Category: Nonfiction Page 1 of 3

Inspired by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques

One aspect I find fascinating about psychology is how its an universal human experience. No one of us is immune to it because we all display human behavior. I’ve recently been learning more about CBT – a form of psychotherapy which explores the interplay between our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. These 3 aspects influence one another which help us with processing the world around us, but they can often cause harm when we start to develop negative thought patterns. Today we’ll be exploring how negative thoughts can trap us in false/inaccurate narratives, and how to counter them.

What are Thinking Traps?

Thinking traps are negative thought patterns that are irrational or exaggerated. They are called ‘cognitive distortions’ and can lead to negative emotions or behaviors even when there’s little evidence of the validity of these thoughts. What’s especially pernicious about these distortions are that we often consider these thoughts as if they’re fact, which can contribute to the individual feeling further negative effects.

It’s important that we learn to identify these thinking traps and critically evaluate them as it’ll ground us in reality. Helping to recognize when we are stuck in a thinking trap will also help reduce the magnitude of the distress they can cause.

Types of Thinking Traps

We’ll be covering the 10 most common thinking traps. Note that our negative thought patterns will often employ multiple traps at a time, it’s rare to encounter only one.

1. Jumping to Conclusions / Predicting the Future

Assuming you know how the situation will turn out before it actually happens, oftentimes in a negative light.

Ex: “I just know this interview will go poorly”; “She didn’t respond to my text, she must be trying to avoid me”

2. Exaggerating or Minimizing a Situation

Blowing something out of proportion or shrinking the importance inappropriately. This often distorts our perception of reality.

Ex: “This one disagreement will cost me my job”; “I got the promotion, but I still don’t know if my manager trusts me”

3. Ignoring Important Parts of a Situation

Focusing only on select details (often negative ones), while ignoring other relevant information. This leads to biased or incomplete conclusions.

Ex: “I know that this job is difficult to land since I didn’t get referred to it, but I must’ve been rejected because I’m not qualified for the position”

4. Oversimplifying Things as “Good-Bad” or “Right-Wrong”

Viewing situations in absolutes – if something isn’t good then it must be bad. Ignoring that these things often fall on a spectrum and aren’t black and white.

Ex: “I didn’t get praise for my work this time, so I must have done a poor job”

5. Overgeneralizing from a Single Incident

Making sweeping conclusions based off a single experience. Taking something from a previous context and applying it a completely different situation.

Ex: “I got rejected by my crush years ago, so I’m likely to be rejected by my new crush now”

6. Mind Reading

Assuming you know what other people are thinking, especially if those thoughts are of a negative origin. This leads to anxiety and self-doubt.

Ex: “He appeared to be annoyed when I approached him earlier, he must find me annoying”; “My professor took longer to respond back to my request, she must be shrugging me off”

7. Emotional Reasoning

Believing that since this feels a certain way, then it must be true.

Ex: “I felt embarrassed in front of her, so I must have been embarrassing”; “I feel guilty, so I must have done something wrong”

8. Should’ing

Using words like “should”, “must”, “have to” – these can cause unnecessary expectations and don’t capture the whole picture. It can lead to guilt, frustration, or a sense of failure if things don’t pan out the way you wanted.

Ex: “I should be writing my essay right now instead of taking a nap, I’m wasting my time”; “I have to start going to the gym if I want a date, girls only want to date tall, fit guys”

9. Personalizing

Taking responsibility for events outside your control or blaming yourself entirely for a negative outcome.

Ex: “It’s my fault the project failed”, even if many factors were at play

10. Controlling

Believing you have more influence over people or events than you actually due. This leads to stress or feelings of failure if they don’t succeed.

Ex: “I coached his team, but they’re still losing. I must be doing something wrong”

How to Fight These Traps

In order to fight these traps, we first need to identify the unpleasant emotions and the unhelpful thought that is causing it.

Next, you want to explore what the evidence in favor of the thought is what evidence against the thought is. Make sure that these evidences are facts. If you find yourself saying “I feel”, “it could”, “maybe”, “I believe”, etc. those do not count.

Then, consider which thinking traps that were employed that are contributing to that thought.

Finally, come up with an alternate thought to replace the old one that is evidence-based and doesn’t rely on a thinking trap. Gauge what new emotions you feel from this thought.

Downloadable Worksheet for Practice 🙂

I’ve created a downloadable worksheet for you to use when you encounter thinking traps. They help to ground yourself in the facts of the situation to better counter unhelpful thought cycles.

Inspired by Dr. Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly

Have you noticed that we seem more disconnected from one another as ever? Which seems strange because we have access to individuals at essentially the blink of an eye.

[I feel old saying this] People today seem less and less willing to listen and understand to one another. More divisive, unempathetic, disdainful, judgmental. I think it’s a byproduct of the internet and not really thinking about the human behind a username, profile picture, account.

