The Incredible Grounding Power of Self-Acceptance

The Incredible Grounding Power of Self-Acceptance

We humans just want to fit in. A big part of our sense of security comes from feeling accepted by the group.

But what about accepting ourselves? Many people struggle with self-acceptance. That means acceptance of all of our attributes, positive or negative. It means accepting our strengths and faults without judgment.

For us to enjoy life and thrive, we must learn to embrace all aspects of ourselves, not just the positive or admirable. We must get better at accepting our thoughts, feelings, intuitions, values, preferences, and actions. Can we acknowledge our faults, weaknesses, and mistakes without beating ourselves up over them?

Having a healthy level of self-acceptance means not caring too much about what others think about us and not needing others’ approval to feel good and whole. It means viewing ourselves as whole and not defining ourselves by struggles, conditions, diagnoses, labels, or limiting beliefs. And it means making peace with parts of ourselves that have been painful or that we’ve denied or repressed.

Unfortunately, we tend to be bad at this. Many of us are brutal self-critics.

How might our lives change for the better if we could learn to appreciate, respect, and love ourselves—unconditionally, and free of any qualifications?

 

Self-Acceptance Doesn’t Mean Settling

It’s important to note that accepting ourselves in this way doesn’t mean settling for less. It doesn’t mean that we call it quits and just accept whatever’s in front of us, or that we stop learning and growing. Not at all.

It does mean that we stop rejecting ourselves for having struggles or not being perfect. By accepting ourselves in full, we can find great comfort, relief, and security.

Accepting ourselves as we are today doesn’t mean we’ll be without the motivation to make changes or improvements that will make us more effective, or that will enrich our lives. It’s simply that this self-acceptance is in no way tied to such alterations. We don’t have to actually do anything to secure our self-acceptance:
We have only to change the way we look at ourselves.

-Dr. Leon F. Seltzer, PhD, author and clinical psychologist

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

 

Where It Comes From

A lack of self-acceptance can come from many sources, often starting with childhood influences. Disapproving or overly critical parents may have given us the message that we’re somehow flawed—annoying, unruly, a hassle, too demanding, not smart enough, not attractive enough, etc. (Siblings, other relatives, teachers, coaches, or peers can reinforce this.) Overly critical parents can instill in us a bad habit of brutal self-criticism that echoes throughout our lives.

Our personality can also work against us when it comes to self-acceptance. For example, many people struggle with perfectionism. The assumption behind it is that the only route to self-acceptance is flawlessness—an impossible and self-defeating standard. Others struggle with “imposter syndrome” (the fear of people viewing us as a fraud or undeserving of our successes).

A dearth of self-acceptance can also come from living or working in an environment where diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging are lacking. When we feel excluded by others, it’s harder to accept ourselves.

Our circumstances and experiences can contribute as well. Perhaps we got cut from the sports team or drama troupe in school, or we dropped out of school. Maybe we didn’t get promoted or make partner, or we got fired. Perhaps we’ve felt beaten down by divorce, bankruptcy, addiction, or trauma. Life can be painful and messy for all of us at times.

Surprisingly, many high-performers struggle with self-acceptance. In his book, Positive Intelligence, executive Shirzad Chamine notes that “hyper-achievers” depend on achievement for self-acceptance. He writes:

The Hyper-Achiever makes you dependent on constant performance and achievement for self-respect and self-validation. It keeps you focused mainly on external success rather than on internal criteria for happiness. It often leads to unsustainable workaholic tendencies and causes you to fall out of touch with deeper emotional and relationship needs. Its lie is that your self-acceptance should be conditional on performance and external validation.”
-Shirzad Chamine, Positive Intelligence

Many people these days are needy—excessively attached to recognition, praise, or success, or to saving others—for self-acceptance. They have an excessive desire for affirmation or reassurance from others, making their happiness dependent and fleeting.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

 

The Problem with Lacking Self-Acceptance

Without self-acceptance, we can be trapped in self-doubt, self-judgment, or even self-hatred. The problem is when we turn the inherent messiness of our lives into an identity and start rejecting ourselves because of it. That can lead to many problems, including:

  • negative self-talk or even self-hatred
  • damage to our psychological wellbeing
  • reduced emotional control
  • lower confidence
  • avoidance of people or situations
  • relationship challenges
  • anxiety or depression

The effects of low self-acceptance are pervasive, potentially touching every aspect of our lives.

Without self-acceptance, people essentially devalue themselves and this often has a negative impact on all areas of their life, including their work, friends, family, health, and well-being.
-Dr. Meghan Marcum, PsyD, psychologist

 

The Benefits of Developing Self-Acceptance

What happens when we learn to accept ourselves as we are, not only with all our gifts and talents but also our faults and quirks? A healthy level of self-acceptance can help us:

  1. feel secure and free
  2. cultivate a sense of peace
  3. improve our wellbeing
  4. feel less compulsive and anxious
  5. protect our mood in the face of setbacks
  6. form a foundation for greater confidence
  7. develop better relationships
  8. build our capacity to distance ourselves from outside expectations and extrinsic motivations
  9. improve work performance
  10. boost happiness
Happiness and self-acceptance go hand in hand. Self-acceptance determines your level of happiness.
The more self-acceptance you have, the happier you allow yourself to be.
You will only be as happy as you feel you are worthy of being
.”

-Dr. Robert Holden, Happiness Now!

 

How to Develop Greater Self-Acceptance

Clearly, self-acceptance affects many areas of our lives, from mental health and wellbeing to relationships and work. So, how can we develop greater self-acceptance? There are many things we can do, including:

Re-examine our repeated self-criticisms and old feelings of guilt and shame. Interrogate them.

Delve into the things we don’t accept about ourselves—perhaps with the help of a therapist—and then bring understanding and compassion to them. Understanding and insight can sometimes bring welcome relief.

Forgive ourselves for mistakes we’ve made and resolve to move on, ideally focusing on the lessons we’ve learned from them.

Give ourselves permission to be imperfect, since we all have issues and faults. The point is to live life fully as who we truly are, not to pretend we’re some perfect being capable of existing without flaws and faults.

Replace our negative self-talk with positive self-talk, focusing on our capabilities and accomplishments.

Avoid self-blame and rumination on past grievances or suffering. Change the channel on those negative thoughts and tune into a more uplifting station.

Stop comparing ourselves to others, since little good comes of it and much harm can follow. Why? Because we lack visibility into the challenges of others while viewing their curated social media feeds. Also, it’s easy to compare our messy beginning with their more refined middle or end. We each have our own unique context that’s often vastly different from others.

Practice self-compassion. That means treating ourselves with warmth and understanding in difficult times—including instances of suffering, perceived inadequacy, or failure.

Identify, clarify, and embrace our personal core values. In the process, we’ll be strengthening our sense of identity and self-respect.

Spend more time with people who accept us as we are—and less time with those who don’t. Surround ourselves with people who believe in us, support us, embolden us, and bring out our best—including family, friends, colleagues, coaches, mentors, and small groups—while avoiding people who tear us down.

Try mindfulness meditation. Focus on observing our thoughts and feelings and then letting them go without judgment and attachment.

Keep a journal. Journaling can help us reflect on our experiences and feelings, understand them in new ways, and reframe them.

Upgrade our mindset by reframing our problems not as weights that bring us down but as puzzles to be solved, with all their challenge and mystery. Here we take our cue from Quincy Jones:

I don’t have problems. I have puzzles…. I can solve a puzzle. A problem just stresses me out.”
-Quincy Jones, record producer, songwriter, and composer

Seek help via a professional therapist or counselor. (Consider starting with any of these resources: BetterHelp, SonderMind, Befrienders Worldwide, 7cups.)

Many of the practices above relate to self-regulation—our ability to monitor and manage our energy states, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in positive ways (e.g., promoting wellbeing and healthy relationships).

 

Some Cautions

As we work on developing self-acceptance, we should avoid using accomplishment to bolster it, as that can make us dependent on factors outside of our control. If we can’t accept ourselves unless we’re successful, wealthy, or whatever, we’re missing the point.

We should also avoid focusing too much on ourselves and how we’re appearing and doing (e.g., Are we good enough? How do we stack up?). Instead, focus on contributing to others—our family, friends, colleagues, organization, community, and beyond. This will help us feel good and connect with people while having a positive impact.

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

 

Conclusion

Lacking self-acceptance can have devastating consequences in our life and work, while developing it can provide an incredible grounding power in so many aspects of our lives. It can facilitate relief, confidence, happiness, and success. It’s well worth developing and will serve us well in all we do.

Wishing you well with it.
Gregg

 

 

 

Reflection Questions

  1. To what extent do you embrace all aspects of yourself with full self-acceptance?
  2. Do you struggle with negative self-talk or self-rejection?
  3. Are you willing to put in this foundational work to set yourself up for more enjoyment, happiness, and success?

 

Tools for You

 

Related Articles

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Self-Acceptance

  • “Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” -Louise L. Hay, author
  • “You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.” -Amy Bloom, writer and psychotherapist
  • “All you need is already within you, only you must approach your self with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj, Indian guru
  • “Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” -Lucille Ball, actress, comedian, and producer
  • “Wholehearted living is about engaging with our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, ‘No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.’ It’s going to bed at night thinking, ‘Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.’” -Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

Getting Good at Asking for Help

Many people struggle with asking for help. It just doesn’t feel right, or it goes against their nature.

This fits with a narrative we’ve been fed all our lives. In our culture, we tend to worship the self-made man or woman. We’re told to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps (a truly ridiculous phrase, if we stop to think about it).

Perhaps we grew up admiring the Lone Ranger, Superman, Ironman, or Wonder Woman. It’s part of U.S. history, with the rugged individualism and self-reliance inherited and lionized from the frontier days of the Wild West.*

We value being independent and self-sufficient, a grinder who can push through hardship and get things done.

There’s surely value in much of this, but it comes with a hefty price. If we’re reluctant to ask for help, it can get us into big trouble in life by keeping us stuck or slowing down our advances.

Asking for help is an important life skill, work skill, and leadership skill. Those who struggle with it are wise to address it urgently.

“I respect and value the ideals of rugged individualism and self-reliance. But rugged individualism didn’t defeat the British, it didn’t get us to the moon, build our nation’s highways, or map the human genome. We did that together.”
-Cory Booker, U.S. Senator, former Mayor of Newark

 

The Problem with Not Getting Help

When we fail to reach out and ask for help, we’re more likely to get and stay stuck. We’re more likely to struggle with overwork and burnout. And we’re bound to experience the emptiness of going it alone.

It can prevent us from maintaining closeness with friends and family. When we let our relationships and social ties lapse, it reduces our happiness and can lead to anxiety or depression.

 

Types of Help

Since many people aren’t accustomed to seeking and accepting help, they may not be clear on the many distinct types of help available to them. For example, types of help we can receive include:

  1. listening as we process difficult emotions
  2. sharing their experience with similar challenges
  3. brainstorming potential solutions
  4. serving as a sounding board
  5. providing input and feedback
  6. reviewing our work for errors or things we’ve missed
  7. encouraging us to stay the course despite challenges
  8. giving advice or counsel
  9. teaching us a new skill
  10. asking tough questions
  11. holding us accountable to our commitments
  12. introducing us to people who can help

At any given time, any one of these can be significant. We’re wise to be open to them so we can operate at our best.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

 

What Prevents Us from Asking for Help

We may “get” the conceptual case for seeking help, but that doesn’t make it easy to do. There are many reasons we may be reluctant to do so, including that we:

  • don’t want to feel stupid or embarrassed
  • are too proud
  • don’t want to be a bother
  • are too shy
  • would rather just figure it out on our own
  • are afraid of appearing weak, stupid, or incompetent (at work here is the deeply mistaken belief that vulnerability is weakness)
  • fear rejection
  • worry about losing status (e.g., tarnishing our image of being a go-getter) or control
  • don’t want to feel beholden to others
  • believe we don’t deserve help

Sometimes, we can trace one or more of these common thoughts and feelings to a source. For example, maybe someone criticized or belittled us as a kid when we asked for help. According to Deborah Grayson Riegel, coauthor of Go To Help: 31 Strategies to Offer, Ask For, and Accept Help, “starting at about seven years old, we start to associate asking for help with reputational costs. We’ve been conditioned to think ‘They’re going to think I’m dumb/bad/lazy/weak if I admit I need help.’”

