The positive side of negative self-talk

From Brian R. Little's Who Are You, Really?:

Those we call intrapersonal projects are especially interesting and important. They are projects focused on the self, such as “try to be less socially anxious,” or “become a better listener.”

[But] who told you to listen better, or to get on top of your social anxiety? Who told you to get your values straightened out, you degenerate, before you find yourself sucked into a destructive lifestyle that you can’t escape? If it is a parent, boss, or lover who generates the project, it is more likely to create negative emotions than if you yourself were the initiator.

There is now a significant body of research demonstrating that “intrinsically regulated” project pursuit will be more successful and lead to greater well-being than “externally regulated” pursuit. [1] If intrapersonal projects spring from your own vision of a possible self, you are likely to feel better while pursuing them. And those projects are ultimately more likely to succeed. Those initiated by others might be willingly undertaken. But if they are forced or coerced, they may be nonstarters.

In other words, self-improvement should be self-directed. This doesn't mean you should ignore valid criticism from others. But it does mean you're more likely to level up when you beat those critics to the punch by being proactive and taking ownership of areas in which you have room for growth.

I'm an advocate of positive affirmations, and I have a handful that I recite during morning routines. But I also believe in personal growth. Which requires radical honesty. Which in turn requires the ability to state out loud the ways in which you could do better (i.e. the opposite of a positive affirmation).

I try to do this regularly. At the beginning of every week I pick out one or two things I can improve on and write them down. I call them "concerns." Then I review those concerns every morning just after reviewing my positive affirmations. Everybody's different, but for me this one-two punch of inflating my confidence and then grounding my ego gives me a stimulating jolt to start the day.

That said, I've discovered that the wording really matters here. A concern should always be worded so as to emphasize its impermanence. It's a thing you are currently doing, not a thing you permanently are. Here are some real-life examples of concerns I've written in the past (notice the formulaic use of the terms "often/rarely" and "these days"):

• "I often allow my email backlog to become unmanageable these days."
• "I rarely arrive at social meetups on time these days."
• "I often overextend myself these days by self-assigning too many projects."
• "I often do too much low-level operation work and not enough high-level strategic work these days."

If a concern stops being true in consecutive morning reviews, I'll scratch it off the list. Usually by the end of the week, I've got no more concerns to read.

The Adjacent Possible is where I share my most useful insights in bite-sized posts. One email per week. Many insights per email:

Spare Parts

Spare Parts is where I share useful frameworks on entrepreneurship, productivity, and lifestyle design in bite-sized posts.

Subscribe

Go here for more posts in the series.

Footnote:

[1] Little is mostly alluding to findings from self-determination theory.