This is why the following excerpt really hit hard for me:

Excerpt from Daring Greatly

Last week, while I was trying to enjoy my manicure, I watched in horror as the two women across from me talked on their phones the entire time they were getting their nails done. They employed head nods, eyebrow raises, and finger-pointing to instruct the manicurists on things like nail length and polish choices…

When I finally made a comment about the women on their cell phones, they both quickly averted their eyes. Finally, in a whisper, the manicurists said, “They don’t know. Most of them don’t think of us as people.”

On my way home, I stopped at Barnes & Noble to pick up a magazine. The woman ahead of me in line bought two books, applied for a new “reader card,” and asked to get one book gift-wrapped without getting off of her cell phone. She plowed through the entire exchange without making eye contact or directly speaking to the young woman working at the counter. 

She never acknowledge the presence of the human being across from her. 

After leaving Barnes & Noble, I went to a drive-through fast food restaurant to get a Diet Dr. Pepper. Right as I pulled up to the window, my cell phone rang…[I answered it, thinking it was important, but since it wasn’t,] I got off the phone as quickly as I could…

[During that short call, we finished the transaction.] I apologized to her the second I got off the phone… I must have surprised her because she got huge tears in her eyes and said, “Thank you. Thank you so much. You have no idea how humiliating it is sometimes. They don’t even see us.”

I see adults who don’t even look at their waiters when they speak to them. I see parents who let their young children talk down to store clerks. I see people rage and scream at receptionists, then treat the bosses/doctors/bankers with the utmost respect. 

When we treat people as objects, we dehumanize them. 

When we treat people as objects, we dehumanize them

It was absolutely heartbreaking reading that part of the book. We are all humans who thrive on connection, empathy, and understanding. It honestly makes me angry seeing how certain individuals look down on service workers – that all because they are there to serve, means that they are lesser than, unworthy of the same respect a lawyer/doctor/bankers “deserve.”

I think that how this disconnection manifests ‘in the real world’ is much more apparent than on the web, but that this type of behavior has become the norm online. I see girls showing off their cute club outfits on Instagram met with vicious comments like “fatherless behavior, sluts, attention seekers, asking for it.” I see men openly hostile towards women who describe their height preferences, attacking their weight, looks, and picking at anything they can grasp. I see women talking about a dating experience, met with “dump him, red flag behavior,” that not leaving him is akin to having no/little self-respect. I see people quick to judge each other’s political views. I see people who attack and send death threats to individuals who criticize their favorite celebrity. I see people who leave comments on their girl friends’ posts only to gossip about them behind their back. I’ve seen people misuse terms like ‘gaslighting,’ causing serious harm by minimizing the experiences felt by those who have experienced the psychological trauma that comes from the abuse that meets the clinical definition of gaslighting. I’ve seen people misappropriate “I’m so OCD, ADHD, bipolar…” without a clue about the struggles associated with those who experience it.

When did all of this become so vitriolic, so flagrantly deprecating of others or self. When did we stop seeking to understand or empathize, and deferring to snap judgments? When did we stop treating others as humans with a unique set of individual traits, interests, desires, trauma, pain, experiences, and instead as monolithic, one-dimensional entities to be judged in black or white?

Be Kind

References:

Brown, B. (2015). Daring Greatly : How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Avery Publishing Group.

I was recently reading Logan Ury’s How to Not Die Alone, and she had brought up an unsettling point: the idea that no matter what happens in our lives, we eventually return to a baseline level of happiness. While this idea seemed to make intuitive sense at first, it feels quite bleak, doesn’t it? Are we really centered around the same level of happiness regardless of highs and lows? I have my doubts.

What is Hedonic Adaptation?

Hedonic adaptation, more commonly known as the ‘hedonic treadmill’, is a theory first coined in 1971 by psychologists Brickman and Campbell¹. Their theory is based off the idea that happiness is relative, and it posits that humans have a neutral happiness “set point” – a level of happiness that everyone tends to fluctuate around.

The theory is based off two key mechanisms: contrast and habituation.

• Contrast: When people experience a life change, how they view their past pleasure may seem better or worse in comparison.
• Habituation: Over time people adjust to their circumstances, which changes how much pleasure they experience from those circumstances.

Lottery Winners and Accident Victims

One of the most commonly cited papers in favor of this original theory is the famous 1978 study analyzing lottery winners and accident victims². Researchers investigated 3 groups of individuals: lottery winners, accident victims (paraplegics and quadriplegics), and a control group. They then assessed each group’s past, present, and expected future happiness based on their enjoyment of mundane activities like eating breakfast or watching TV.