Additionally, we may have inherited a personality trait that makes it difficult to ask for help. For example, perfectionists often insist on doing everything on their own because they feel strongly that things must be done a certain way and believe it’s better just to do it all themselves—even though that often makes them a bottleneck and prone to overload.

Our mindset is also relevant here. Dr. Carol Dweck, a Stanford University psychologist, distinguishes between a fixed mindset (in which we believe our intelligence, abilities, and talents are static and fixed) and a “growth mindset” (in which we believe we can develop them). A fixed mindset, she argues, leads to a desire to look smart in front of others, making it harder for us to ask for help.

Our personal core values can also get in the way. Those who have self-reliance as a core value, for instance, may pride themselves on being able to manage things on their own. Or perhaps we identify as a high-performer and overachiever and feel like it’s beneath us to ask for help, or we’re a martyr and wish to make others feel guilty for our suffering.

Cultural influences are also relevant. Many Western societies value individualism, as do many families and organizations. It’s part of their ethos. People don’t want to ask for help in cultures where it’s looked down upon.

Finally, we often misjudge how others will respond to our requests. According to a 2022 study by researchers Xuan Zhao and Nicholas Epley published in Psychological Science:

“Those needing help consistently underestimated others’ willingness to help, underestimated how positively helpers would feel, and overestimated how inconvenienced helpers would feel…. Undervaluing prosociality could create a misplaced barrier to asking for help when needed.” **

There’s research indicating that serving others may promote feelings of happiness, increase social connection and self-esteem, lower stress levels and blood pressure, and promote longevity. *** In other words, when we ask for help, in some ways we’re helping those we’re asking, because it allows them to do things that help them enjoy life and thrive. It’s called the “helper’s high.”

“The person who is being asked to help also gets a huge benefit from being in that position. They are strengthening social ties and they are able to feel generous. Asking for help is quite generative for both parties.”
-Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, M.D.

At the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates said, “there are two great forces of human nature: self-interest, and caring for others,” and we’re most successful when we’re driven by a “hybrid” engine of those two forces.

 

The Benefits of Seeking Help

Getting good at asking for help can lead to big wins in our life and work, because it can affect so many things. For example, it can help us deepen our relationship with others, because asking for help involves courage, vulnerability, authenticity, and trust, which are powerful connecting forces in relationships.

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.”
-Brene Brown, researcher, speaker, and author

Asking for help can help us gain clarity on the issue at hand as we describe it to others. It can set up a powerful dynamic of reciprocity that benefits all. And it can inspire others to stop going it alone and ask for help more as well.

In her book, Daring Greatly, Brene Brown recounted the personal implications of this in her life:

“…my greatest personal and professional transformations happened when I started asking hard questions about how my fear of being vulnerable was holding me back and when I found the courage to share my struggles and ask for help…. I also learned that the people who love me, the people I really depend on, were never critics who were pointing at me while I stumbled. They weren’t in the bleachers at all. They were with me in the arena. Fighting for me and with me…. Sometimes out first and greatest dare is asking for support.”

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

 

How to Get Better at Asking for Help

Though it’s sometimes hard to ask for help, thankfully there are many things we can do to develop this valuable skill. For example, we can:

  1. recognize that asking for help is a strength, not a weakness, because it means we’re committed to our goals and confident enough to demonstrate some vulnerability
  2. consider that the alternative (not asking for help) means continuing our frustration or suffering
  3. recognize that nobody succeeds in life without the help of many people from different areas of life (e.g., parents, teachers, coaches, mentors, friends, even rivals sometimes)
  4. recognize that our fears about asking for help (e.g., that we’ll lose status) are misplaced, given all the research on how people underestimate others’ willingness to help
  5. recall that most people like to help others, as it makes them feel good
  6. evaluate whether it’s a good time to ask for help, given that most people tend to wait too long to do so (good things to consider include how much time we’ve already spent on the issue at hand, whether we have the time to keep working on it alone, whether it’s something we’re good at solving, and whether there are better uses of our time and energy)
  7. trust others to set boundaries for themselves and say “no” if warranted
  8. flip the script and recall times when people asked us for help and whether that made us feel burdened and resentful or glad to be asked and happy to help
  9. consider the worst-case scenario (i.e., the person refuses to help or can’t right now, and perhaps we feel awkward for a bit)
  10. tally the potential benefits of getting help (e.g., having more bright people working on potential solutions or sharing how they’ve solved a similar problem, as well as the support and solidarity that may arise)
  11. start small when first learning to ask for help, and build out from there (this will make it more manageable and less likely that we’ll abandon it)
  12. share with others that we struggle with asking for help but want to improve (this will make it easier to ask when the time comes and help us be accountable for improving)
  13. set a target for how many “asks” we’ll make in a week or month—and keep track

 

Things to Do When Making the Ask

Sometimes it’s helpful to address the mechanics of how exactly to go about asking for help. Here are some tips:

Do substantial initial work and thinking on the issue before turning to others. Don’t be the person who goes straight to asking others without putting in some initial thought or work, as that can drift into taking advantage of them. Sometimes, Google and YouTube searches can go a long way.

Ask in person or by videoconference or phone and not email or text, if possible. That will help make it more personal. (According to the research, in-person requests are much more successful anyway.)****

Provide enough information and context for the person to make an informed decision about whether and how they can help. The more clarity and transparency upfront, the better.

Respect their time, expertise, context, and preferences.

Be specific on what the ask is and isn’t, with clear boundaries, including why it matters to us and how we think the person we’re asking can contribute. Many experts recommend making what they call “SMART” requests for help, an acronym that stands for Specific, Meaningful, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Time-bound. The clearer we can be on exactly what kind of help we want and need, including the time and resources involved, the better. But even while we make our requests specific, we should be open to new information as we learn what people know, who they know, and how they can help. Let the people we’re asking for help decide how much help they can offer (or not)—and how.

Don’t apologize for asking and don’t minimize the request. That can take away from the other person’s generosity. Be straightforward and matter-of-fact.

Don’t emphasize reciprocity when making the ask. By promising a return favor, we risk turning the request from altruistic and noble to transactional.

Follow up afterward to thank them and let them know how things went (and, ideally, what impact they made).

Watch out for the “illusion of transparency” (the mistaken belief that our thoughts, feelings, and needs are obvious to others). Don’t expect people to read our minds about what we want and need. Also, watch out for the “curse of knowledge” (when better informed people find it difficult to adopt the perspective of others—or subconsciously assuming others know what you know about a topic or situation).

Recognize that it can take time to become comfortable with and good at asking for help, because old habits die hard. We can surely get better at it with practice. According to Dr. Wayne Baker, faculty director of the Center for Positive Organizations and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, “You’re working to become desensitized to the fear of what might happen when you ask for help.”

Develop this practice into a habit, not a one-and-done activity.

Ensure this is reciprocal. If we want help from others, we must be willing to give help—and sometimes actively to seek ways to help others (but without being needy about it). Ideally, we can earn help from others by being a helpful person—not just once but consistently over time. Still, someone has to start the cycle of helping first, which means that someone needs to receive help first.

Try a “reciprocity ring,” a fun and rewarding approach created by Wayne and Cheryl Baker. In such a ring, a group convenes so that each person can ask for something they need and can’t easily get or do themselves. As each person takes a turn articulating their request, the others think about the resources they might have to help. They can make as many offers of help as they like. Even if they can’t help personally, they can connect the person to someone in their network who might be able to help. Such a practice is powerful because reciprocity is hardwired into our brains, and it can normalize the act of asking for help.

 

Implication for Leaders

Leaders are wise to create a culture in their team or organization in which asking for help is not only encouraged and common but also rewarded. At IDEO, designers receive coaching on this and executives model it. And at Zingerman’s, a Midwestern food company, all attendees at the induction of new managing partners state what they’ll do to help each new partner succeed. The company’s founding partners participate as well, sending an important message from the top.

Notably, asking for help can help reduce burnout levels in organizations. A global study conducted by Rebecca Zucker from Next Step Partners found that lack of help-seeking was one of the top two predictors of feeling overwhelmed at work. Those who don’t ask for help, she found, scored 23% higher on overwhelm.

 

Conclusion

For many, asking for help is difficult—and one of the most important skills we can develop because of the connections and breakthroughs it can engender.

Be patient with this process. It may take time, because it involves unlearning old habits. But it’s well worth it.

“If I can leave you with only one piece of advice to increase your probability of creating an earned life, it is this:
Ask for help. You need it more than you know.”
-Marshall Goldsmith, The Earned Life

 

Reflection Questions

  1. Are you in the habit of powering through adversity without asking for help—or even considering it?
  2. Do you wait too long before seeking help, wasting precious time along the way?
  3. In what areas are you comfortable asking for help?
  4. In which cases did you not ask for help when you should have, and why?
  5. What will you do today to develop this important skill?

 

Tools for You

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

 

Related Traps

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Seeking Help

  • “Going it alone in times of hardship is never a good idea.” -Jonathan Rauch, The Happiness Curve
  • “When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability. To be alive is to be vulnerable.” -Madeleine L’Engle, writer
  • “Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart.” -Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection
  • “Isolation is fatal…. The burden of going it alone is heavy and limiting—and potentially dangerous…. In fact, social isolation can take up to seven years off of your life. Isolation contributes to heart disease and depression; it influences your immune system and leads to faster aging and advanced health problems.” -Richard Leider and Alan Webber, Life Reimagined
  • “Economists call it the warm glow of giving, and psychologists call it the helper’s high. Recent neuroscience evidence shows that giving actually activates the reward and meaning centers in our brains, which send us pleasure and purpose signals when we act for the benefit of others. These benefits are not limited to giving money: they also show up for giving time.” -Adam Grant, Give and Take
  • “How have you felt when you have helped others? I think we can agree that’s one of the great feelings, right? Why would you deprive others of the same feeling?” -Marshall Goldsmith, The Earned Life

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our community. Sign up now and get Gregg Vanourek’s monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

 

* There are cultural differences at work here. For example, many Western societies value individualism, while East Asian and Latin American societies tend to place a greater value on the group, the community, and the collective.

** Zhao, X., & Epley, N. (2022). Surprisingly Happy to Have Helped: Underestimating Prosociality Creates a Misplaced Barrier to Asking for Help. Psychological Science33(10), 1708–1731.

*** Oliver Scott Curry, Lee A. Rowland, Caspar J. Van Lissa, Sally Zlotowitz, John McAlaney, Harvey Whitehouse, Happy to help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 76, 2018, 320–329.

**** M. Mahdi Roghanizad, Vanessa K. Bohns, Ask in person: You’re less persuasive than you think over email, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 69, 2017, 223–226,

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

Setting Boundaries—Why It’s Hard and How to Do It

Article Summary: 

Setting boundaries is one of the hardest things for many people to do but it’s a powerful and empowering personal development practice. And costly if we don’t do it well. This article addresses why it’s hard, its benefits, and how to do it well.

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Boundaries are dividing lines that mark the limits of an area. If we pause to notice, we can see boundaries all around us. The boundary of our body. Our apartment walls or home and property line. State and national borders. The boundaries of sports. In soccer, it’s sidelines, penalty areas, goals, and goal posts. With basketball, it’s sidelines, free-throw lines, three-point lines, and more. In track and field, it’s running lanes. And in many sports, the clock serves as a time boundary, delineating quarters, periods, or halves, and perhaps overtime.

In life, setting boundaries is about identifying ways for others to behave towards us—and also setting lines for ourselves that we resolve not to cross. Our personal boundaries set a limit on what we’ll accept or tolerate.

We need boundaries to function effectively in and enjoy our life and work. They’re there for our protection and wellbeing, and they can give us a sense of control over our lives.

