Stop judging yourself

Music (00:00:00) – She is dreaming, she is drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else that she would rather be.

Koren (00:00:19) – Hello and welcome. This is Koren Motekaitis. And you’re listening to How She Really Does It, the place where inspiration and possibility meet. A few weeks ago, I got on a call with a client and they were celebrating a couple of successes, but it had a disclaimer. It was, oh, I’ve achieved this, but it only took 15 years and I achieved this, and that took only four years. One of the things that I coached my client on was we need to stop judging how long it takes, because that isn’t helpful. And even though that these were huge wins for my client, really, really big wins, really big obstacles that were overcome, those disclaimers didn’t allow for the celebration. And I often talk here about recognizing the yay-mes, recognizing our wins, right, having the resources to continue to move forward as this is one really tough and courageous life that we’re living.

Koren (00:01:31) – So when we judge how long it takes, that’s that idea of the death by a thousand cuts to herself. And I’ll go into talking about that more. Anne Lamott. She’s a writer. One of the things that she talks about is expectations are resentments waiting to happen. And Adam Grant currently has a new book out called Hidden Potential, where he talks about expectations and the benefits of it. And so there’s there’s going to be opposites between what Anne Lamont talks about and Adam Grant talks about and my clients and say, but oh, but Adam Grant says it’s a good thing and I understand that. But there’s always context. Context is really important. There’s all these different layers. And often we have stealth expectations. And this comes from Brené Brown’s work in Rising Strong. And it’s also in Dare to Lead. But stealth expectations are when we have a desire or expectation that exists outside of our awareness, and it typically includes a dangerous combination of fear, shame, and magical thinking. Talk about a total shitstorm, you guys.

Koren (00:02:35) – Here’s the thing stealth expectations almost always lead to disappointment, resentment, and more fear and shame. Again, this is from Dare to Lead. So one of the things that’s really important is that we don’t have stealth expectations. And we get really clear and we create an awareness of what’s going on and is it realistic. And so often, like with my client actually 15 years or four years for these two goals, these two achievements to occur was pretty appropriate. The 15 years maybe could have been whittled down to 13. And here’s the other side of the story. It wasn’t 15 years, day in and day out, right? There are lots of gaps in between. When we judge ourselves, we’re inviting shame to that space. So it’s really important that we don’t judge ourselves. It’s really important that we don’t have stealth expectations, because then we’re just consistently living in places of shame, right? The thing about shame is shame is toxic. It creates toxic cultures, toxic relationships with others, and most importantly, toxic relationship with yourself.

Koren (00:03:41) – And this goes back to what I said earlier about the death by a thousand cuts to our self. If we’re judging ourselves, beating ourselves up, having these stealth expectations, which is fear, shame and magical thinking, right? And then afterwards we don’t meet that and we judge ourselves. It’s not actually helping us move forward. It’s creating the death by a thousand cuts. Maybe it ignites you for a short term, but my question always is to my clients is, are you going to be able to maintain that long term because that’s a big piece. Can you sustainably integrate it day in and day out? That’s how true success happens. So when we do this death by a thousand cuts, when we judge ourselves, when we beat ourselves up, when we have all these disclaimers of how long something took. It doesn’t lead us to anything productive or the ability to have enjoyment. It’s just more opportunities for us to fulfill that hypothesis that so many of us have running around. Maybe it’s in the subconscious of your brains that I’m not enough.

Koren (00:04:46) – That mantra that’s in our heads and in our own internal leaderboards. You know how peloton has the leaderboard and it’s there. It’s like we have our own leaderboard of oopsie – took 15 years for that. Oh, see? Took four years for that. Oh, see, I’ve been doing this for 13 years and I still haven’t been able to get this done. And we use that leaderboard to beat ourselves up in the path of I’m not enough. Okay, maybe it took 14 years or 15 years to get this done and achieved. Here’s the question. And doing this from a place of curiosity and empathy, what can you learn from that experience? What was your focus during that time? What was your commitment? What were your distractions? This one’s huge. What was your support? Because while we may think that people go it alone, that’s a huge myth. What were your priorities during that period of time during those 15 years? Maybe you were trying to raise your family, and you were part of the sandwich generation and also taking care of your parents.