What they found was that lottery winners felt less pleasure from mundane activities than those in the control group. And despite the accident victims feeling less happy than the control, they were happier than what they predicted they’d be. They had also experienced a ‘nostalgia effect’, where they rated their past happiness higher than the controls.

These results suggest that humans are able to adapt to both good and bad situations, and generally reside at a stable happiness level.

Where Hedonic Adaptation Makes Sense

From an initial standpoint, certain elements of this phenomenon make sense. For example, that new shiny iPhone (not sponsored) that you’ve been excited about since Apple announced it. What level of excitement do you experience using it for the first week versus the 45th week?

The original 1971 paper that introduced hedonic adaptation only considered it from the aspect of how we respond to material possessions. This makes intuitive sense as the high of acquiring something new eventually fades.

This phenomenon also applies to how money affects emotional well-being. Money doesn’t create lasting happiness because of the human tendency to buy more and adjust to increases in income³ – this is also known as lifestyle creep.

Here’s where it falls short

However, this commonly cited 2010 paper by famous behavioral scientist Daniel Kahneman on the effects of money on emotional well-being falls short. It turns out in a follow-up paper⁴ that unhappiness decreases in a linear-log relationship when more money is made. And that’s because of the emotional struggles associated with poverty.

In addition, new research⁵ finds that people generally report well-being levels above neutral, that happiness is more common than originally expected. This idea also falls short because the human condition isn’t something that’s uniform. Individuals may have different set points, multiple set points, and different abilities to adapt to life changes. These vary based on their life satisfaction, positive or negative emotions, coping mechanisms, or personality traits (e.g. optimism, neuroticism). This theory attempts to fit everyone into a box, which over-generalizes.

Agency and the Power to Shift our Happiness

One of my biggest gripes with this theory is that it makes it seem that we are powerless to try to improve our happiness. This idea is quite deterministic when we often do have the ability to influence our levels of happiness.

Being intentional with your actions, whether through gratitude practices, mindfulness, or personal growth, can help to increase your overall happiness. This also plays into how a “set point” changes through improving your mindset or increasing your emotional resilience.

Involving yourself with someone with deeper meaning like building on relationships, having a sense of purpose, or connecting with community can also permanently shift your emotional well-being.

Conclusion

So, are we truly doomed to return to a baseline happiness? While the hedonic treadmill might suggest we’re stuck, research suggests there’s hope. By making conscious decisions about how we live, what we value, and how we manage our emotions, we can shift that baseline upwards.

References/Footnotes

1. Brickman, P. (1971). Hedonic relativism and planning the good society. Adaptation level theory, 287-301. ↩︎
2. Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(8), 917–927. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.36.8.917 ↩︎
3. Kahneman, D. & Deaton, A. (2010). High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.107, 16489–16493. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1011492107 ↩︎
4. Killingsworth, M.A., Kahneman, D., & Sellers, B. (2023). Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208661120 ↩︎
5. Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., & Scollon, C. N. (2006). Beyond the hedonic treadmill: Revising the adaptation theory of well-being. American Psychologist, 61(4), 305–314. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.61.4.305  ↩︎

Inspired by Dr. Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly¹

I had no idea what this book was all about before picking it up. Honestly, the only reason why I read/listened to it was because the audiobook version was available at my local library. But I’m so glad I did.

The book talks about the role shame and vulnerability plays on us as well as society at large; how it causes us to feel inadequate or small, powerless or defeated. This book really does a good job at helping us process our emotions by examining the causes and impacts of shame.

***

Narcissism relates to Shame

Recent studies² conducted on an apparent rise in narcissism have found evidence for an increase in narcissistic personality traits compared to previous generations. While it’s easy to scoff about how this phenomenon is moreso a product of who these people are – and consequently letting ourselves off the hook – there is a more nuanced reason that could explain this trend: narcissism arises from “the shame-based fear of being ordinary.”¹

We all want to make an impact, for our actions to matter. And for some, this combination of grandiosity, entitlement, and admiration-seeking offers the perfect protection from this perceived “mediocrity.”

Never Enough

This fear of being ordinary is only a small contributor to our current culture of scarcity- one where we’re hyperaware of lacking/finite resources and constantly comparing what we have, want, or don’t have to what others have, want, or don’t have.

As a result, we have this idea that we’re constantly inadequate. That we’re:

• Never good enough
• Never attractive enough
• Never successful enough
• Never skinny enough
• Never wealthy enough
• Never brave enough
• Never sure enough

It’s precisely how universal this feeling of scarcity is that reinforces our struggles with the issue of worthiness.

How to Identify Scarcity

There are 3 main components of scarcity: Shame, Comparison, and Disengagement. The author outlines the following questions you should ask yourself to reflect on if scarcity affects a social system you’re a part of.