 

The Problem with Not Having Boundaries

Lack of boundaries can lead to many negative consequences, including:

  • negative emotions like anxiety, frustration, resentment
  • overcommitment and a sense of “time poverty” (“the chronic feeling of having too many things to do and not enough time to do them”)
  • overwork or workaholism
  • exhaustion and burnout
  • numbing behaviors (escaping from our thoughts and feelings by doing other things like shopping, eating, binge watching, or doom scrolling)
“When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated.”
-Brené Brown, researcher and author

 

Boundary Types and Examples

To understand boundaries, it helps to consider their different types and see examples of them in action. There are many different types of boundaries, including:

  1. Physical boundaries (e.g., whether we hug or shake hands with people we meet, what we do with our bodies, who we allow into our personal space and under what conditions)
  2. Emotional boundaries (e.g., whether we take on other people’s emotional burdens or allow their moods to change ours)
  3. Relationship boundaries (e.g., how we let others talk to or treat us, such as whether we tolerate disrespect, dishonesty, wasting our time, belittling, bullying, etc.)
  4. Privacy boundaries (e.g., deciding what personal information we choose to share and with whom, when, and where)
  5. Conversational boundaries (e.g., whether there are topics—like politics and religion—we choose not to discuss with certain people or in certain circumstances because they may be awkward, painful, volatile, or triggering)
  6. Work boundaries (e.g., whether we allow ourselves to get overcommitted, whether we take on the workloads of colleagues who are slacking, whether we work on weekends or check email on vacation)
  7. Self-care boundaries (e.g., whether we have good sleeping, eating, and exercise habits, whether we check our phones first thing in the morning and/or last thing before bed, how much time we spend on our devices)
  8. Ethical boundaries (e.g., whether we harm, deceive, or manipulate others, whether we look the other way or cover for people when they’re doing bad things)
  9. Financial boundaries (e.g., what to purchase, how much to spend, whether we choose to lend people money and, if so, who, when, how, and how much)
  10. Sexual boundaries (e.g., which kinds of intimate behaviors we’re comfortable with or not)

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

 

Causes of Poor Boundaries

For many, it’s not easy to draw the line, say no, and enforce boundaries. It requires knowing our preferences and breaking points as well as being willing to assert our desires and needs.

“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.”
-Brené Brown, researcher and author

Why is it hard? Many reasons, including that we may:

  • find it stressful and draining to have such awkward or difficult conversations, or feel guilty about asking for what we want or need
  • be afraid of harming our relationships
  • suffer from self-doubt or low self-esteem
  • fear of judgment
  • feel undeserving or unworthy
  • focus too much on others’ needs
  • care too much about what others think of us
  • struggle with perfectionism 
  • have people-pleasing tendencies
  • lack clarity about what we want and where we’re going, thus making it difficult to know where to draw the line to protect those priorities
  • not be in touch with our emotions and their causes (that is, not connecting the dots between our anxiety and people making us uncomfortable with certain behaviors)
  • have experienced previous boundary-crossing, betrayal, violence, or trauma, which can damage or destroy our self-esteem and make it harder for us to set boundaries
“People-pleasing is not who we are; we’re living a lie. So, if we don’t say yes authentically, we say it resentfully, fearfully, and avoidantly, and that leads to far more problems than if we’d just said no in the first place. Find your no, find yourself, find your joy.”
-Natalie Lue, author, The Joy of Saying No

 

The Benefits of Boundaries

Getting good at setting and enforcing boundaries can lead to big wins in our life and work, because it can affect so many things. Setting healthy boundaries can help us:

  • protect our personal space, safety, and energy
  • feel less anxiety, anger, frustration, and resentment
  • enhance our mental health and protect our emotional wellbeing
  • build and maintain a strong identity
  • develop greater self-respect and confidence
  • get clear on who we are, what we want, and our core values and belief systems
  • develop independence
  • grow as a person
  • protect our time and energy and thereby avoid burnout
  • manage our life, work, time, and relationships more effectively and with greater ease
  • develop and maintain healthy and positive relationships with mutual trust
  • earn respect from others
  • prevent relationship conflicts
  • positively influence others
“Setting emotional boundaries prevents people from manipulating you, using you, and playing with your feelings.”
-Remez Sasson, author

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

 

 

How to Get Better at Setting Boundaries

We know it’s hard for many people to set and enforce boundaries. It’s easier said than done! So, how can we get better at it? Here are some effective approaches:

Recognize that setting and keeping boundaries can add great value to our lives. It’s well worth the effort, and it gets easier over time. Note all the benefits above and consider the personal empowerment and freedom they can bring.

Recognize that setting and keeping boundaries is not just good for us but for all involved because it creates clarity and mutual respect. It’s not an unreasonable or selfish endeavor. Far from it.

Evaluate our current boundaries (if we have any), including whether there are situations that often result in discomfort or resentment.

Take an emotional inventory of potential boundary crossings, including the people we’re spending time with, the situations we’re in, and how they’re making us feel. This requires tapping into or further developing our self-awareness and emotional intelligence to help us gauge our comfort level. A little self-reflection goes a long way here.

Determine new boundaries and recommit to or update old boundaries, ideally informed by our core values and current goals and priorities. If we’re new to setting or enforcing boundaries, it may be wise to start small and build from there. The earlier we start, the better, so we can work through conversations and make adjustments before getting too far down the road.

Communicate boundaries clearly. In some cases, we may want to explain our rationale so the person has context (e.g., “I’m fully booked now so I just can’t help with that,” or “I’m exhausted from a bunch of things lately so I can’t get together this week”). In other cases, we can leave it with a simple statement (“I can’t take that on,” “That doesn’t work for me”) or even just a straightforward “No.”

“No is a complete sentence.”
-Anne Lamott, writer

Be as consistent as possible in communicating and enforcing boundaries, lest others get confused or forget.

Work on developing our assertiveness, including self-advocacy and getting better at saying “no”—and saying it more often. For example, we can focus on saying no to:

  • requests and opportunities that don’t align with our values or further our personal or professional priorities
  • spending time with negative people who drag us down with their criticism, complaints, or excessive neediness
  • doing all the work ourselves (versus delegating to others) or overworking, in the process sacrificing our health and important relationships
“The difference between successful people and really successful people
is that really successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”
-Warren Buffett, legendary investor

Strike a good balance between being kind but firm. We should work at being thoughtful and understanding while still clear and assertive. Sometimes, a little humor or levity can go a long way in dialing tensions down.

Get as clear as we can about who we are, what we value, and how we work best. Doing that allows us to set and enforce boundaries. Incidentally, if we’re doing a good job of protecting our boundaries, over time we’ll be filling more of our days with productive and enjoyable activities. In essence, we’re crowding out the bad stuff with the good stuff.

Set boundaries around our emotional commitment to others (e.g., avoiding the trap of feeling responsible for their choices or their happiness or outcomes).

Set boundaries on our work time. For example, set a weekly maximum number of hours and limit email to certain hours, with rare exceptions only as needed.* It helps to plan ahead so we can use our time intentionally and effectively. And it helps to remember the “80/20 rule” (a.k.a., “Pareto Principle”), a power law distribution suggesting that about 80% of our results typically come from 20% of our efforts. So, we’re wise to determine and focus on our most productive tasks. (See the Appendix below for tools that support our time boundaries.)

 

Conclusion

Of course, setting and enforcing boundaries is an ongoing process, not a one-and-done deal. As we do it, we must keep making judgments about when to be strict and rigid and when to make exceptions or changes based on new information or factors.

Also, it’s a mistake to think about boundaries only in the negative—only as things that we and others can’t do. Why? Because when we set and enforce boundaries, it sets us up for all the positive things we can experience within those bounds. It helps facilitate all the things we want to do and will allow, without having to worry about the stresses and resentment of being defensive and fighting back against potential incursions.

Having boundaries frees up our time and energy to live the life we want.

As we work through this process, we’re wise to recognize that, since people are so different, they’re likely to make different choices—and sometimes vastly different choices—about their boundaries. What boundaries work for one person may not work at all for others. So, we need to advocate for our own boundaries while also helping people advocate for their own—and respecting their choices even as we fight for ours.

 

Reflection Questions

  1. Which boundaries are most important to you, and why?
  2. What boundaries are easier for you to set and enforce?
  3. Which boundaries do you struggle with, and why?
  4. Do those boundary struggles tend to involve certain people and/or certain situations, places, or times?
  5. What more will you do to set and enforce healthy boundaries, starting today?

 

Tools for You

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

 

Related Traps

 

Appendix: Tools that Help Protect Our Time

There are many tools that can help us protect our time. Here are several:

  1. Ivy Lee Method: give ourselves no more than six important tasks per day, listed from most important to least important. Then address them in order of priority, only moving to the next task after completing the current one.

  1. Eisenhower Decision Matrix (a.k.a., Urgent-Important Matrix): distinguish between tasks that are urgent (time-sensitive, demanding immediate attention) and important (contributing to our long-term purpose and vision), using a simple matrix.

  1. Warren Buffett’s Two Lists: write down our top 25 goals, then circle our five highest priorities from that longer list. From there, choose only to pursue the top five—“avoiding at all costs,” as Buffett says, working on the other 20.

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Boundaries

  • “Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it. You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will and won’t accept.” -Anna Taylor, author
  • “Setting boundaries is a way of caring for myself. It doesn’t make me mean, selfish, or uncaring (just) because I don’t do things your way.” -Christine Morgan, psychotherapist
  • “Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.” -Josh Billings, American humorist
  • “It’s OK to do what is YOURS to do. Say what’s yours to say. Care about what’s yours to care about.” -Nadia Bolz-Weber, Lutheran minister
  • “Givers need to set limits because takers rarely do.” -Rachel Wolchin, author

* According to a February 2023 Pew Research Center study, workers with postgraduate degrees and higher incomes were most likely to report that they regularly respond to work emails and messages outside of work hours.

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

The Powerful Practice of Acceptance

The Powerful Practice of Acceptance

We all face challenges, uncertainties, and disappointments. These are features of human life. The question is how we react to them.

Often the way we react to something ends up being worse than the thing itself—causing us more pain for much longer. We wallow in resentment or bitterness, adopt a victim mentality, or ruminate and complain, extending the cycle of misery. When we take something difficult and add resistance to it, it only adds to our suffering.

One powerful practice to break this cycle is “radical acceptance,” accepting situations outside our control without judging them. The idea is to reduce the pain and suffering associated with challenging situations.

Radical acceptance involves accepting reality as it is, so we don’t needlessly extend an emotional reaction that makes it worse. With such a practice, we’re building up our tolerance for distress, which can be quite valuable in all sorts of circumstances. Essentially, we’re preventing pain from turning into further suffering.

Such acceptance makes great sense on paper but can be exceptionally difficult to do in practice, especially given the way we’re wired. Our emotions come strong and quick, and they can flood our system with anger, stress hormones, and other physiological phenomena if we let them.

Can we interrupt the circuit and bring calm and more productive responses instead of becoming the victim of emotional flooding? Can we learn to move on from our initial responses more quickly and effectively?

Accepting things as they are means embracing the present moment and no longer resisting reality. It means acknowledging what’s happening without denying or avoiding it or wishing it away.

With such a practice, we focus on the things we can control, letting go of things we can’t.

Can we learn to accept that life can be good and worthwhile even when it includes pain and suffering? Can we let things go instead of letting them gather inside of us, forming reserves of bitterness and resentment?

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

 

What Acceptance Doesn’t Mean

In this context, accepting things as they are doesn’t mean being complacent, avoiding difficult issues, settling, or giving up on our goals and aspirations. This kind of acceptance doesn’t mean approving of bad situations or passively accepting situations like manipulation, injustice, harassment, or abuse. Acceptance doesn’t mean condoning or agreeing with things, and it doesn’t mean that we stop tending to the fire in our belly or taking action.

Rather, acceptance means that we stop fighting reality. Why not acknowledge and work with it instead? Acceptance means taking a productive, compassionate, and nonjudgmental approach to reality, because it serves us and those around us better.

Clearly, part of the challenge involves knowing when to take reasoned, wise action and when to engage in radical acceptance so that we don’t get caught in downward spirals. Also, acknowledging the current reality without denying it helps free up our thinking so we can come up with new ideas for appropriate actions to take, because we’re using the more advanced parts of our brain.