Koren (00:05:57) – And so some of your professional goals may have had to get parked for a bit a period of time. You know, being really honest of what were your priorities and what were your goals and dreams that maybe were much slower for you to accomplish. The other question is, what is the length of time it actually takes to achieve this? This is such an important question because as a society, as our cultural programming, we have lots of magical thinking and how long things take. There’s this, you know, overnight success, which is a bunch of bullshit, right? Where we think that people become this overnight success. Except they don’t see the ten, 15, 20 years of foundation-building, the falling down moments. They just see the outcome on the other end. We have highlight reels, right? Social media, there’s news clips. There’s all sorts of stuff where it shows the outside, but it doesn’t show what it really takes. And I get that I have a lot of clients who on the outside have these highlight reels, whether they’re doing it themselves.

Koren (00:07:02) – Or it’s what people have put upon them, and I walk them through those difficulties day to day because we all have it. There’s also the magical thinking, because our content is designed to push out results that sometimes are unrealistic or not even really true. There’s a lot of missing context, because here’s the thing that I know from doing this work for the many decades I have. There’s always more to the story. A long time ago, I can’t even remember when it was, Malcolm Gladwell came out with the concept of 10,000 hours, and that was mind blowing because that was counter culture, what I just talked about. You’ve heard me interview Daniel Coyle several times, and back in 2009, he had a great book called The Talent Code. It’s still worthwhile to go and read about how talent is really created. It’s not a matter of being born. I’ve had on this show many Olympians who’ve talked about their journey. I’ve had high level athletes, high performers professionally who’ve come on and talked about their journeys. We’ve had New York Times bestsellers, thought leaders, people with success and talk about what that experience was like.

Koren (00:08:10) – We have that magical thinking and like, oh, if I’m really good at this, it’s going to happen easily or it’s I’m going to be able to overcome. The truth is, it takes time to achieve the goals we have. Quick wins aren’t real, nor are they sustainable. So here’s my invitation for you. Let’s stop judging ourselves. It’s a dead end. Hence the death by a thousand cuts. When we judge ourselves, it actually can lead to fixed mindset, which can lead to a lot of pain. Right? Because the fixed mindset is correlated, according to Carol Dweck’s research, to shame and fear and despair. Life is hard enough. We don’t need to create more, worse feelings or much worse feelings. On top of what’s already hard, because we’re judging ourselves and beating ourselves up that it’s taken too long. And we need to be hopeful. And hope means that we thought we can fall down and get back up. I’m highly hopeful, and it doesn’t mean that I just only see through rose colored glasses.

Koren (00:09:12) – But I do have this determination and grit and resilience of, hey, there’s got to be another way. And there are times when I’m in the deep struggle and I can’t see it, and I’m like, that’s when I know not to take action. Especially the having, you know, when there’s stealth expectations and thinking that there’s going to be a quick fix out of it. Right. So it’s really important to be able to have hope. But when we judge ourselves, it’s harder to have hope and look for alternatives or ways to pivot. Now I want to circle back to stealth expectations because this happens all the time. This happens with my clients. They’re really smart. They’re intelligent, high performers who are doing work that really matters to them. And we have this deep cultural programming of having these stealth expectations, and there’s this dangerous combination of fear, shame and magical thinking. Some of it can come from the media, right? Some of it can maybe come from the stories I share here. And then we can take and say, oh, we want this magical ending, right? Or we want the Miracle movie about the 1980s US hockey team to be a part of our lives.

Koren (00:10:17) – Instead, let’s be clear and conscious of our expectations. Instead of trying to create a Hollywood movie in our lives or create expectations and where they are stealth, which is rooted in fear and shame with magical thinking. When we can do that, we can learn and we can start to see the invisible. And this takes self awareness and becoming conscious in our lives. You may be saying like, Koren, what are you talking about? Invisible. I talk about invisible systems a lot and invisible support structures. Right. So like going back to the support, what’s the support? We often think it’s oh, this person. Right. We don’t think about what is the support that this person may have so that they can go and do this work. And there’s a lot of research that shows this about the support that is behind people who are successful behind cultures that are successful. So maybe it’s having a coach, maybe it’s having family, maybe it’s an education. What’s the support system that allows that person to really thrive and to see those things? So as we can learn and see the invisible that takes self awareness and us becoming conscious in our lives.

