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I appreciate truth bombs. Let’s just call things what they are. Let’s put out in the open what most people want to sweep under the rug. One such truth bomb that I, as a super high achiever, have come to understand is this:
Having goals kind of sucks sometimes.
I know that sounds counterintuitive and goes against everything I normally preach. But it’s also true. And I want to talk about it.
I’ll concede from the outset that nothing I’ve accomplished in my life would have been possible without goals. There’s no way I would have graduated first in my class from law school, or published a book, or started this podcast. I wouldn’t have married the man of my dreams after marrying the wrong guy first, and gone on to give birth to two of the best humans on this planet.
None of my success has been by accident. I don’t believe in luck. I believe in setting and crushing goals, again and again.
But being a goal crusher has a dark side.
Often, high achievers tie their identities to their performance. Some of us have a little voice that says incredibly rude things to us when we “fail.” Oh, you didn’t win the match/get the promotion/receive an offer of representation from the agent? You must be worthless.
And when I say “some” of us, I mean me.
Thus far in my forty-three years, I’ve learned how to deal with that voice. I’ve become quite adept at righting the ship and taking responsibility for my second thought, even if the first was some uncontrollable vitriolic garbage from the You Can’t Monster.
But sometimes, I can’t.
Sometimes, the first thought feels like the truth, and I find myself wishing I didn’t even have goals. I regret pushing myself outside my comfort zone and stretching myself to grow, because when it’s hard—when it’s not happening, when it feels like all I do is fall short—it sucks.
Do you ever feel that way too?
I recently found myself in this situation, and sheesh. It. Was. A. Doozie. It lasted for several days, and it felt different from the other times my You Can’t Monster has reared her head. For a minute there, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it out of her nasty clutches.
Now, you know that I believe in fully experiencing all emotions, especially rage, sadness, and frustration, which I talked about in detail in Episode 130. Stuffing our emotions down because we’ve labeled them “bad” or “negative,” or because we’ve told ourselves we “shouldn’t” be feeling them, is only what we should do if we wanna be that lady who loses her shit in carline or at the grocery store because someone looked at her the wrong way. (Hint: you do not want to be that lady.)
Stuffed emotion is coming out whether you want it to or not, girlfriend. Might as well expel it fully when it’s fresh and raw, and on your terms.
In my case, I experienced the emotion by letting the so-called “negative” thoughts run rampant. I allowed the You Can’t Monster to tell me that I suck, I’m worthless, I don’t add any value to this Earth. (Important note: if you try this, understand that I’m not telling you to believe those thoughts; just let them run.)
It will not feel good. You’ll want to make it stop by doing what so many other coaches say to do, which is to “replace” the negative thought with a positive one. (Right. As if that actually works.) I say, don’t even try. That exercise is ineffective, and at its core, is a form of stuffing by ignoring. There is a better way.
Let the vitriol spew.
Because very quickly, your You Can’t Monster is going to say something so ridiculously untrue that even in the depths of your spiral, you will hear a record scratch in your head. For me, after a few minutes of naming all the ways in which I’m not good enough and should stop trying, it was, “And why even bother eating healthy and working out? You’re going to die of something.” That one silly thought made me stop and think, “OK, well now you’re just being ridiculous.” And just like that: the rip current abruptly ended and I was free to swim back to shore.
But here’s where, until seeking the help of a therapist, I had previously been getting stuck. I was expressing the emotion, sure, but I still had no idea why I was getting to that point in the first place.
Understanding that the root of my tantrums is an underlying belief that I must win or succeed to be enough, my therapist helped me realize that all success is error-driven. The only way to figure out how to do something you’ve never done—or achieve something you’ve never achieved—is to do it the wrong way first. That attempt will give you information (data) that informs your next attempt. You try a different way the next time, repeating that process until you get it right.
My therapist helped me see that all errors or mistakes are merely data points. They are opportunities for learning. That’s it. There is no winning or losing. There is no success or failure. There is only learning.
And you know what, mama? You and I are excellent at learning.
Being a mom is nothing if not a constant state of learning how to nurture, protect, and guide other humans. If we learned how to sleep train a newborn and how to get a toddler to pee in the toilet, we can learn anything.
What if we just looked at all challenges in life from that perspective? Could you, from a place of deep curiosity and gratitude for new information, view all your future errors as mere data points? Could your second thought (after you forgive yourself for first calling yourself a dummy when you mess up) be, Thank you for the data point. Thank you for this opportunity to learn. Could you do that?
Um, duh. Of course you could.
So let’s start doing it. Let’s start viewing every endeavor as an experiment. Even this paradigm shift we’re discussing at this moment can simply be an experiment, during which we will learn how to respond to the errors and mistakes we make.
Y’all, this one therapy session has changed my entire outlook on life.
Instead of viewing my big, hairy, audacious goals as something to either achieve or fail to achieve, I now see them as a means by which to learn big, exciting things.
Right now, I’m not failing at getting my novel published, or sucking at winning tennis matches. No way. I am learning how to write a New York Times Bestseller. I am learning how to be a more consistent tennis player.
And learning is so fun. Isn’t it amazing what a little therapy can do?
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