 

The Benefits of Acceptance

There are many benefits that accompany acceptance. It can improve not only our mental and physical health but also our relationships and performance. For example, this kind of acceptance can:

  • reduce anxiety and lead to less tension and conflict in our lives
  • avoid triggering our stress response (which negatively affects our sleep quality as well as our immune cardiovascular, and digestive systems)
  • help calm our nervous system and lower our cortisol levels
  • free up mental space and energy for coping and problem-solving
  • increase our happiness and wellbeing
  • help us appreciate what we have and cultivate optimism and joy
  • foster trust and intimacy in our relationships
  • help us stop trying to change others (which often leads to frustration and resentment)
  • improve our communication and help us listen more attentively to others
  • help us resolve conflicts more effectively
  • boost our performance since we’re accepting challenges and opportunities and no longer avoiding difficulties

 

How to Practice Radical Acceptance

How does acceptance work in practice? How can we develop and employ such acceptance even in challenging situations? Here are practical steps we can take to develop this capacity:

  1. Perceive things as they are, being an observer instead of a judge or victim. Let go of judging and resisting reality.
  2. Notice when we’re questioning reality or fighting it, often revealed by troubling emotions like irritability or resentment.
  3. Recognize if there are patterns (e.g., similar situations) in which we keep falling into this trap.
  4. Live in the present moment and let go of the past and future.
  5. Remind ourselves that things that have happened had causes and we can’t change them because they’re in the past.
  6. Practice accepting reality as it is with our whole self, including mind, body, and spirit (including relaxation techniques such as meditation or deep breathing).
  7. Allow uncomfortable emotions such as sadness or disappointment to arise within us, avoiding our inclination to resist or numb them. Doing so will only allow them to linger longer.
  8. Direct our attention and energy toward things we can control, instead of toward negative judgments and emotional upset, and accept what we can’t control.
  9. Choose to be effective in challenging situations instead of reactive, hurt, or wounded.
  10. Focus on our own attitudes and actions, while not expecting or needing others to act according to our expectations or wishes.
  11. Evaluate our expectations and whether they’re realistic and appropriate or whether they’re setting us up for disappointment.
  12. Write down the ways we’d act if we did accept the situation and then start doing just that.
  13. Acknowledge that life can be valuable and worth living even when we’re feeling pain or discomfort.
  14. Practice these acceptance techniques over and over again so they become more automatic and habitual, maintaining faith that it will become easier over time.
  15. Keep the Serenity Prayer (or coping statements) close by to help us avoid reverting to unproductive old ways.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.”
-the “Serenity Prayer”
The Serenity Prayer
The Serenity Prayer

Reflection Questions

  1. To what extent are you resisting or judging things?
  2. Are you letting your reactions to things make them worse over time?
  3. Which acceptance techniques will you try?

 

Tools for You

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

 

Related Articles

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Acceptance

  • “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral, which always is as it is…. When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life.” -Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
  • “Acceptance means events can make it through you without resistance.” -Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself
  • “The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.” -Baruch Spinoza, philosopher
  • “Radical Acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our lives as it is…. There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life…. Radical Acceptance is the gateway to healing wounds and spiritual transformation. When we can meet our experience with Radical Acceptance, we discover the wholeness, wisdom and love that are our deepest nature…. The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.” -Tara Brach, psychologist, author, and meditation teacher
  • “Accepting people as they are has the miraculous effect of helping them improve. Acceptance doesn’t prohibit growth; rather, it fosters it.” -Marianne Williamson, spiritual teacher and author

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our community. Sign up now and get Gregg Vanourek’s monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

 

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

How to Stop Our Negative Self-Talk: 15 Practices

How to Stop Our Negative Self-Talk: 15 Practices

Many of us struggle with negative self-talk—an inner critic that savagely sabotages us with doubts and harsh judgments. We’re our own worst enemy.

We think we’re struggling with the outer game but it’s actually the inner game that’s tripping us up.

Happiness is an inside game, literally and neurochemically.”
-Shirzad Chamine, executive and best-selling author

 

How to Stop Our Negative Self-Talk

There are many things we can do to hush the inner critic in our head.

  1. Doing breath work: breathing deeply and intentionally (as in yoga, meditation, and “box breathing”). This will change our physical and mental state.
Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness
  1. Noticing our thoughts more: observing the things that pop into our heads and spotting the negative patterns that reappear. It helps to label them (e.g., “I’m being overly critical again”) and let them go.
  2. Practicing self-compassion: treating ourselves with understanding and warmth in difficult times and recognizing that we all make mistakes. With self-compassion, we can give ourselves grace, forgive ourselves, and move on.
  3. Being curious about or fascinated with the issue we’re concerned about—a more positive frame.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

 

  1. Remaining open to new possibilities and alternate interpretations that don’t involve harsh self-judgment.
  2. Focusing on what we can control, and not worrying about the rest. (Consider reciting the “serenity prayer.”)
  3. Avoiding the trap of catastrophizing (assuming the worst or exaggerating our flaws).
  4. Changing our context to bring a different perspective and renewed energy.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

 

  1. Asking questions to understand why we’re feeling a certain way and how things might be changed.
  2. Replacing our inner critique with a more charitable and helpful narrative.
  3. Cognitive reframing: shifting our mindset to look at a situation or relationship from a different and more helpful perspective, such as redefining a problem as a challenge or a puzzle or mystery that we can solve.
  4. Playing and having fun. (Play often changes our physiology by moving us into a state of deep engagement or flow.)
  5. Taking action. This naturally interrupts our negative self-talk and rumination and focuses us on our context and next move.
  6. Choosing what to think and be mindful about. Many people become victims of the thought-stream in their minds instead of engaging their “observer” or “witness consciousness” to observe their thoughts and let them go.
What a liberation to realize that the ‘voice in my head’ is not who I am.
Who am I then? The one who sees that.”
-Eckhart Tolle, German spiritual teacher and author
  1. Changing the channel on negative thoughts. Sometimes it helps to use a pattern interruption technique like swiping our hand to the side, symbolically signaling that we’re dismissing our negative self-talk.
Our life is what our thoughts make it.
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

 

Reflection Questions

  1. Is your self-talk too negative?
  2. What techniques will you try to address it?

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

 

Tools for You

 

Related Traps and Articles

 

Appendix: Support Resources

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our community. Sign up now and get Gregg Vanourek’s monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

How to Stop Overthinking—28 Practices

How to Stop Overthinking—28 Practices

Many of us get caught up in overthinking. It’s very common.

We analyze things excessively. We worry too much. We replay things over and over in our head. We ruminate.

It’s a big problem for many people.

In my Traps Test, with responses from more than 600 people around the world so far asking about more than 60 common traps that inhibit people’s quality of life, overthinking is the number-one trap. (See my article, “18 Signs You’re Overthinking,” to determine whether you struggle with this.)

The question then becomes how to stop it.

 

How to Stop Overthinking

Fortunately, there are many things we can do to address our overthinking. Below are 28 practices from which we can choose.

  1. Catch ourselves in the act of overthinking. If we can bring this habit into our awareness, then we can begin reprogramming our brains with more enjoyable and productive ways of thinking. Author Melody Wilding recommends using a pattern interruption technique such as silently saying “stop” when we start overthinking. Or we can swipe our hand to the side, symbolically casting our overthinking away.
  2. Recognize that a key to success in life is taking more action more often. One of the biggest mistakes we make in our lives is having a thought-to-action ratio that’s way too high. Change the focus from problems and worries to solutions and actions.
  3. Decide to become a person of action instead of an overthinker. Enjoy getting lost in doing things.
  4. Recognize that our thoughts are like a dial, not a switch. This insight from David Thomas, author and Director of Family Counseling at Daystar in Nashville, teaches us that we can’t switch off our thoughts, but we can turn the volume down on rumination and negative thoughts.
  5. Practice making quick decisions. Start with small things and count down from three: “three, two, one… choose.” Then go with it. Get used to a faster decision cycle and note the results.
  6. Determine what’s creating fear in us. Get better at recognizing how many of our fears are false phantoms, much like the childhood monsters we feared under our beds. And get better at overcoming our fears.
  7. Focus intensely on something. Listen to music and focus intently on something in it, like the lyrics or the guitar line. Or study a drawing or painting and examine the shapes, lines, and colors.
  8. Learn what our overthinking triggers are and avoid them. They could be certain social media accounts, news sites, or sticky situations with certain people.
  9. Give ourselves a time budget for how long we’re allowed to think about something. Then choose to move on after that.
  10. Develop our confidence and learn to trust ourselves more.
  11. Determine the things that we do have control over and focus on them. If we’re worried about an important upcoming meeting, we can do a great job preparing for the meeting and then make sure we get a good night’s rest and arrive early to set up. Then we can be satisfied that we’ve done our job.
  12. Get better at letting things go. We’re probably placing way more weight on things than the situation warrants. People think way less of us than we imagine.
  13. Change our thoughts into questions. For example, we can shift a thought from “I can’t believe I said that” to “What could I say differently next time?”
  14. Get some exercise. This leads to a reduction in stress hormones and comes with so many benefits, including better mood and higher greater energy levels.
  15. Get out into nature. Our brains become calmer and sharper after we spend time in nature, according to researchers.
  16. Try relaxation techniques such as deep breathing or yoga.
  17. Do things that interest us and that occupy our attention (e.g., fun activities and hobbies).
  18. Connect to our senses. Try the “54321 grounding method,” in which we take deep breaths and become aware of our surroundings and then look for five things we can see, four things we can touch, three things we can hear, two things we can smell, and one thing we can taste.
  19. Journal. Writing our thoughts and feelings down can stop us from ruminating. It can restore a sense of control. Journaling doesn’t have to be formal or structured. We can just write down our thoughts as they arise.
  20. Help others with small acts of service or simple acts of kindness. This is a great way to add more meaning and connection in our lives while also getting us out of our own heads.
  21. Lean into positive relationships. By being with others, we can connect, have fun, support each other, and silence our mental gremlins.
  22. Replay happy memories. Relive good times. Talk with an old friend or flip through a cherished photo album.
  23. Find sanctuary—places or practices of peace that reconnect us with our heart. (See our article, “Renewing Yourself Amidst the Chaos.”)
  24. Go out on adventures. They make us feel more fully awake, alive, and free. It’s hard to ruminate when we’re climbing a mountain or trekking in new areas. (See my article, “Why We Want Adventure in Our Lives—And How to Get It.”)
  25. Bring awe into our lives. How much can we worry when we’re gazing at the cosmos or studying the intricacies of a spider web? (See my article, “The Power of Awe in Our Lives.”)
  26. Engage in prayer or worship. By doing so, we can rise above the immediate concerns of our overactive mind and tap into something larger than ourselves.
  27. Meditate. It can calm our sympathetic nervous system and decrease our anxiety, stress, and emotional reactivity.
  28. Talk to a friend—or a professional therapist or counselor. Getting things off our chest can reduce our propensity to keep thinking about them.

Clearly, there are many things we can do to stop overthinking. The point isn’t that we must do all of them. We should experiment with the ones that are most appealing and see which ones work the best.

We should also note here what doesn’t work in trying to overcome overthinking. According to the research, we can’t just tell ourselves not to have certain thoughts. That can lead to more thoughts on the subject at hand. For example, if we’re told not to think of something, our brains will do the opposite and think about it. Instead, we need to replace negative thoughts with different and better ones.

Wishing you well with it.
Gregg

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

 

Reflection Questions

  1. What helps you stop overthinking?
  2. What new practices will you try?

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

 

Tools for You

 

Related Articles

 

Appendix: Support Resources

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our community. Sign up now and get Gregg Vanourek’s monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

 

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

18 Signs You’re Overthinking

Many of us get caught up in overthinking—excessively analyzing something or dwelling on possibilities. We think about some things—mostly bad things—too much and for too long.

It can be mentally replaying embarrassing moments or worrying about an upcoming meeting. Our thoughts spiral out of control when someone mentions out of the blue that we need to talk.

There are two prevalent forms of overthinking: ruminating (involuntary, compulsive thinking) and worrying (fretting about potential problems or imagining bad outcomes).

Overthinking is very common. In my Traps Test, with responses from more than 600 people around the world so far asking about more than 60 common traps that inhibit people’s happiness and quality of life, overthinking is the top trap.

