Fueling Success: The Power of Positive Self-Talk

In starting sapoots, I’ve found a tremendous internal pressure to iterate infinitely. To try new website structures, to think of new ways to post content, to think of new products to produce. To think of something—anything—new and better. The existence of this pressure led me to devalue the progress I’ve made. When I looked at the growth, the blogs, the posts—I believed, quite reactively, that it could be better. I devalued my progress. This was a problem.

There’s an innate drive towards a better future that allows for innovation, though the more skilled minds among us also respect the necessary practice of believing you are enough. Right here, right now, is, and always will be, enough.

To my unskilled mind, I always saw this as a contradiction. Because, how do we maintain this drive towards being better if we are enough right now? If we believe we are enough, doesn’t that inhibit our ability to move forward? Reduce our motivation to strive towards better?

In the pursuit of perfection, many of us take the flawed path of assuming we are never enough as we are, leveraging the anguish and self-ridicule of our place to propel us forward.

That isn’t the only way.

You can either: Choose to self-ridicule to achieve perfection or choose to positively encourage yourself to achieve perfection.

(Hint: One is far more difficult than the other)

In the short term, self-ridicule may allow you to pump out a better essay, assignment, presentation, etc., though I firmly believe this is unsustainable. When we use self deprecation to drive us towards perfection, there’s a tolerance that builds. To achieve greater levels of perfection would require greater levels of self-deprecation. This is a tragic habit to build, and is a sole proponent of why many “successful” people still find themselves struggling. The tools they used to get where they are are antithetical to the goal of happiness and fulfillment.

The reason self-deprecation as a fuel source leads towards negative outcomes is because you place your self-worth outside of where you are right now. This is dangerous, because if we achieve the success we proclaim we will, is our self worth suddenly going to be attached to the moment? No. Of course not. We are creatures of habit, and the strategy you used to achieve that success crumbles when we turn to enjoy our success.

But, we don’t need to sacrifice our self-esteem for perfection. Instead, we should leverage positive reinforcement to propel us towards our goals.

In order to leverage positive reinforcement, we need to be mindful of the unsustainability of punishment. The temptation to use unsustainable means for perfection is alluring in the short term, for it is much easier to ridicule yourself into doing what needs to be done than it is to practice the art of self-belief. Our human bias towards negativity gears us in one direction, but through deliberate practice, we can gain momentum towards self belief without the need for mental beatings.

Part of this is due to the tolerance that negative reinforcement builds. When a parent yells at a child for some behavior, the child will initially respond by changing the behavior. Over time, however, the child grows accustomed to this punishment. The punishment no longer scares them or changes their behavior. Tolerance is built.

If you’re attempting a shot at success, or any other goal that spans the course of months or years, the fuel we choose to motivate ourselves with becomes a determining factor for the longevity and health of the project.

To leverage a clean fuel, we must tie our self-worth to the effort we make in the moment. If we do this, you can consistently feel fulfilled by the efforts made, NO MATTER THE RESULT OR WHERE YOU ARE ON THE JOURNEY. The grade was never the determinate of whether you did good. The deadline was never a determinate. How many likes or how others receive it was never the determinate. The effort you put in was. It was always tied to the now—the only place we will ever be.

This is how you create sustainable effort towards a goal that will allow you to enjoy the success along the way, while avoiding the deferment of happiness and fulfillment.

So, ask yourself: What type of fuel do I use to accomplish my goals? Do I tend to use one fuel source over the other when the project I’m working on is important? How do I devalue my efforts on a daily basis, and how can I reframe my self talk to praise those efforts rather than dismiss? How can I incorporate more clean fuel into my life as a whole?

You are enough, but never stop being better.

Til next time,

sapoots

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