will become a brief, muted affair undertaken more to meet social requirements than out of any genuine feeling. You’ll fall into the trap of endless comparisons where you always lose; you’ll compare each victory to something bigger that someone else achieved, and these successes will then not only not give you pleasure, but they will actively make you distraught. This is not an ideal way to live your life.
Now wait, you say, hold on for a second. There are benefits to not being satisfied. In fact, one might argue that dissatisfaction is what drives innovation and high achievers; they’re never satisfied and as a result always push the envelope. Maybe we wouldn’t be as advanced as a society without that mentality. What about those people?
Well, like most things, this isn’t a binary arrangement. There are degrees of this mentality, and truth be told, there can be some benefits to striving past satisfaction. It is certainly true that great advances have been made by people with that mentality. However I would argue that however beneficial an insatiable nature may be at times, there is a point where it goes too far, there is a point where it becomes too habitual, and there is a point where it causes great distress to people. And I suspect that, at least in US society, we push people too much toward the insatiable side of the spectrum, which results in a *lot* of unnecessary unhappiness.
As I started off this entry discussing, this whole area is a problem for me. If I want to get all psychological about it, I remember my dad telling me as a little kid not to worry so much about being “the best” at anything, because no matter what I do, no matter how good I get, there will be someone else in the world who is better than me. That shit really stuck with me. I’m not mad at him for offering the advice; I’m sure it came from a good place and was meant to protect me from future disappointment. But I think it colored my view on a lot of things moving forward.
I’ve mentioned before that I grew up in a fairly negative environment. Pairing that with “don’t bother trying too hard cause you’ll never be the best” was not a great combination. Today, I have sincere trouble acknowledging skills that I bring to the table, and that leads me to be down on myself. Being down on myself leads me to not want to take credit for things that I accomplish. Because, of course, it’s not *me* that led to that victory, it’s whoever else was involved at the time. Because I’m a fraud, I don’t deserve to be here; I only got here because I’m good at convincing people to hire me for shit that I’m not qualified for. If my organization received a big grant, it was because someone else was involved with it, or it was because the organization had strong mission alignment with donors, or…well, you always find a reason.
Why would I react in such negative ways? Well, again, it’s just become a habit. Left to its own devices, the mind can be an incredibly destructive influence on our lives. I tend to be introverted and prefer spending a lot of my time alone or in very small groups, which means I have a lot of alone time with my mind. And that guy is up to some sneaky shit, let me tell you. Remember, your brain is constantly trying to make sense of everything, and your thoughts can convince you of all sorts of things. When you’re predisposed to lean negative due to your history, then all it takes is some alone time to convince yourself that you’re worthless or a bad person.
When you’ve been doing that for decades, the cycle becomes routine and difficult to break. How many people did we reach with our advocacy initiative? Shit, we did better with a campaign several years ago. How much money did we just receive in a grant? Wow, that’s a lot, but it’s still only a fraction of what we need to raise so really it’s not even important, we need to get back to work. Am I proud that I just had a chapter published in a book? Nah, I’m bummed that I gave up on writing two different books I had started. And look at other advocacy leaders, they have all written entire books, what are you doing with yourself, you suck!!!
That is just the tip of the iceberg for my own tendencies. Thankfully I’ve taken the most important step by far, which is recognizing that I have these tendencies. And that’s something I hope that people reading this will do as well. If you find yourself thinking that some of my outlook feels familiar, well, I’ve got good news for you—you just took the most important step in becoming a happier person! Becoming aware is key.
Once you’re aware, though, what can you do? As corny as it sounds, the next step is acceptance. Recognizing that our positive and negative experiences are simply a product of the human condition can free us from identifying with them and letting them run our lives. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, for me, practicing meditation and becoming more mindful has been a game changer for me. I still have some of those negative feelings, for sure; that’s just not going to go away one day. But I much more frequently recognize my automatic reaction toward the negative, toward dissatisfaction, and that means that I’m able to make a choice about how I want to respond to that feeling. Sometimes I can’t stop it, and I’ll still end up upset, or disappointed, or whatever. That’s to be expected, that’s ok. What’s most important is being mindful of these patterns, accepting them, letting go, and moving on. Because the more you notice and let go, the more that those become your new tendencies. And the more that you cultivate these healthy habits, the more frequently that acceptance will come naturally.
Apart from mindfulness, though, you can try other methods to mitigate the “it’s never enough” response. For example, studies have shown that we’re actually happier with our choices when we pick from a smaller sample of options. So, the research suggests that you’ll probably actually end up being happier with your meal at a restaurant that only serves 10 options than you will be at a restaurant that serves 100 options. The reason for this is that if a restaurant has 100 choices, then you will likely spend time wondering/worrying if you selected the optimal one for your tastes. Even if you were to put the two meals you selected from each restaurant side by side, and you objectively rated the taste of the meal from the 100-dish menu higher every time, you’d likely still end up being happier with the meal from the 10-dish menu in each isolated situation because of the fear of missing out. What is the lesson to be learned from this example? Well, bigger is not always better, and sometimes we can reduce our own dissatisfaction by choosing simply.
There are many steps that you can take to help promote this way of thinking. If you achieve a milestone of some kind, take the time to celebrate, even if you don’t think you deserve it. Set the standard that you do deserve it. Surround yourself with supportive people who respect and appreciate your contributions. It’s easy to dismiss the odd one-off voice of support, but it’s much harder to dismiss widespread, consistent support. Make sure to acknowledge and praise other people’s contributions, as normalizing that reward can facilitate future self-praise. Being good to others can help us be good to ourselves.
However you choose to deal with your own feelings of inadequacy or dissatisfaction, make sure that you take the time to address them. These feelings become more habitualized over time, and breaking the cycle only becomes harder. Work to overcome these tendencies and you’ll be rewarded with a lifetime of legitimate, genuine satisfaction. Gosh that sounds nice, doesn’t it?