According to researcher Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, 73% of people aged 25 to 35 admitted to overthinking at some point in their lives. She found that overthinking is more common among women, but common for men too. When author Jon Acuff and Dr. Michael C. Peasley asked 10,000 people if they struggle with overthinking, 99.5% of respondents said “yes.” What’s more, 73% reported that it made them feel inadequate, and 52% said it left them feeling drained.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

 

18 Signs of Overthinking

Overthinking can include the following:

  1. having trouble shutting off our thoughts
  2. criticizing ourselves excessively for something we did in the past
  3. having so many thoughts and not knowing where to begin
  4. cycling through possible scenarios in our minds
  5. fearing that we’re not enough and that others will judge us harshly or reject us
  6. frequently wondering what others are thinking of us
  7. assuming the worst and imagining terrible outcomes (catastrophizing)
  8. bombarding ourselves with negative self-talk
  9. having trouble making decisions
  10. getting caught up in “analysis paralysis” and not moving forward on things
  11. second-guessing our decisions
  12. changing our mind often
  13. fearing that we’ll never get better or that our situation won’t improve
  14. mentally replaying awkward moments
  15. getting stuck in negative thought loops and uncomfortable emotions
  16. feeling anxious, restless, or unsettled often
  17. experiencing mental fatigue
  18. having a hard time focusing on the present moment (because we’re thinking about the past or the future)
“While you were overthinking, you missed everything worth feeling.”
-Nitya Prakash, Indian writer

 

Reflection Questions

  1. To what extent are you struggling with overthinking?
  2. How is it affecting your mental health and well-being?
  3. What will you do to tame your overthinking dragons?

 

Tools for You

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

 

Related Articles

 

Appendix: Support Resources

“A crowded mind
Leaves no space
For a peaceful heart”
-Christine Evangelou, writer

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our community. Sign up now and get Gregg Vanourek’s monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

Time to Check the Path You’re On?

Article Summary: 

How to know if we’re on the wrong career path—or the wrong path in life? Is there a right path? How to decide and move forward?

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Sometimes in life we may wonder if we’re on the wrong path. Things can feel off. We may wonder if we’re pursuing a path that doesn’t align with who we are and our core values and aspirations. We can wonder if the path we’re on is taking us somewhere we want to go.

At the end of all our hard work, all our pursuit, what’s the destination we’re headed to? Is it a worthy one? Is it good and true? Does it represent our true nature, resonate with something deep inside us, and honor the life we’ve been given?

“What is the use of running when we are not on the right road?”
-German proverb

 

Are There “Right” Paths and “Wrong” Paths?

This notion of a “path,” of course, is a metaphor that represents our current direction—in work and in our life more broadly. Evaluating our path naturally raises questions about whether our path is right or wrong. Is that an accurate and helpful way to think about it?

Yes and no.

When we talk about a “right path,” we mean one that aligns with who we are and our core values and aspirations—one that’s taking us somewhere we believe to be good and worthy of our efforts. A “wrong path” doesn’t do those things.

In that sense, there are right and wrong paths. But in reality, things aren’t often so clear and binary.

There are no perfect paths, and there isn’t only one good or right path for us.

Also, we’re not bad, stupid, or behind if we haven’t figured out our path yet—or if we discover we may want to change course.

Life can be challenging, messy, and unclear. We may have changed as a person, causing us to want to head in new directions. And that’s okay.

What’s more, we’re all different. Some people want career advancement. Others want entrepreneurial venturing or creativity. Still others want flexibility and freedom, while some want balance or stability.

There’s a place in life for adventure. For wandering off the path and exploring.

We don’t always have choices about our work. Sometimes there are real constraints and barriers, so we have to keep our heads down and work in what’s available to support ourselves and our families. (We must also be honest and not conflate rationalizations with real needs.)

Here’s the key: it’s critical to stop walking sometimes and take a look around to see where we are and where we’re headed. Is our direction still a good and worthy one or is it time to change? The key is to be clear and intentional in choosing—and then brave and committed in moving forward.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

 

Signs We’re on the Wrong Path

Making a good assessment of the path we’re on can be difficult because we can be on autopilot and not even mindful of the path we’re on. (See the article, “Are You Sleepwalking through Life?”)

Sometimes our view is obstructed by the trees and branches around us, making it hard to see the big picture. And sometimes we’ve been walking a long way while looking only at the ground in front of us without gauging our location and direction. Do we still want to get to where we’re going?

Sometimes we’re reluctant to assess things because we sense that we’re not going to like the result.

“I had fallen into a life that was not what I wanted, and I couldn’t see any way to escape from it without tossing a live grenade into the carefully constructed world I had built…. Maybe I didn’t need to be defined by my achievements and how fast I could get there, but instead by what brought me joy and happiness and inspired my passions.”
-Alisha Fernandez Miranda, My What-If Year: A Memoir

How to know how we’re doing? Here are ten signs that we may be on the wrong path:

  1. Not liking our work or not feeling engaged and energized by it
  2. Regularly wishing we were doing something different and dreaming about working in other fields
  3. Longing to go back and make different decisions
  4. Missing fun and joy in our work
  5. Feeling that our work no longer has relevance, meaning, or significance
  6. Lacking enthusiasm and motivation for our current path and what we’re doing
  7. Living the success script of others
  8. Feeling our life is passing us by
  9. Feeling like we’re living someone else’s life—chasing the goals and dreams of others
  10. Envying people who have summoned the courage to travel their own authentic path (or “LIFE entrepreneurs”)

 

How We Got There

It’s common for people to find themselves on a wrong path—or to question the direction they’re headed. Life tends to have its twists and turns.

Here are some of the things that can get us off track:

Childhood programming. Some parents steer us heavily toward certain paths of their own preference. They may be trying to live vicariously through their children or viewing their children’s choices as a reflection of their own worth.

“…make no mistake about it, well-meaning people around you—friends, family, work associates, and others—
will push you to run someone else’s race.”

-Dr. Nicholas Pearce, professor, Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management

People-pleasing. Maybe we put others’ needs or preferences ahead of our own when we chose our path. (See “People-Pleasing: Why We Do It and How to Stop It.”)

We’re often lacking important context when we make career decisions in our young adulthood. We don’t know what we don’t know. In fact, we think we know it all.

“Oh no! I just realized—I let a 20-year-old choose my husband and my career!”
-anonymous middle-aged woman in a career seminar cited in Douglas T. Hall, “The Protean Career”

We may have stumbled into career choices instead of choosing them deliberately. Maybe we didn’t have a good sense of our options. Or we made a panic choice because we needed money.

When we’re younger, it’s easier to adopt the values of our peers or of society instead of blazing our own path. Early in our career, we often make work decisions exclusively or mostly on compensation, but as we go through life we learn more and more about the importance of other things in addition to that: meaningful and engaging work, good managers and colleagues, autonomy, a chance to learn and grow, work-life balance, job security, and more. Early on, we tend to overweight the extrinsic factors and underweight the intrinsic ones. For many, the intrinsic factors become more important over time. The career ladder is also a social ladder of sorts, with all kinds of social comparisons built in, causing us to choose paths based on ego and status.

An impatient climb. Sometimes we’re so focused on climbing the career ladder as quickly as possible that we don’t take the time to consider which wall the ladder is up against.

Sometimes we make choices based on reasons that don’t hold up over time. For example, we choose based on comparison or a need to be viewed as successful. Or we’re in the trap of caring too much about what others think when making our own choices—or the trap of viewing life as a race and perhaps feeling behind.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

 

The Problem with Walking the Wrong Path

When we’re on a flawed path, we’re likely to be dissatisfied with our life or work. We may feel like we’re settling instead of going for what we really want—or like we’re playing small.

In the end, the biggest problem is that we’re very likely to feel pangs of regret when we look back if we don’t make changes.

“Growth is painful. Change is painful.
But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.”
-Mandy Hale

 

What to Do When Doubting the Path We’re On

Thankfully, there are many things we can do when we suspect we need a course correction:

Get perspective on the whole of our lives—including how our work fits in with the other important areas of our lives (like health, family, education, hobbies, and travel)—and the limited time we have to live them. (Consider taking this Quality of Life Assessment.)

Tempus fugit. (Time flies.)
Memento mori. (Remember that you will die.)

Question any beliefs about which path to take because of what others think, starting with our parents but also including friends and colleagues.

Press pause on being in “climbing mode” (striving to move up the ladder of success) and dive back into “discover mode” (learning about who we are and what we want to do in the world). Who are we? What are we good at? What do we get lost in? Who do we like to serve, and how? (See my TEDx talk on “Discover Mode” for more on this.)

We can know ourselves more deeply when we are clear about things like the following:

Spend time alone and tap into our deeper wisdom via reading and reflection. Clarify what happiness, success, and the good life are to us—without mindlessly accepting others’ definitions of them. Get clear about what we want and need out of our work.

Do a path check. Ask the following: Does my current path align well with who I am and who I’d like to be? Is it a good fit with my core values? Is my current path taking me closer to the life I want? Think not only about what we’ll do if we stay on our current path but also about who we’ll become. And who might we become if we blazed a new trail?

Determine why our current work isn’t a good fit at this point in our life. Where are the breakdowns? This can help us make improvements in our next chapter.

Recognize that we’re not likely to get epiphanies or clear directions. The way forward is likely to be unclear and challenging for a while. Account for that and give ourselves grace for it.

Recognize that logic and analysis will only take us so far. We should also engage our hearts and tap into our deeper wisdom.

Get input from people who have our back. Have open discussions with family and friends—and perhaps a mentor or coach. Consider joining a small group to air out tough issues in a safe environment of confidentiality and trust.

Get some distance from people in our current work environment and industry. This can help us gain perspective and different vantage points. And it can help us resist some of the social pressures holding us back.

“Change always starts with separation…. maintaining some degree of separation from the network of relationships that defined our former professional lives can be vital to our reinvention.”
-Dr. Herminia Ibarra, London Business School professor and expert on career transitions

Embrace our uniqueness—our interests, passions, preferences, and idiosyncrasies—as part of our identity and part of what’s valuable and precious in life.

Consider taking a sabbatical from our current work, if possible. A sabbatical is an extended period of time away from work, often for travel or study. The Sabbatical Project describes it as “a sacred human ritual for what you want to do differently in life—even if for just a little while.” It notes that sabbaticals can help address burnout and can spark profound changes in people that benefit not only themselves but also those around them.

Learn about and experiment with possible new paths via simple probes. Start with small steps. Be open and curious. There are many ways to run such probes, including research, conversations, volunteer work, consulting projects, internships, job rotations or shadowing, board service, “life design interviews” (asking people who are currently doing work that interests us to learn more about it), and more. Dr. Herminia Ibarra, a London Business School professor and expert on career change, notes that a “test-and-learn approach” is much more likely to be successful than a “plan-and-implement approach.”

Summon courage to change the path we’re on. Any such changes are likely to come with substantial internal and external resistance, so we’ll need to summon our courage to start and to persist through obstacles. Don’t let the fear of making a mistake or choosing poorly stop us from taking necessary actions. Expect a flood of terror and excitement in the process, not to mention confusion and doubt. It comes with the territory. (See my article, “Getting Good at Overcoming Fear.”)

Don’t think we need to get everything right from the outset. Our choices don’t have to be forever. Give ourselves room to try things, assess, and recalibrate. Our progress is likely to be halting for a while.

Don’t waste time and energy on blaming others for the path we’re on. Would we rather be happy about the path we’re on or have someone to blame for steering us astray? Our life choices are ours and ours alone.

Don’t believe it’s selfish to do what we want with our life. Far from it. What example are we setting for our children, friends, or family if we give up on our dreams?

Find someone who’s done a good job of changing career paths and ask them to share how they went about it and what they learned along the way. Sometimes it’s helpful to learn from others who have been on a similar journey with comparable influences and pressures.

Place our career choices in the larger context of what’s most important in our lives. For some, it’s all too easy to overweight the importance of work in our lives while losing sight of other important things like family, health, spiritual practices, and more.

Recognize that the further we get on a certain path, the harder it is to switch to a different one—and that it’s our ego that makes it harder. If we need a path change, it’s better to determine that as early as we can.

Take full responsibility for our lives and the decisions we make—as well as the impact we have on others. (See “The Power of Taking Full Responsibility for Your Life.”)

Enjoy the process of living, learning, growing, and serving. Don’t focus too much on the results we hope to achieve. Results are of course essential, but they’re not in our full control. Better to focus on what’s in our control and enjoy our journey as much as we can.

Recognize that we’re likely to have different preferences for paths at different phases of our life. Sometimes an old path has served its purpose and it’s time for a new one.

Pay attention to the clues that have been left for us in our lives—the signs and signals we’ve gotten from our passions and dreams. What fills us with energy, and what makes us feel most alive? Those are all pieces of the puzzle we can put together in our own unique way.