Koren (00:11:35) – That means there’s a lot of learning and unlearning for us to do. And in this case, the unlearning is about using judgment and beating ourselves to move forward, to advance, to achieve right, we need to unlearn that old pattern. It’s so indoctrinated in us, right? It’s part of our culture of if I’ve done this wrong, I need to beat myself up so that I can achieve forward. That’s not really how it happens. It may short term work for you. It’s going to fast track you to burnout. Instead, it’s about cultivating a growth mindset, unlearning the use of judgment and beating ourselves up, and learning a growth mindset and being resilient, which means learning to be compassionate and empathetic with ourselves. So there’s an unlearning of using judgment and beating ourselves up to the idea this forward advancement to achievement. And instead it’s about learning, cultivating a growth mindset. Which means we need to be compassionate and empathetic. And yes, I repeated that because I think it’s important to hear that over and over again.

Koren (00:12:41) – So the next time you judge yourself and how long something has taken. Stop. This is part of the unlearning. We have magical thinking that now here’s another form of magical thinking. We have magical thinking that once you hear this podcast, you’ll stop the judgment, right? You’ve heard it. You’ve learned it, or so we think. We’ve learned it. And then we’ll change. That’s magical thinking, my friend. Old habits, way of being, cultural programming deeply inside of us takes an unlearning. It takes time. It takes practice. Unlearning usually looks like doing the old way of being, judging ourselves. Right. You’re going to go out and you’re going to judge yourself. Why did it take me so long? Or you’re going to dismiss and be like, yes, I did this, and it only took me 22.5 years, right? In a sarcastic tone, beating yourself up, and then at some point, maybe an hour a day, a week later, you realize that you’re judging yourself. This is what unlearning really looks like.

Koren (00:13:46) – Instead of thinking that you’re not going to judge yourself the next time that something takes longer than you think it should. You’re still going to probably beat yourself up, but then at some point, an hour, a day, a week later, you’ll realize that you were judging yourself. Then from that place, that’s where you can go back to the steps I outlined earlier in this podcast. What can you learn from this experience? What was your focus? Why did it take so long? Right? Why did it take this period of time? Why did it take so long? Has a little bit of judgment. So why did it take this period of time? What was your commitment to the project? To the goal? What were your distractions? What was your support? What were your priorities? What is the length of time it actually takes to achieve this? What’s kind of the ballpark? What’s the range? As you unlearn and start to learn and practice focusing on what you can learn from this experience, you create a new way of being, a new habit, and a deprogramming of cultural programming.

Koren (00:14:55) – As you practice this, you are then raising your consciousness in your self awareness. And as you continue, the distance becomes less time. And this is really important as you continue to practice, as you continue to learn, as you continue to unlearn, and you stop judging yourself and you work on getting better at that, it will take you less time to be able to stop judging yourself. So this, my friend, is spiral learning and not doing it perfectly. This will allow you to have peace with yourself, that you may have believed that only these accomplishments would bring you the irony in that. This may allow you to be the leader of your life, leading your life with your values and priorities. This may allow you to be your own best friend to have your back. I remember years ago I had a client and we were doing a consult and going through what she was looking for, and she was a CEO of a company, and we talked about what it would look like and the things she wanted to work on.

Koren (00:15:59) – I said, okay. Ultimately, at the end of the year, what would be the goal? And she said, I want to be my own best friend. And that really stunned me. At first I was like, huh, why is that so important? Right, compared to the other stuff? And I realized now what I now know is having our own backs, being our own best friend, where we can be honest and frank with ourselves as well as encouraging ourselves, is so important because it’s the opposite of death by a thousand cuts. And I want to clarify, being your own best friend doesn’t mean you go it alone, but it means that you aren’t your own obstacle. We so often create that for ourselves. And doing the spiral, learning and not doing it perfectly. This will allow you to create the space to live wholeheartedly. Live with your whole heart, fully embracing life, doing it imperfectly, and loving yourself. All right, my friend, my invitation for you today is to stop judging how long it takes.

Koren (00:16:59) – You stop judging and instead focus on what you can learn from this experience. I am smiling big for you. Hey there. Before we go, I have a question for you. Have you subscribed to the show yet? This is an awesome opportunity for you to preserve your brain juice. I love the fact that I can subscribe to podcasts and television shows and they go straight to my iPhone or they go straight to my DVR and then I don’t have to worry of, oh no, especially with television shows. Did I hit record? Is it going to be there or now do I have to watch it on demand and go through all the commercials? So go and hit the subscribe button. There’s a link in the show notes and that will ensure you that you never miss a show. And you can also save your brain juice for other things in your life. There’s way more important things, but you and I will still be connected because the show will be waiting for you on your phone. Go to the link in the show notes. Subscribe to the show so you can automatically get all the shows to your phone.

Music (00:18:05) – She is dreaming, she is drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else that she would rather be.