1. Shame: Is fear of ridicule and belittling used to manage people and/or to keep people in line? Is self-worth tied to achievement, productivity, or compliance? Are blaming and finger-pointing norms? Are put-downs and name-calling rampant? What about favoritism? Is perfectionism an issue?
2. Comparison: Healthy competition can be beneficial, but is there constant overt or covert comparing and ranking? Has creativity been suffocated? Are people held to one narrow standard rather than acknowledged for their unique gifts and contributions? Is there an ideal way of being or one form of talent that is used as measurement of everyone else’s worth?
3. Disengagement: Are people afraid to take risks or try new things? Is it easier to stay quiet than to share stories, experiences, and ideas? Does it feel as if no one is really paying attention or listening? Is everyone struggling to be seen and heard?¹

Our culture norms largely reflect many of these questions, which is emblematic of how scarcity has become the default perspective and view. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Countering the Culture of Scarcity

If we wish to counteract the effects of this culture, we must consider its obverse. The opposite of scarcity is not abundance; the opposite of “never enough” is not “having more than you need.”
The opposite of scarcity is enough. That you are enough. That what you do is enough. That your actions, feelings are enough.

For this, we MUST embrace our vulnerability and worthiness. To have an open and honest dialogue with ourselves about how we have flaws and that’s okay. That there’s no extrinsic condition that we must tie our worth to. How merely showing up is enough. It’s not just about self-love and positive self-talk, but also about how letting ourselves be seen can be the most courageous thing we can do.

***

This journey about becoming courageous through being vulnerable and countering disconnection is what the author refers to as Daring Greatly.
I hope that you accompany me on my journey to be boldly vulnerable, and consequently, brave and resilient to those that weigh us down.

1. Brown, B. (2015). Daring Greatly : How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Avery Publishing Group. ↩︎
2. Twenge, J. M., & Foster, J. D. (2008). Mapping the scale of the narcissism epidemic: Increases in narcissism 2002–2007 within ethnic groups. Journal of Research in Personality, 42(6), 1619–1622. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2008.06.014
   ‌ ↩︎

I was laying in bed yesterday around 2-3am, doom scrolling on my phone. And I felt like absolute ass. I was writing about aspirational vs practiced values, and here I was – a big hypocrite.

Here lies the importance of self-compassion and positive self-talk. We are our own biggest critic, and we can be really mean to ourselves; but we’re human – we’ll inevitably make mistakes. So what’s more important are the lessons we learn from them, not the fact that we make them.

***

Toxic Productivity: Hustle Culture

One of the largest lies sold to this generation is the glitz and glamour of hustle culture – the constant pursuit of productivity and growth. And I think the following image is a great example of that:

This image¹ is commonly cited by James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits. Now, I really do like what he has to say about making incremental gains rather than going for large jumps. But I think it’s way too idealistic to imagine that you will grow 1% every. single. day. That puts a lot of pressure on yourself to have to keep up lest you miss out on being 37 times better you were a year ago. It doesn’t give us the option of having a single off-day.

More Sustainable Growth

I think the biggest fallacy of James Clear’s illustration is that it paints it as a dichotomy of a year of everyday 1% growth vs a year of everyday 1% decline. Realistically, most of us fall somewhere in the middle and will likely have a path like this:

We deserve to have off days where we remain constant or even decline. Because we’re humans, not robots – we’re not programmed to keep learning and growing every day. That would be exhausting and draining; I would actually argue that even if we managed to grow 1% every day and make that 37x growth, what about the following year? This type of growth is unsustainable, extremely likely to lead to burnout.

This growth is sustainable and it’s still pretty attractive. Let’s say that for a year, you:
– Grew by 1%, 4 times every week
– Remained Constant, 2 times every week
– “Shrank” by 1%, 1 time every week.²

You would STILL have improved to 4.7 times your current state. That’s awesome growth, and it’s much more feasible too!

Rethinking our Progress

Instead of constantly forcing ourselves to achieve something that is unattainable, we should focus on our long-term growth. Comparing ourselves to an idealistic vision of what our growth “should” look like or to others is toxic and unhealthy.

We should focus on our progress from the lens of the general trend. If we are trending upwards, it shows that we’re putting in the effort and will thus reap the rewards. However, if our trend is more stagnant or diminishing, then it may be time to consider doing tiny 1% improvements to self-correct.

Let’s not fall prey to hustle culture. And let’s be honest to ourselves, do you REALLY believe LinkedIn influencers or productivity gurus are constantly growing or are they posting a manufactured version of themselves?

***

References and Footnotes

1. Clear, J. (2015). How to Master the Art of Continuous Improvement. James Clear. https://jamesclear.com/continuous-improvement
   ‌ ↩︎
2. The Math: (1.01)²⁰⁸(0.99)⁵² = 4.698 ↩︎

Based on Dr. Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly¹

Recently I’ve noticed a lot of disillusionment in some of the groups or environments in my personal life. I think it’s important to understand what may cause this sentiment as disconnection leads to the downfall of organizations.