“What did you want to do when you were five years old?… Don’t give up on those visions you used to have, no matter how far-fetched and unrealistic they are. Investigate them…. A heart-centered desire could be hiding within even the most far-fetched of dreams. Maybe you said you wanted to be an astronaut, but maybe what you meant is the idea of exploring somewhere new fascinates you. Maybe you said you wanted to be a ballerina, but you were intrigued by the idea of putting more beauty into the world. Maybe you said you wanted to be a firefighter, but what you meant was you wanted to help people.”
-Haley Pace, “Before You Climb, Make Sure the Ladder is Placed to the Right Wall”

Identify the red threads in our work. What are the patterns we keep returning to? What projects engage us the most deeply? Which ones repel us? Which groups do we most like to interact with and serve?

Consider several new options. Don’t limit our consideration set to just one possible new path, as that’s far too limiting. In their book, Designing Your Life, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans note that we should never select our first solution to any problem and that we tend to choose better when we have lots of good ideas to choose from.

Stop delaying action. Stop waiting for the perfect moment or perfect clarity. Get going. Think about what we’d do if we only had a year to live. What would we do then?

“For the past year, I had been waiting for something to happen, and it never did.
I was tired of waiting. It was time….”
-Warren Brown, lawyer turned entrepreneur

Consider that our most likely regret will revolve around not making changes, as opposed to attempting changes that may not work out as planned. Consider the cost of not taking action in our decision calculus. What’s the cost of our current course?

Pray or meditate for clarity and guidance. Meanwhile, have faith that we can find a good new path if we persist and take appropriate action over time.

“Chart your own course!… Your life is your art, and I am constantly working to create mine. My business is my passion.… I get so excited talking about it and helping women realize that you can leave a loveless full-time job and create the life you desire.” -Kimberly Wilson, yoga entrepreneur and author

 

Conclusion

In the end, there’s an important time element at work with these decisions. The past is past. The key question is where we are now and where we’re heading. Are we on a good and true path based on who we are, what we value most, and what kind of life we’d like to live, with whom, and how?

We’re sure to face resistance in making changes, but the real question is whether we want to bet on ourselves and a better future or stick with where we’re headed. And we must see that our path is not a solitary one. We must connect it with those we care about so we walk together, support each other, and help each other while having a positive impact in the world. Otherwise, it’s just a long and lonely road to nowhere.

 

Reflection Questions

  1. Do you have doubts about the current path you’re on?
  2. If so, what are they?
  3. How long have you had them?
  4. Is it time for a path check—or for a start in a new direction?

 

Tools for You

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

 

Related Articles

 

Related Books

  • Herminia Ibarra, Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career (Harvard Business School Press, 2004).
  • Annie Duke, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (Portfolio, 2022).
  • Amy Porterfield, Two Weeks’ Notice: Find the Courage to Quit Your Job, Make More Money, Work Where You Want, and Change the World (Hay House, 2023).
  • Bruce Feiler, Life Is in the Transitions (Penguin Press, 2020).
  • Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek, LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (Jossey-Bass, 2008).

 

Postscript: Quotations on Our Path

  • “It’s better to fail trying to do what you really care about than to succeed at something else.” -Mark Albion
  • “…surely we can do better than having to look back on our lives and regret that we lived by someone else’s priorities.” -Greg McKeown, writer
  • “Some of us think that holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.” -Hermann Hesse
  • “Most people are controlled by fear of what other people think. And fear of what, usually, their parents or their relatives are going to say about what they’re doing. A lot of people go through life like this, and they’re miserable. You want to be able to do what you want to do in life.” -Janet Wojcicki, professor, University of California at San Francisco
  • “I lost a lot of time and wasted a lot of energy by running after achievements to validate myself. It was all about how many things I could have on my resume… trying to live up to others’ expectations of me. It was like living on junk food…. It took me sixty years to trust myself.” -Karin Weber
  • “The most freeing experience of my life thus far has been to… be unapologetically myself, and to stand in my own light.” -Hannah Rose, therapist and writer
  • “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.” -Greg McKeown
  • “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” -Joseph Campbell
  • “The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.” -Abraham Maslow
  • “The first step toward change is to refuse to be deployed by others and to choose to deploy yourself.” -Warren Bennis
  • “In a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” -Warren Buffett, legendary investor
  • “There is a time of departure even when there’s no clear place to go.” -Tennessee Williams
  • “Humans are creatures of least resistance. We take the road most traveled, or the road best paved. So much of our behavior runs on autopilot.” -Aline Holzwarth, applied behavioral scientist
  • “Every worker needs to escape the wrong job.” -Peter Drucker, management expert
  • “…the sensible man considers his steps.” (Proverbs 14:15, New American Standard Bible)
  • “Don’t just climb the mountain because it’s there. Really think about whether that’s the mountain you want to climb.” -Kim Smith, entrepreneur
  • “She’s the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.” -Mae West, actress, singer, and comedian
“Begin with the end in mind… It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction. It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall.” -Stephen R. Covey, leadership author and educator

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our community. Sign up now and get Gregg Vanourek’s monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

The Trap of Workaholism–And What to Do About It

Article Summary: 

Everything you need to know about workaholism (work addiction): its prevalence, signs, causes, and costs—and how to overcome it.

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Many people today struggle with workaholism—being addicted to work and struggling to switch it off or stop thinking about it

Psychologist Wayne Oates coined the term “workaholism” in 1971 in his book, Confessions of a Workaholic: The Facts About Work Addiction. He defined it as “the compulsion or the uncontrollable need to work incessantly.” In 2014, researchers C.S. Andreassen, J. Hetland, and S. Pallesen defined work addiction as “being overly concerned about work, to be driven by strong and uncontrollable work motivation, and to spend so much energy and effort into work that it impairs private relationships, spare-time activities, and/or health.”

According to researchers, work addiction has both a behavioral component (working long hours consistently) and a psychological component (being obsessed with work). It’s a serious problem for many.

 

A Cautionary Tale About Workaholism

Gerald Chertavian grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Lowell, Massachusetts with a strong work ethic. After business school, he moved to London to be with his fiancée. Following a frustrating first job experience there, he was approached with an opportunity to buy into a technology company on the verge of bankruptcy. They had precious little to go on, but he decided to go for it.

The challenges were fierce, but Gerald was committed. For years, he pushed and pushed, until one day it was too much. As he told us in an interview for LIFE Entrepreneurs:

“I looked over the side of my desk in London. It was 2 a.m. and I couldn’t see the ground. It was just black. I couldn’t even see the rug below me. It was like looking into the abyss.”
-Gerald Chertavian

This talented and vigorous young man early in his career could have worked himself to death. It was a stark wake-up call.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

 

The Value of Hard Work

Concerns about workaholism shouldn’t be equated with a critique of hard work. There’s incredible value in hard work (especially in smart hard work), from opportunities for learning and growth to success and wealth creation.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s another problem: sloth. Many people fall into the trap of not working hard enough and later come to regret it.

Aristotle famously wrote about the “golden mean” of virtue between two vices. So, between sloth and overwork, the golden mean is hard work—ideally work with purpose, passion, and impact. But that’s a far cry from work addiction.

Workaholism shouldn’t be conflated with hard work, a strong work ethic, dedication, conscientiousness, loving what we do, or occasionally working extra hard to complete an important task. These are all good. By contrast, workaholism takes us into the territory of preoccupation, compulsion, and addiction, with the associated loss of self-control and continuation of excessive work despite negative consequences.

If we love our work, that doesn’t mean we’re addicted to it. But if we’re a workaholic, it’s easy to convince ourselves that we work so much because we love it or because we need to when we actually don’t.

Workaholism is also not the same as having an overly demanding boss who piles way too much work on our plates—or as the excessive work sometimes demanded by startups, turnarounds, or crises. Work addiction, in short, is not the same as work overload. (That’s a different problem.)

 

The Prevalence of Workaholism

The prevalence of workaholism is hard to pin down because it’s hard to define precisely and even harder to measure. And even when it gets measured, there are challenges with getting nationally representative data sets.

Nonetheless, psychologists estimate that about 10% of Americans struggle with work addiction. Research from a nationally representative random sample in Norway using the Bergen Work Addiction Scale found that 8.3% of the population there struggles with work addiction.

These may not be huge percentages, but they add up to massive numbers of people. According to Zippia Research, 55% of Americans (55%) didn’t use all of their paid time off in 2022.

Researcher Brene Brown jokes that when they start having support meetings for workaholics, they’ll have to rent out football stadiums.

 

Signs of Workaholism

How to know if we struggle with workaholism? It comes with a number of telltale signs, including:

  • feeling preoccupied with work even outside normal working hours (we can’t stop thinking about it)
  • being the first one in the office and the last to leave
  • not taking a lunch break and other breaks
  • working often on weekends*
  • working more than is needed or expected of them
  • having a hard time stopping work
  • feeling physical and emotional distress when we’re not working, much like the withdrawal symptoms from other addictions
  • lacking margin in our lives and suffer from “time poverty” (an acute feeling of having too much to do and not enough time)
  • sacrificing time with our spouse/partner, children, and friends because we’re so consumed with work
  • suffering negative consequences from working so much, whether physically, relationally, or otherwise.

The Bergen Work Addiction Scale is a psychometrically validated assessment instrument developed by testing 12,000 Norwegian workers from 25 different industries. See the image below and consider doing a quick check.

Source: Clockify, https://clockify.me/workaholism-facts

According to the research, workaholics tend to be status-conscious, hyper-competitive, and achievement-oriented. They have high standards (e.g., must be the best) and tend to be self-critical. Often, they have a strong need for success and external validation.

Workaholics may also struggle with close relationships, vulnerability, and intimacy due to a fear of disclosing flaws. And they may neglect their inner life given their focus on external achievements.

Edward Hallowell writes in his book, Crazy Busy, that it can become a habit so entrenched that it makes you “a slave to a lifestyle you don’t like but you can’t escape.” According to Clockify, a company that helps organizations track how much time people spend working on tasks, the top ten traits of workaholics are the following:

Source: Clockify, https://clockify.me/workaholism-facts

Workaholism can show up in different ways. For some, it may be a standard compulsion that’s fairly consistent over time. For others, it gets progressively worse. And for others, it involves binge-working in fits and starts.

Some people are good at hiding their workaholism from others, knowing that it brings conflict or disappointment, so they sneak in work when others can’t see it.

According to researchers, workaholics often make things harder for themselves by placing more pressure on themselves, making their work more complicated than necessary, and hesitating to delegate work when possible or to seek social support when they’re struggling. They may also be attracted to high-pressure jobs with intense demands.

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

 

Causes: Where Workaholism Comes From

Where does workaholism come from? Researchers have discovered several sources. Here are the main ones:

Childhood causes. Many workaholics grew up with overly demanding or overly protective parents. This can set up long-term behavioral patterns that can be difficult to escape.

Our identity. Author Stephen R. Covey noted that some people have a work-centered identity. (See my article, “Is Your Identity Wrapped Up Too Much in Your Work?”)

In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown notes that some people consider exhaustion a status symbol and view “productivity as self-worth.” Others have an achievement identity. Shirzad Chamine, best-selling author and chairman of the Coaches Training Institute, has identified what he calls a “hyper-achiever” as one of ten “saboteurs” that inhibit our effectiveness and enjoyment:

“The Hyper-Achiever makes you dependent on constant performance and achievement for self-respect and self-validation. It keeps you focused mainly on external success rather than on internal criteria for happiness. It often leads to unsustainable workaholic tendencies and causes you to fall out of touch with deeper emotional and relationship needs. Its lie is that your self-acceptance should be conditional on performance and external validation.”
-Shirzad Chamine, Positive Intelligence

Emotional causes. If we feel guilty or anxious when we’re not working, it’s easy to numb those feelings by working incessantly. Some people suffer from “productivity guilt”—having a constant nagging feeling that we should be doing more.

Personality factors. Many workaholics struggle with perfectionism, neuroticism, or obsessive-compulsive tendencies. They may have a “Type A” personality characterized by ambition, aggressiveness, and intense achievement striving.

Running from pain. At a deeper level, workaholism is sometimes more about running away from something that running toward the glories of work. There may be great emotional pain, discomfort, shame, or trauma driving it.

