Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior

by Mark Goulston

while it might be comforting to gain the sympathy of others, they will eventually grow weary and lose respect for you. Then they will either avoid you or become cold, perhaps even hostile, when they’re with you.

Self-pity feeds on itself. When you project a sorrowful image and a lack of faith, things tend to go wrong, which only gives you mo...

“Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” —LAO TZU

Next time you plunge into something that comes easily, remember that just because you’re enjoying yourself does not mean you’re not working hard—it only feels as though you’re not. And don’t let people convince you that you’re foolish or lazy. They’re probably jealous because they don’t love what they’re doing.

“Don’t make excuses—make good.” —ELBERT HUBBARD

It often hurts more to be hurtful than to be hurt.

“Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.” —AESCHYLUS

The more quickly and more completely you express yourself, the faster and easier the healing. Letting it out early is the emotional equivalent of getting back on your bike after a fall. The longer you wait, the scarier it becomes.

“What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul.” —JEWISH PROVERB

Whatever their relation to you, good listeners have certain traits in common: they listen closely and patiently, without tuning you out; they accept your feelings without dismissing or trivializing them; and, perhaps most important, they are wise enough to validate that what you experienced was, in fact, horrible.

“The key to success is tolerating boredom.”

When something, whether a job or a marriage, turns out to be more difficult than we anticipated, some of us decide it’s not worth the effort. This is especially true when the obstacles we run into expose an area of weakness or inadequacy. The fear of humiliation shatters our willingness to persevere.

there is a difference between stopping and quitting. Stopping implies reevaluating and adjusting your course of action. Quitting implies giving up, abandoning ship, releasing yourself from the burden of responsibility.

When too much concern with the desires, wishes and needs of others are carried into adulthood, you can develop a prove-show-hide-please personality. You spend much of your life trying to prove things to others, show them you’re worthy, hide unpleasant truths from them and please them—all in an effort to feel safe and worthy.

The motivation to please usually stems from the feeling that making someone happy is the ticket to being loved and accepted. You appease and pacify to create a cheerful environment, and when you fail you invariably feel guilty.

Love conquers a lot, but it doesn’t conquer all.

Wanting things to be different without a strategy for making them different will keep them the same. But if you plan it you can build it, and if you build it, it will come.

Only by getting on with life and taking positive action can we overcome the fear.

“Unless you go on with your life, you won’t get over it.”

If you wait until you’re burned out, you may burn all your bridges first.

waiting for people to give you what you need is a terrific way to not get it. And while you’re waiting, a number of problems are likely to develop. Feeling deprived as you nurse your unmet need, you can get moody, cold and sullen. You can end up resentful, thinking others know damn well what you need but just don’t want to give it to you. Also, the temptation to fill the gap in some other way can build, leading to foolish behavior, or, in the worst cases, to the kind of compulsion—abusing alcohol or drugs, having affairs, gambling, and so on—that only adds shame and guilt to the feeling of deprivation.

Whatever your need, determine whether or not you can live without it. Some needs are worth sacrificing for the sake of a relationship.

Try to request what you need without demanding, criticizing or complaining.

State what you need as a fact. Express it as something you’d like to have from now on, as opposed to focusing on what you haven’t been getting.

When people are upset, there are usually two components: they are frustrated by the situation itself and they feel alone. We don’t realize this because what we hear is, “I have a problem.” It sounds as if they’re asking for help, so we respond by offering advice. But often what they want first and foremost is simply to feel less alone. They want to see that you care. If you try to fix things without first acknowledging and empathizing with their anguish, it appears to them that you’re being clinical, distant and intellectual, that you’re simply trying to avoid their pain.

“Nerves provide me with energy. They work for me. It’s when I don’t have them, when I feel at ease, that I get worried.” —MIKE NICHOLS

Being ready means having sufficient resources to handle any reasonable contingency. Being prepared means having what is necessary for a specific occasion.

The apprehension you feel might signal a lack of preparedness, not a lack of readiness. If that is the case, you can appease your anxiety with thorough preparation. But don’t expect to eliminate all doubts and jittery nerves. That sort of thinking leads to what I call the zero-risk fallacy: you want a guarantee that nothing troublesome or unexpected will come up once you get going. There are no such guarantees in life. There is always uncertainty, especially when you’re dealing with other human beings.

The challenge is not to eliminate discomfort, but to recognize when you are as ready as you will ever be. If you wait until you are perfectly at ease, you may wait so long that life will pass you by.

Just because you’re nervous doesn’t mean you’re not ready.