***

The Disengagement Divide

This point is big because leaders MUST set the example for others in the organization to follow and abide. Paying lip service by telling someone to be, act, or feel a certain way while not actually doing the very thing you’re saying out loud comes off as hypocritical and will be met with disdain. To lead and inspire others, we MUST practice what we preach.

Another common trend I’ve been seeing a lot of recently is the phenomenon of not giving deserved recognition to those who go above and beyond what is expected of them. This often breeds resentment as these individuals will feel unappreciated and taken advantage of.

Aspirational vs Practiced Values

We can’t give people what we don’t have. Who we are matters immeasurably more than what we know or who we want to be.

Dr. Brené Brown

Aspirational values refers to the values that we intend to or aspire to live by.
Practice values refers to how we actually live, feel, behave, and think.

Essentially, are we walking our talk? Let’s compare three examples:

[Example 1]
Aspirational values: Leadership and Accountability
Practiced values: Avoidance and Inconsistency

The manager consistently emphasizes the importance of senior team members leading by example and directly addressing frustrations with each other. Yet, when concerns are raised to the manager by team members, he seldom communicates these issues back to those involved. He insists on not using phones with customers present, but when a team member was on her phone while assisting a customer next to him, he turned a blind eye. The team members who brought up their concerns feel dismissed and unheard, leading to a culture of frustration and inconsistency.

[Example 2]
Aspirational values: Fairness and Recognition
Practiced values: Oversight and Inequality

In a busy doctor’s office, a medical assistant diligently performs tasks well beyond her role, such as conducting blood draws and assisting in surgeries. Her extra efforts go unrecognized. When a new team member, lacking clinical or professional experience, is hired at a higher salary, she feels undervalued and overlooked. This discrepancy between her contribution and recognition fuels her frustration and prompts her to consider requesting a raise to reflect her true worth.

[Example 3]¹
Aspirational Values: Emotional Connection and Honored Feelings
Practiced Values: Emotional Connection and Honored Feelings

Mom and Dad have tried to instill and model a “feelings first”
ethic in their family. One evening Hunter comes home from
basketball practice and is clearly upset. His sophomore year has
been tough, and the basketball coach is really riding him. He
throws his bag down on the kitchen floor and heads straight
upstairs. Mom and Dad are in the kitchen making dinner, and
they watch Hunter as he disappears up to his room. Dad turns
off the burner, and Mom tells Hunter’s younger brother that
they’re going to talk to Hunter and to please give them some
time alone with him. They go upstairs together and sit on the
edge of his bed. “Your mom and I know these past few weeks
have been really hard,” Dad says. “We don’t know exactly how
you feel, but we want to know. High school was tough for both of
us, and we want to be with you in this.”

Now, we can’t be perfect models all the time, but if our practice values are routinely in conflict with the expectations we set, disengagement is inevitable.

How to assess your organization’s culture or values?

These 10 questions from Brené Brown’s book can tell you a lot about the culture and values of any organization:

1. What behaviors are rewarded? Punished?
   
2. Where and how are people actually spending their resources (time, money, attention)?
   
3. What rules and expectations are followed, enforced, and ignored?
   
4. Do people feel safe and supported talking about how they feel and asking for what they need?
   
5. What are the sacred cows? Who is most likely to tip them? Who stands the cows back up?
   
6. What stories are legend and what values do they convey?
   
7. What happens when someone fails, disappoints, or makes a mistake?
   
8. How is vulnerability (uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure) perceived?
   
9. How prevalent are shame and blame and how are they showing up?
   
10. What’s the collective tolerance for discomfort? Is the discomfort of learning, trying new things, and giving and receiving feedback normalized, or is there a high premium put on comfort (and how does that look)?

***

If we routinely do hypocritical or contradictory actions, behaviors, or decisions, how can we expect others to follow what we tell them to do?

References

1. Brown, B. (2015). Daring Greatly : How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Avery Publishing Group. ↩︎

Inspired by Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People¹

This is the first of 3 ‘private victories’ – so called habits that help you unlock your independence. It’s one of my favorite ones because putting it to practice empowers me to take control and responsibility for my actions, behaviors, and reactions.

***

What Makes Us Human

Our capacity for self-awareness and independent will is what separates us from animals. However, many of us fall into the trap of determinism, which is the theory that we are largely determined by conditioning and conditions.

Stimulus and Response

Our greatest asset as humans is our freedom to choose the response to stimuli. While we may have instincts and training, we’re also able to rewire ourselves to override this innate programming. Determinism is the stimulus/response theory that we are only the product of our conditioning and conditions; this essentially frames us as completely powerless to affect change, which is simply untrue.