“…workaholism is a surprisingly effective distraction from emotional and spiritual problems.”
-David Brooks, The Second Mountain

There’s an interesting question about the direction of causality here. It’s clear that workaholism can and often does lead to significant distress in our lives. But researchers have discovered that, for many people, workaholism is also a response to distress in their lives, such as emotional disturbance or anxiety. In other words, it’s caused by distress but also adds to distress, a double whammy.

“We are a culture of people who’ve bought into the idea that if we stay busy enough,
the truth of our lives won’t catch up with us.”
-Brene Brown, Daring Greatly

 Fear. Sometimes the compulsion to work and work comes from a place of fear—fear of not being enough or of disappointing people. Seen in this light, work addiction becomes a matter of overdoing things to avoid the things we’re afraid of (but too often doing damage in the process).

Motivational factors. If we’re highly motivated by extrinsic factors like financial or status rewards, we can tell ourselves that working all the time will bring us the satisfaction and happiness we crave. (See “The Most Common Myths About Happiness.”)

Cultural influences. Some organizations and even nations have a culture that lionizes work and achievement over other values. People living in different countries can have widely varying outlooks on the importance of work.

“American culture valorizes overwork, which makes it easy to slip into a mindset that can breed success addiction.”
-Arthur Brooks, From Strength to Strength

 

The Problem with Workaholism

Workaholism, like all addictions, can come with a high—sometimes devastating—cost. Here are some of the problems it can cause in different areas of our lives:

Workaholism can contribute to physical health problems, including:

  • cardiovascular disease
  • higher systolic blood pressure
  • insomnia

These are all serious problems. Notably, some languages now have words for “death from overwork” (karoshi in Japanese and guolaosi in Chinese).

It can also contribute to mental health problems, including:

  • higher levels of mental distress and emotional exhaustion
  • chronic stress
  • anxiety
  • depression

Workaholism can lead to relationship problems, including::

  • less time with family and friends
  • more work-family conflicts

Workaholism can have negative effects on our work, including:

  • more job stress
  • greater chance of burnout
  • lower job satisfaction
“Findings suggest that workaholism is related to negative outcomes such as increased job stress, work–life conflict, burnout, decreased job and life satisfaction, and poor physical and emotional/mental health…. workaholism was not related to higher levels of performance or job satisfaction; rather, it was related to many negative outcomes such as burnout, job stress, lower job satisfaction, and poorer emotional/mental and physical well-being.”
-Malissa Clark et al., “All Work and No Play?”

Researchers note that work addiction doesn’t necessarily lead to better performance. That makes sense because we’re all human and have limits. At some point, there are diminishing marginal returns for the extra work put in.

Workaholics may get a short-lived rush from completing an important project, but they quickly turn their attention to the next item on their to-do list, placing them squarely on the hedonic treadmill.

Workaholism also leads to lower life satisfaction and more life regrets. In her work as a palliative nurse, Bronnie Ware noted the top regrets of people who were in the process of dying. The second most common regret among her patients was this:

“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”

Her point here isn’t that hard work is bad in and of itself.

The problem is when we let our work crowd out so many other important things such as our health and close relationships with family and friends. By working too much, we’re optimizing for one aspect of our lives (our work) while harming other important aspects.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

 

The Secondary Effects of Workaholism

Unfortunately, the negative effects don’t stop there. There are also secondary effects of work addiction that spill over into other domains.

For starters, workaholism can lead to secondary addictions (e.g., to alcohol, drugs, pornography, etc.).

According to empirical research, work addiction is also related to poor family relationships, family dysfunction, and marital dissatisfaction. Writer John Eldredge likened it to having an affair with his work.

It can lead to neglecting children or missing family events and milestones (e.g., the birth of a child, sports tournaments, dance recitals, graduations). (See my article, “Five Words that Changed Me as a Parent.”)

Work addiction in parents can lead to problems with their children’s mental health. According to a 2022 study of 527 Lithuanian workers, “perceived work addiction of both mother and father was related to higher levels of work addiction of their adult child.”

And what are the opportunity costs of all these extra hours spent working instead of engaging in other worthy endeavors? For example, how can we take care of our aging parents and grandparents or struggling relatives if we’re so consumed with our work?

Also, our communities and nations suffer when many people are addicted to work. How can people find time to build community and participate actively as citizens when they’re working so much?

The physical exhaustion associated with work addiction can also lead to ethical lapses. According to former President Bill Clinton, “Every important mistake I’ve made in my life, I’ve made because I was too tired.”

What’s more, workaholism may be contagious in some workplaces. According to researcher G. Spruell, “Workaholism practiced by even just one member of a work group can suck the spirit right out of the team” and can cause “destructive competitiveness among coworkers.” Overly demanding leaders can create a toxic culture of workaholism in their organization, leading to dissatisfaction, resentment, burnout, absenteeism, high turnover, lower performance, and great personal damage and regret among workers.

 

What to Do About Workaholism

Addressing the problem is difficult because many workaholics are in denial about their addiction (see “Self-Deception: Why We Do It and How to Stop It”)—and because many workplaces reward people for workaholic behavior.

“…work 16 hours a day, and you’ll probably get a promotion.”
-Arthur Brooks, “The Hidden Link between Workaholism and Mental Health”

Thankfully, there are many things we can do to address work addiction:

Track our time. Carefully log how we spend time for several days (or a week). Then go back and review which activities give us energy and a sense of meaning, versus which ones drain us or seem pointless. Consider whether the amount of time we’re spending working versus addressing other important priorities accurately reflects our core values.

Be brutally honest with ourselves. Stop avoiding and pretending. Decide to push past self-denial and face the reality and implications of our choices.

Ask those who know us best. Sometimes, it’s hard for us to see or admit but all too clear to others.

Set boundaries on our work time. Set a weekly maximum number of hours and limit email to certain hours, except under extraordinary circumstances. According to a February 2023 Pew Research Center study, workers with higher incomes and postgraduate degrees were most likely to say they regularly respond to work emails and messages outside of work hours. Though many people are rightly concerned about the exploitation of lower-income workers, it seems that many upper-income workers and managers are exploiting themselves.

Focus on only a few key priorities each day. Avoid the trap of being overly ambitious with expected accomplishments each day. That can set us up for a cycle of stress and overwork. Being realistic about daily and weekly accomplishments can help a lot. (Consider using the Ivy Lee Method: give ourselves no more than six important tasks per day, listed from most important to least important. Then address them in order of priority, and without moving to the next task until the current one is complete.)

Schedule important, non-work priorities. This can help make sure that other important priorities don’t get crowded out of our busy schedules.

Be intentional about time away from work. When we’re used to working hard, it can be easy to become unintentional and passive when we have free time. There’s nothing wrong with chilling out, but if we let it turn into mindless numbing with too much binge-watching or doom-scrolling, it will only make us more anxious and tired. Meanwhile, we’ll have lost important opportunities to connect with family and friends and to do fun things.

“Unless a person takes charge of them, both work and free time are likely to be disappointing.”
-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, psychologist and author

Think about who we’re giving so much of our lives away to—and whether they’re worth it. In her article, “The Wages of Overwork,” writer and journalist Ann Helen Petersen writes, “Leaders are more than happy to exploit workers’ most anxious or engrained inclinations towards overwork.”

Make sure we’re giving enough time to the important people in our lives. According to research, our close relationships are the most important contributors to our happiness and quality of life.

Address the underlying issues that cause us to seek refuge in overwork. Do the inner work of discovering what’s causing us to engage in overwork and what we’re running from. These insights can give us clarity about the problem(s) we must address.

Be clear about our purpose and values. This helps us focus on what’s most important in our lives.

Develop good habits of recovery, renewal, and self-care such as:

Shift our focus from ego and personal achievement to connection with and service to others. Work addiction is often a selfish and lonely way of life. When we stay focused on connection and service, we can avoid getting trapped by our ego.

Remember our mortality. We will all die, and we don’t know when. Remembering this can help us determine what’s important in our lives right now.

Work with a therapist or join a support group (e.g., Workaholics Anonymous).

Regularly review how we’re doing in all the important areas of our lives. (See my Quality of Life Assessment—which you can set up for regular reminders.) By reviewing each area (e.g., family, health, friends, education, work, service, activities, finance), we can see which ones are neglected and problematic—and then take appropriate action.

“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling five balls… work, family, health, friends, and spirit. Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will never be the same.”
-Brian Dyson, former CEO, Coca-Cola Enterprises

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

 

Coda: The Cautionary Tale

Remember Gerald starting into the abyss at 2 a.m. in his London office after years of overwork? Here’s what happened next:

“Right there, I realized that I wasn’t doing what I needed to do with my life. Then I went home and gave myself grades as a father, husband, friend, community member, and businessperson, and I only got one A—and the A was as a businessperson. I said that’s the last time in my life I’m going to look in the mirror and give myself those grades, period.”
-Gerald Chertavian**

 

Reflection Questions

  1. Are you suffering from or at risk of work addiction?
  2. How is it affecting your health, relationships, and quality of life?
  3. What will you do about it?
  4. Which of the above practices will you start with?

 

Tools for You

 

Related Articles & Traps to Workaholism

 

Postscript: Quotations on Workaholism

  • “If you think your busyness is some kind of prestige symbol, think again.” -Chris Brogan
  • “Busyness is not a marker of intelligence, importance, or success. Taken to an extreme, it is much more likely a marker of conformity or powerlessness or fear.” -Christine Carter
  • “You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are.” -Anna Quindlen
  • “Overwork sucks us into a negative spiral, causing our brains to slow down and compromising our emotional intelligence.” -Annie McKee, author and advisor to top leaders
  • “No matter how much value we produce today—whether it’s measured in dollars or sales or goods or widgets—it’s never enough. We run faster, stretch out our arms further, and stay at work longer and later. We’re so busy trying to keep up that we stop noticing we’re in a Sisyphean race we can never win.” -Tony Schwartz, journalist, author, founder, The Energy Project
  • “My worry was that I would become addicted to success. It’s a delicate and dangerous zone—the interface between success and significance—to get as much success as you can without getting captured by it, becoming its prisoner.” -Bob Buford, Half Time
  • “Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. That is why… there is so much unhappiness, so much pain… They bring out the pain and unhappiness that is already in you.” -Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
  • “Human beings have always employed an enormous amount of clever devices for running away from themselves, and the modern world is particularly rich in such stratagems. We can keep ourselves busy, fill our lives with so many diversions, stuff our heads with so much knowledge, involve ourselves with so many people, and cover so much ground that we never have time to probe the fearful and wonderful world within. More often than not we don’t want to know ourselves, don’t want to depend on ourselves, don’t want to live with ourselves. By middle life, most of us are accomplished fugitives from ourselves.” -John W. Gardner, Self-Renewal

 

Sources:

  • Andreassen, C. S., Hetland, J., & Pallesen, S. (2014). Psychometric assessment of workaholism measures. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 29(1), 7–24.
  • Morkeviciute M., Endriulaitiene A. Understanding Work Addiction in Adult Children: The Effect of Addicted Parents and Work Motivation. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Sep 8;19(18):11279.
  • Spruell, G. 1987. Work fever. Training and Development Journal, 41: 41-45.

* We should note that in today’s economy, many people choose to work nontraditional hours, as opposed to the standard Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Of course, choosing to do so isn’t in and of itself a sign of work addiction.

** Gerald Chertavian and his team built that company, Conduit Communications, into one of Britain’s fastest growing companies, eventually having more than 130 workers in several countries and earning more than $18 million in annual revenues. Six years later they sold it for a significant return and made millionaires out of many of their colleagues in the process. He later founded YearUp, a national 501(c)3 workforce development organization committed to ensuring equitable access to economic opportunity, education, and justice for all young adults—no matter their background, income, or ZIP code.

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

The Trap of a Victim Mentality—And What to Do About It

Article Summary: 

What a victim mentality is, signs of it, where it comes from, its many costs, and what to do about it.

 +++

When we have a victim mentality, we believe that bad things we experience are the fault of others and will keep happening so there’s no point in changing. We may even feel that the world is against us.

Essentially, we identify ourselves as a helpless victim of negative circumstances. It’s a form of self-sabotage and often comes with an addiction to drama.

When we have a victim mentality, we have thoughts like the following:

Why me? (Again.)
Why can’t I ever catch a break?
Why did this happen to me?
Why didn’t they love me more?
Why don’t they call me more?

We wallow in our misery and feed on the neediness that comes with it.

“I am miserable therefore I am.”
Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries,
“Are You a Victim of the Victim Syndrome?”