These are the 3 most common traps of determinism:

• Genetic Determinism: Your genes condition you to be, act, or feel this way. “I have a temper because it runs in the family.”
• Psychic Determinism: Your parents and upbringing condition you this way. Your personal tendencies and character are a result of this scripting. “I apologize too much because my parents would get upset if I made even the smallest of mistakes.”
• Environmental Determinism: Something in your environment is responsible for your situation. “My boss is ruining my sleep schedule! He keeps assigning me urgent tasks at the very last minute and I stay up all night to complete them.”

Now, we can (and most of the times are) still a byproduct of the stimuli that have occurred over our life, BUT we are not defined by them and we cannot attribute our present and future responses to this and this alone.

‘Proactivity’ Defined

Proactivity isn’t initiative – submitting an assignment a week ahead of the due date is taking initiative, not being proactive.

Proactivity is the ability to choose your response. This means that highly proactive individuals do not blame circumstances, conditioning, or conditions for their behavior. They understand that their behavior is a product of their conscious choice on the matter.

Proactive vs Reactive

We are, by nature, proactive. So if we live our lives because of our conditioning, it’s because we have chosen to allow those things to control us. This choice makes us reactive instead of proactive.

Let’s say it’s raining out: the reactive individual may become affected by the bad weather and feel miserable. The proactive individual, however, would still be able to be productive as they are driven more by the their values and less by whether it was rain or shine.

Or let’s say that a project is behind schedule and your coworker is falling behind on his portion of the project. The reactive individual may complain about the tight deadline or their coworker for causing delays. The proactive individual would reach out to communicate with key stakeholders to either extend the deadline or reach out to this coworker to see if you could provide help to them.

Even the language used by proactive vs reactive individuals differs greatly. Reactive people use language that absolves them of responsibility: examples like “He makes me so mad!” or “I can’t do that. I just don’t have the time. ” Proactive people use language that takes responsibility for their response: “I’m frustrated by his actions!” or “I run out of time, so I’ll prioritize some of my other tasks before getting to it.”

Proactive individuals are STILL influenced by external stimuli, but their response is a value-based choice or response. They are making a decision to act rather than to be acted on.

Circle of Influence vs Circle of Concern

Another way to figure out how proactive you are is by examining your Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern. Circle of Concern refers to the set of concerns that we don’t have power to change. Circle of Influence refers to the set of things that we can do something about.

Proactive individuals are focused on the things that they can control – their Circle of Influence. As such, they aren’t bogged down by things that have little to not impact on them.
Reactive individuals focus on the entire Circle of Concern, which includes even the things that they may not be able to control. They effectively saddle themselves with distractions, which prevents them from achieving all that they potentially could achieve.

Now Apply It (and How)!

The 30-Day Test of Proactivity:

Application Suggestions:

1. For a full day, listen to your language and to the language of
   the people around you. How often do you use and hear reactive
   phrases such as “If only,” “I can’t,” or “I have to”
   
2. Identify an experience you might encounter in the near future
   where, based on past experience, you would probably behave
   reactively. Review the situation in the context of your Circle of
   Influence. How could you respond proactively? Take several
   moments and create the experience vividly in your mind, picturing
   yourself responding in a proactive manner. Remind yourself of the
   gap between stimulus and response. Make a commitment to yourself
   to exercise your freedom to choose.
   
3. Select a problem from your work or personal life that is
   frustrating to you. Determine whether it is a direct, indirect, or no
   control problem. Identify the first step you can take in your Circle of
   Influence to solve it and then take that step.

***

Side Note: The one thing I disagree with Covey on this matter

While I think that it’s nearly universal that individuals can determine how they respond to outside conditions, I think it’s rather callous to tell someone who suffers from depression or is unhoused that they have all the power to affect change in their situation. My belief is that this really applies when you have your basic needs met – such as Safety and Physiological needs.

References

1. Covey, S. R. (2004). The 7 habits of highly effective people : powerful lessons in personal change. Free Press. ↩︎

It’s still very important, though.¹

Dependence is Taboo

An observation I’ve noticed recently is how vigilant individuals are to being or displaying traits synonymous with dependence. Almost every other pop-psychology or self-growth book reiterates the dangers of dependence. For good reason, too, since it’s well established that being dependent – whether that’s of an emotional, physical, or mental nature – is a sign of immaturity. Nearly, all these books, however, present independence as a remedy.

Supporting tenets such as self-reliance and the power of your own individual effort, this school of thought has come on top recently. Signs of relying on others or requesting support of any kind are immediately met with eyebrow raises and thoughts of “being needy. ” The problem with this ideology, however, is that it puts too much focus on the individual and engenders the mentality that maturity comes from rejecting the help of others.

We Should Desire the Support of Others

Do you recall doing algebra problems where 2 friends work together to paint a fence or to pick apples (or some other random activity)?

In these word problems, the rate at which the combined effort of both individuals is much larger and the time required to complete the task is much less than either individual on their own. While it’s evident in the fence-painting example that the power of having the help of others makes them more effective, it’s not always as obvious. For example, in a relationship where both partners spend a significant amount of their free time with another and would consider each other their best friend and confidante, is that level of support healthy or unhealthy? Is it too much time spent? Co-dependence? Immature?

Interdependence is NOT dependence

The key difference between healthy and unhealthy support is whether the individual seeking support is also capable without that support. In other words, they have already achieved independence.

Seeking support by itself is not unhealthy behavior. In fact, most emotionally mature individuals will request advice and feedback from others – and on a regular basis at that. However, these individuals are also self-reliant. They’re emotionally interdependent, not solely relying on the feedback of others, but rather considering that input alongside their own.

Dependence is when the support of others is required for them to get what they want. Interdependence, however, doesn’t require others’ support – that support is combined with their own efforts to achieve even more.

The Maturity Continuum

The maturity continuum is a natural law where the more an individual grows and develops, the further along the continuum they stand. Dependence is the low end of maturity, independence come next, and finally the most mature is the state of being interdependent.

Dependence – “YOU”

Dependence is all about ‘you.’ You take care of me, you give me advice. If the advice doesn’t work out, I blame you. Dependent individuals require others to achieve their wants and needs.

Independence – “ME”

Independence is all about ‘me’ or ‘I.’ I am capable. I am responsible. I am self-reliant. I make the decision. Independent people get what they want through their own effort.

Interdependence – “WE”

Interdependence is all about ‘we.’ We can work together. We can discuss this. We can lead and organize. We can combine our collective abilities to achieve even more. Interdependent people accomplish more by combining forces with others.

How do I become interdependent?

I hope that imparted the importance that asking for help is not a sign of immaturity or weakness, but rather a sign of understanding the efficiency behind combined effort. Now is the time for action:

In order to become interdependent, you must be independent first. Covey calls these ‘Private Victories,’ since these are habits and traits that you and only you can work on. The first 3 habits in his book refer to becoming independent.
Habit 1: Be proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First

The next 3 habits will take you from independent to interdependent, giving you the skills to fully utilize cooperative strength and partnership.
Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize

Finally, the 7th habit is to constantly practice, grow, learn, and overall improve on yourself. Whether this is by constantly reminding yourself of the habits, striving to adhere to a growth mindset, or revising your mission statement based off new developments, you must never let your greatest asset deteriorate (that asset being YOU!).
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

1. Inspired by Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effectively People ↩︎

Inspired by Neuroscientist, Psychotherapist, and YouTuber Dr. Kanojia

I’ve been hearing a lot about detoxes from social media, screen usage, gaming, etc. The idea is to stray away from activities or habits that cause large rushes of dopamine, a form of digital temperance, if you will. This practice and advice have good intentions.

However, dopamine detoxes can cause the opposite effect, sometimes creating potentially destructive side effects.

The Purpose of Dopamine

Dopamine, released by our brain’s nucleus accumbens, is the chemical that helps with motivation. When we engage in certain behaviors or activities, the nucleus accumbens releases dopamine as a signal that triggers feelings of pleasure. This creates a positive reinforcement loop, whereby the brain is motivated to perform those activities again.

Every day you wake up in homeostasis with a replenished supply of dopamine. Throughout the day, when we do various activities, our dopamine gets slowly depleted here and there. This gradual depletion allows us to maintain the drive to perform difficult tasks with sustained effort, meaning we can keep pushing ourselves over a longer period without giving up. However, certain activities cause a rapid release and subsequent depletion of dopamine, which can quickly exhaust our motivation and make it harder to engage in and complete challenging tasks.

Avoid Phone use in the Morning

Have you ever heard the advice to avoid using your phone when you immediately get out of bed? What about the advice to frontload and perform the most difficult tasks first thing in the morning?

Both of these stem from the same idea. Some activities are highly dopaminergic – meaning that they expend our dopamine reserves at a faster rate – making them more pleasurable to engage in. Social media, gaming, texting, and drugs (alcohol and coffee count too!) ALL expend large amounts of dopamine. This becomes a problem because then our daily dopamine reserve gets low. And because productive and/or difficult tasks are less dopaminergic, we struggle to get the motivation after using up a lion’s share of our daily dopamine allotment.

Why not avoid ALL phone use/social media then?

“All of that sounds like justification for dopamine detox? It sounds like you’re advising me to just stop those activities entirely.”