We should pause here and note that we all experience hardships and some people do go through terrible experiences, from war, poverty, disease, tragedy, and loss to violence, rape, assault, abuse, and more. Far too many people are victims of violence or crimes.

But there’s a difference between being a victim of such things and having a victim mentality. The mentality of victimhood can be strong regardless of the circumstances. With a victim mentality, someone can exaggerate the extent of harm done, misattribute it (e.g., taking neutral scenarios or ambiguous information and interpreting them as hostile), and/or add to the pain by ruminating on them or blowing them up. This can go on for years, or decades, or even a lifetime unless we break the cycle.

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” -Maya Angelou, poet and civil-rights activist

 

Signs of a Victim Mentality

How to identify the signs of a victim mentality? With a victim mentality, we’re likely to engage in several of the following behaviors:

  1. believe that bad things happen to us consistently
  2. feel sorry for ourselves
  3. believe that most aspects of our lives are negative and beyond our control
  4. feel powerless to make changes
  5. believe that others are generally more fortunate than we are
  6. feel repressed anger or self-pity
  7. focus on bad things and all we lack (what Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy call being “in the gap”)
  8. feel frequently embattled
  9. put ourselves down often
  10. feel trapped in life
  11. take things personally
  12. feel defensive or even hypervigilant around others, expecting to be hurt
  13. often make choices that lead to pain or suffering
  14. blame others often
  15. ruminate over past events and negative feelings while holding grudges and resurrecting past sleights
  16. dwell on negative comparisons with others
  17. endure bad behavior or circumstances without doing anything about it
  18. refuse help when it’s offered—sometimes not even accepting that there may be a solution—perhaps getting defensive or feeling attacked when someone tries to help because it could undermine our victim identity
  19. keep finding and staying with people who treat us poorly—and sometimes rejecting people who treat us well
  20. make excuses and avoid responsibility for things
  21. have a hard time trusting people (including ourselves), sometimes being suspicious of their motives
  22. judge and criticize others in order to feel okay about ourselves—and often dividing people starkly into good or bad categories without gray zones
  23. jump to conclusions about others and cut them out of our lives in dramatic fashion without considering other sides of the story
  24. want our victimhood to be acknowledged and affirmed by others
  25. struggle to see the suffering of others
  26. distrust authority
  27. assume there are biases involved in keeping us down
  28. feel a sense of entitlement
  29. live in the past

“Whatever has happened to you in your past has no power over this present moment, because life is now.”
Oprah Winfrey, media entrepreneur and philanthropist

Unfortunately, a victim mentality can be contagious, and we can attract others who have a propensity to complain and blame.

 

Where It Comes From

A victim mentality can come from many sources. The most common source, according to many psychologists, is childhood. There are many possibilities here, from excessive criticism or having unmet needs to parents who railed about the injustice of life—and how we’re suckers if we trust others.

A victim mentality can be passed down for generations (and exploited by political campaigns and social medial algorithms). It can also originate from various forms of neglect or abuse.

“Many of these children harbor such deep anger toward their parents that they unconsciously desire to remain dysfunctional, as a way of getting back at them. Dysfunction is their way of showing their parents how they have messed up…. These children cannot see, let alone consciously accept, that they are now causing most of their own pain.”
-Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, “Are You a Victim of the Victim Syndrome?”

A victim mentality can also arise from betrayal, in which people betray our trust (especially repeatedly), or from violence or trauma. These experiences can damage or destroy our self-esteem and make us passive, submissive, or unable to set appropriate boundaries.

The common denominator is significant inner pain and distress.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

 

 

Why People Do It

Why do people adopt a victim mentality? What are the underlying motivations at work? A victim mentality is a coping mechanism (often subconscious) in which we’re actually seeking validation or help from others, albeit in unproductive ways.

In many cases, it’s an attempt to gain attention, love, or approval. In victim mode, we enjoy the attention or sympathy we get from others. Psychologists call this “secondary gain,” a phenomenon in which there are some benefits associated with not resolving a problem, such as feeling pleasure when we receive attention or concern. And it can feel liberating to give up responsibility for addressing our problems by wallowing in victimhood.

We may harbor a subconscious desire to continue the pattern of victimhood because it can bring us attention and keep us in the center of a drama, thereby stroking our ego. Playing the victim can also be an attempt to manipulate people, sometimes coming from a narcissistic personality disorder.

Low self-worth can aggravate this mindset. We may blame ourselves for our predicament but lack the capacity to acknowledge or address it.

Fear is also a common denominator. When playing the victim, we may be able to avoid vulnerability and taking risks.

 

The Problem with a Victim Mentality

Clearly, there are many contributing factors. But it’s essential to understand that having a victim mentality comes with a hefty price, both in terms of our mental health and our life and work more broadly.

In terms of our mental health, having a victim mentality can:

  • drain our mental and emotional energy, leaving us with less strength and will to make improvements
  • lead to frustration, anger, resentment, bitterness, and helplessness
  • harm our mental and emotional wellbeing
  • be used as a justification for other maladaptive behaviors, including numbing behaviors like drinking or taking drugs
  • undermine our resilience, making us less equipped to deal well with tough situations in the future
  • increase our risk of anxiety and depression

In our life and work, having a victim mentality can:

  • lead to blaming others for our problems
  • make us want to withdraw from friends, family, and colleagues
  • result in self-pity and giving up
  • lead us to avoid challenges
  • reduce our sense of agency
  • prevent us from taking necessary actions
  • harm our relationships
  • lower our performance
  • become a vicious cycle in which we respond poorly to tough situations, only inviting more challenges and a sense of futility
  • become an entrenched identity in which our sense of victimhood is pervasive
“Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity…. You will then ignore, deny, or sabotage the positive in your life.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Ultimately, having a victim mentality doesn’t give us anything satisfying or worthwhile. And it backfires because it drives people away from us, leading to further isolation and loneliness, which are terrible for us.

Essentially, we’re feeling aggrieved about our lives while we keep shooting ourselves in the foot.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

 

 

The Victim Mentality in the Workplace

In the workplace, people with a victim mentality can negatively affect those around them. When a team has someone with such a mindset, it can:

  • make people defensive
  • damage relationships
  • prevent trust
  • hurt team morale
  • reduce productivity
  • be contagious, leading to a collective downward spiral

A victim mentality is not only an individual phenomenon but also a collective one, according to researchers, with groups falling into this mindset. That can be a daunting challenge for managers.

“…people with a victim mentality are very difficult to handle.”
-Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, “Are You a Victim of the Victim Syndrome?”

 

How to Stop Playing the Victim

What to do about it? Psychologists note that we learn victimhood—it’s an acquired not inborn personality trait—and that we have the capacity to overcome it.

If we’ve experienced real trauma or abuse, it’s ideal to disclose it as early as possible to trusted family members, friends, or trained professionals, as that can lead to more support and quicker processing and healing. Beyond that first step, there are many things we can do to break this cycle:

Recall that we all experience negative emotions. The key is to avoid wallowing in them.

Develop a healthy view of ourselves and our capabilities—and build our confidence and assertiveness by preparing well for important projects and focusing on learning and developing as we go.

“…what helps victims best is the development of a healthier self-concept.”
-Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, “Are You a Victim of the Victim Syndrome?”

Stop ruminating on our problems and focus instead on something more positive (like what we’ve learned). (See my article, “What to Do About Overthinking, Rumination, and Worrying.”)

Catalog our strengths—including our knowledge, skills, and abilities—and brainstorm how we can use them to overcome our challenges.

Recall situations in which we’ve overcome adversity and challenges. We may be more resilient than we think.

Change our self-talk by analyzing and questioning our beliefs, disputing the idea that we’re a helpless victim. For example, we can ask whether our identity as a victim is true, and whether our current beliefs are useful or harmful to us.

Stop hanging out with people who are wallowing in victimhood. Spend more time with positive and proactive people.

Learn about the victim mentality and its consequences via books, articles, podcasts, videos, or conversations.

Realize that we still have agency even though life is sometimes unfair and comes with pain, loss, and heartache.

Be honest with ourselves and see a victim mentality for what it is: self-sabotage. Prepare to move beyond it.

Decide to let go of the victim mentality and choose to be happy and thrive.

Forgive others and ourselves and make peace with our past.

Take responsibility for the whole of our lives, regardless of whether we experienced anything unjust or unfair.

“If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it.
If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.”

-Richard Bach, writer

Be kind and caring to others and find ways to serve them. By doing so, we’ll escape our unhealthy preoccupation with ourselves and our dramas.

“Constructive action is the opposite of victimized brooding.”
-Dr. Robert W. Firestone, clinical psychologist

Engage in regular self-care practices, such as:

  • Exercise, since it helps regulate the chemicals in our brain in ways that boost our mood and motivation
  • Good sleep and eating habits
  • Grounding and relaxation practices like yoga, meditation, or deep breathing
  • Avoidance of harmful ways of coping, such as numbing and substance abuse

Develop a gratitude practice. (See my article,The Trap of Not Being Grateful.”)

Recognize the patterns of when we feel like a victim. Recall the kinds of things that help us break these downward spirals.

Reach out to a therapist, counselor, or support hotline when needed. Options include:

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

 

 

How to Help Others Stop Playing the Victim

What can we do if friends or colleagues are caught up in a victim mentality? There are many things we can do:

First, avoid judging them harshly. Keep in mind that they may have gone through great difficulties or even trauma that we’re not aware of. Don’t label them. Recall that being or feeling like a victim can be hard enough without labels and associated stigmas, not to mention blaming the victim.

Don’t play their grievance game. By listening attentively to their tales of woe, we’re enabling them, not helping them. Redirect the conversation to more productive territory. Set boundaries while still showing care and compassion.

Offer encouragement. Remind them of the things they’re good at and of the things they’ve accomplished previously.

Offer help with finding solutions. Ask them what they’d do if they had the power to fix things. Help them brainstorm ideas for making progress, starting small, such as with a short list of readily achievable steps they can start taking now. Help them realize they have the capacity to solve things. Avoid swooping in as the hero and fixing things or giving them answers.

“People dealing with individuals with a victim mindset should recognize that there is a difference between rescuing and helping.” -Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, “Are You a Victim of the Victim Syndrome?”

Help them gain a larger perspective beyond their own challenges. It’s vital for them to realize that many others are in need or pain as well.

Manage expectations. Quick fixes are rare here. Help them avoid impatience in overcoming the victim mentality, which could lead to them giving up and feeling worse. Overcoming it can be especially challenging because for many it’s embedded deeply in their identity—and has been for a long time. It may be hard for them to see themselves clearly and honestly—and to make the needed changes.

 

Conclusion

A victim mentality can become debilitating if we let it.

Bad things happen to all of us, but we have a choice as to how we interpret them and what we do in response. That may not be easy or fair, but in the end our lives are what we make of them.

“I am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”
-Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist

 

Reflection Questions

  1. Has a victim mentality crept into your mindset?
  2. How is it affecting your life, work, and mental health?
  3. What will you do about it, starting today?

 

Tools for You

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

 

 

Related Articles

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Avoiding Victimhood

  • “…an individual’s sense of personal control determines his fate.” -Dr. Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life
  • “Apathy and depression are the prices we pay for having settled for and bought into our smallness. It’s what we get for having played the victim and allowed ourselves to be programmed.” -Dr. David R. Hawkins, Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender
  • “Most people are in love with their particular life drama. Their story is their identity. The ego runs their life. They have their whole sense of self invested in it.” -Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
  • “…even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.” -Victor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor
  • “The difference between the hero and the victim is the way they react to the pain they experience.” -Donald Miller, business executive and author
  • “…people suffering from the victim syndrome are prone to aggravate the mess in which they find themselves. Strange as it may sound, they are often victims by choice. And ironically, they are frequently successful in finding willing victimizers.” -Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, “Are You a Victim of the Victim Syndrome?”
  • “While you can’t control your experiences, you can control your explanations.” -Dr. Martin Seligman, psychologist
  • “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” -Napoleon Hill
  • “Turn your wounds into wisdom.” -Oprah Winfrey
  • “Self-pity is our worst enemy, and if we yield to it we never do anything wise in the world.” -Helen Keller
  • “A victim identity is the belief that the past is more powerful than the present, which is the opposite of the truth.” -Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
  • “The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.” -Viktor Frankl

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!