The problem with dopamine detox, however, is that we do not want to have low dopamine levels or sensitivity. Instead, we should aim to have a high level of dopamine. This way, we will get a strong dopamine response even with low dopaminergic, high difficult activities. This pleasure response then feeds into behavioral reinforcement, making it easier in the long run to perform these difficult tasks. By using our dopamine in a mindful way, we are able to find motivation to do both difficult tasks as well as more pleasurable activities; essentially, we can have our cake AND eat it too, provided that eat it in slow, mindful bites.

So no, I’m not advising a complete withdraw from social media, just moderation.

“Dopamine Detox” is a Misnomer

It’s true that your dopamine levels increase from pleasurable activities or rewarding experiences, but they don’t actually decrease when you avoid these pleasurable activities. Rather, taking a hiatus from these activities affects a different part of the brain: the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC).

The PFC is in charge of personality but also executive functions such as planning and decision making. More importantly, the PFC is in charge of willpower, impulse control, and suppressing urges. When one performs a “dopamine detox,” they are actually strengthening the PFC’s ability to resist temptations. Therefore, proponents of dopamine detox incorrectly attribute dopamine as the source and cause of giving in to tempting, pleasurable activities.

Dopamine and Motivation

Dopamine only makes up part of how our brains generate motivation. It’s the pleasure circuit that reinforces good behavior, but there’s no way to alter this cycle (without medication) since this circuit is actually what generates your wants and motivations; you can’t really motivate yourself to not be motivated by pleasurable things. As a result, we MUST rely on other parts of the brain to reduce the power of our nucleus accumbens.

We must find the easiest way to be motivated so that we WANT to choose those low dopaminergic activities OVER these tempting activities with high dopamine release.

We will explore how the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and related brain circuitry will help us alter this motivational drive in the next blog post.

[‘Motivation and our Brain’ blog post coming soon!]

*** References ***

Kanojia, A. (2024b, February 7). The secret behind resisting dopamine. YouTube. https://youtu.be/6CWq8wyS90o?si=TRsS7cmK7zUMABqh

Inspired by Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The Lighthouse

An experience written by Frank Koch in the Naval Institute’s magazine – Proceedings:

Subjective vs Objective Reality

There can be multiple realties, and I’m not talking about the ‘Multiverse Theory’ (which I also believe). I’m talking about perception – how multiple individuals can perceive the same event differently and each person’s interpretation of the events is their own reality. However, there can only be one objective reality.

In the Lighthouse anecdote, we see how the captain’s (limited) perception of events were that he was dealing with an insolent boater, only for him to come colliding with the objective reality that he was foolishly demanding a lighthouse “change its course.” The entire string of thoughts were the captain’s reality, but the objective reality was that they were on a collision course towards land.

Natural Laws are Objective Reality

These principles or natural laws govern humans and are ubiquitous across all major religions, civilized societies, and institutions. They exist in all human beings.

Examples of principles are fairness, integrity, honesty, human dignity, excellence, potential, growth, et cetera…There may be vast differences in how these principles are defined and achieved, but their existence is universally recognized. Be careful not to mix up principles with similar sounding ideas.

Principles are NOT practices. Practices are specifically certain routines or actions and only work in specific circumstances. Waking up at 5am to go for a morning run, for example, may not be feasible for someone who works night shifts or who isn’t able-bodied.

Principles are also NOT values. Values are a shared ideology, only selectively agreed upon by certain individuals. A gang of thieves can share values of what constitutes justice or equity that are in direct violation of these fundamental principles.

Principles are indisputable truths, unable to be confused or misconstrued to be anything else. We may be able to chart, map, or survey our backyard, but that’s still fundamentally different from the soil, minerals, and rocks that it comprises of.

Sequential steps

Why is it that when we view our physical bodies, we never think about taking shortcuts – we know that we must put in effort to workout and train to improve ourselves. Even if we wanted to speed up our transformation by taking steroids, we’d still have to go to the gym for their effect to kick in.

Why is it then that when some of us see individuals or groups that possess, for example, personal strength, maturity, and integrity, that we immediately ask “How do you do it? Teach me the techniques.”

This line of thought is akin to asking for a quick-fix remedy. To want a shortcut, going from bench pressing 135 as your PR straight to 225. It’s impossible to do so, since you skipped many crucial steps that would build up your maturity, build up your integrity, or build up your upper body strength to get to that desired result. This Personality Ethic, that promises you this, is a lie.

Conclusion

We must embrace a new way of thinking: that we have to make the appropriate steps to build up to that person we want to be. “Adopt a principle-centered, character-based, ‘inside-out’ approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness.”

*** References ***

Covey, S. R., Covey, S., & Collins, J. C. (2023). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. Blackstone Publishing.