Tips from a Master Coach: Self-Esteem and Success

Hi Readers. Want to try an exercise with me? I spoke to a professional coach yesterday. Her name is Fran Fisher, and I found her via the website Caroline Adams Miller referred me to, the International Coach Federation. Fran mostly coaches coaches these days, but she did spend some time with me and offered me some interesting tidbits. One of them is this exercise in what she calls self-acknowledgement. 

Now, my ears pricked up at the term, self-acknowledgement, because, in case you missed it, I’ve been examining what makes me feel successful and passing that information to you, in hope that you will find it helpful, or at least entertaining. 

And one element is feeling recognized. This is fundamental to feeling successful. Sad as it may seem to admit this, I need it. And heck, you need it, too. As good old Dale Carnegie, of How to Win Friends and Influence People says,“The desire for a feeling of importance is one of the chief distinguishing differences between mankind and the animals.” 

Animal

Mankind with animal-mankind combo made by mankind

Mankind

And the Martha Stewart of Happiness, Gretchen Rubin, talks about the need for “gold stars.” As in, “I spent twenty minutes talking to this pest named Hope and now she refers to me as the Martha Stewart of Happiness. I deserve a gold star.” 

So, gold stars. Importance. Recognition. Feeling recognized. Acknowledged is a good word, too. These are part of Permission, one of the planks in my scaffolding of success. 

Now, I have a teensie problem with self-esteem. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it. I hope you haven’t. I’m going to pretend you don’t know and are now reading this, mouth agape in shock. “Hope has a problem with self-esteem? Surely not! She is a pillar of confidence and self-regard. Absolutely!”

Well, there you have it. My self-esteem is sometimes low. It’s really not a pillar. More like a—oh, I don’t know. A speck. And it does get buffeted by the tides of life.

Oh, my word, I have capsized over my clichés. My point is that I mentioned to Fran Fischer the coach that I have some problems with self-esteem. As in locating it, and when I do manage to locate it, hanging onto it. So she recommended this self-acknowledgement exercise. Which made good sense to me. After all, we can’t always be expecting those moments of recognition, those gold stars from others. Others have their own troubles and don’t always have time for the amount of shoring up that, speaking just for myself here, I need. 

What is this exercise? It is very simple. It is to keep a little list going throughout your day, preferably a hand-written one, but if you prefer to use the computer, make it with fun fonts and colors so that you’ll pay attention to what you’re putting on it. And what you’re putting on it is about ten (10) instances when you did something you feel good about. Little things. Such as being a good listener for a friend, or holding the door open for someone, or skipping the second helping of dessert, or following through on an annoying phone call. Whatever it is, capture it and write it down. 

This is different than a gratitude journal, Fran says. Gratitude is very popular. I am all for gratitude. Gratitude can certainly lift my spirits. Noting what is going well, noting what one appreciates boosts the mood. I often think of two things for which I am grateful before I get out of bed in the morning, and it puts me in a good frame of mind. It’s always helpful to remember to appreciate what you have. However, this exercise is different. This is self-recognition, self-appreciation. And the point of writing this stuff down is to etch into your head moments when you actually meet your expectations for yourself. You behave in line with what is important to you. By taking the time to write it down, you use kinesthetics and somatization to make it sink in.  

Here’s what Fran says. She has adapted this from something developed by MMS Institute (www.themms.com):

How to write your self-acknowledgements:

ï Make them short

ï Use verbs/ sentences and feeling words whenever possible

ï Remember the little things... so many things happen in a day... that can be recorded

ï Find ten... even if they seem simple or stupid

ï Feel them as you write them - bring them back in your mind's eye

ï Elaborate on the ones you have written after you have your ten, (if you want to express more)

ï Include meetings/ events/ to-dos/ mails/ calls/ out of the blue occurrences -  magical moments

ï Keep them next to your bed so you can review them before you sleep

ï Write them in your own handwriting or make pc entries but make them special (i.e. add color) no cut and paste!!!

ï If you get stuck, send them to a friend for support - have fun with them

Why Self-Acknowledgements Work:

• Seeing it in front of me – on paper – that something meaningful has happened
• Experiencing the positive events that happened today; in my head, in my heart and again as I write them down
• Seeing/hearing them internally; the experience is being stored so I can revisit it at any time
• Recording my emotional well-being through the weeks; the entries are a vivid timeline
• Choosing a moment where I was winning and build on that same moment. Pin-pointing the times where I feel lost/go off track and am able to work towards getting back on center 
• Helping remind myself of the times when all was going well; Bringing these positive experiences back simply by reading them
• Creating a list of 10 positive experiences/events every day; because every day there are things that work for me
• Shining the light on the positive and not dramatizing the negative
• Choosing to give up inner critic thinking 
• Proving to myself that life works
• Validating evidence of my self-worth

The point of writing them is that you re-experience them. You think about it. You have the kinesthetic experience of writing about it. You feel it again in your body. I’m going to infer from what Fran said, that this will help build self-esteem. Self-esteem is a sense of self-worth. It’s how you feel about yourself as a person with value. Noting instances where you acted, or didn’t act, in ways that you feel good about has got to help that feeling. 

I’m going to give it a try. You can, too. 

*                 *                 *                  *                    *

Okay, so I wrote that yesterday. Today, I have this to report:

I acknowledge that I buckled down and called the gas company about a leak the energy audit guy discovered last week, instead of putting it off again. 

That was easier than I thought. Only 9 more to go. Unfortunately, it’s already well into the afternoon. I don’t know how much more I’ll find. 

If you enjoyed this post, please leave me a comment. Please feel free to share it with your friends on social media.  

Annals of Successful Parenting: The Null Set

In my Annals of Successful Parenting posts, I’ve danced around the topic of successful parenting, but I’ve never tackled head-on what successful parenting might be. Except to point out the two facts of parenting that I know for sure: 

1. Children are exquisite instruments of torture, fine-tuned to each parent. Just a couple examples: Say you’re an introvert with social anxiety; your child will be an extrovert who is miserable every time you stay home; or, just to pull up another random case, you are one of those people with a (completely rational, mind you) terror of vomit. In that case, your child will be a spewer.  One of those kids that gets a stomach virus once a month and regurgitates every forty-five minutes for twelve hours straight - all of them at night. I don’t think I need go on. You all know exactly of what I speak. In fact, why don’t you tell me how your children have morphed to torture YOU?
2. Parenting never ends, is largely unrewarded, is considered both very important by anyone who is a parent, yet completely worthless by our existing social structure; and so it seems as if the intersection of parenting and success must be nil. Or null. I’m talking Venn Diagram here.

This is no way to live. We need recognition. I learned that from Mr. Dale Carnegie in How to Win Friends and Influence People. At what point can you declare your parenting has been successful? When the child graduates from high school? When he graduates from college? Which college? When he gets a job? What job? When she produces grandchildren for you? Where’s her partner in this? When those grandchildren graduate from something? You see where I’m going here? Meanwhile, until some societally sanctioned outcome occurs, are parents to labor totally in the dark as to their children? 

The answer to that last one is, in short, yes. Of course. I mean, the labor the parent undergoes to bring a child up to that first societally sanctioned endpoint is gargantuan, takes about eighteen years, costs nearly three-quarter of a million dollars, and is largely unrewarded. 

Unless you look at successful parenting another way. Which, as I mentioned recently, regarding definitions that appear definite, I’m very happy to do. And really must do. Parenting is a terrific example of how success is both an outcome and a process. Parenting never ends, so if success is simply a particular outcome, such as getting into college, that is, as I’ve said, a very long time to wait to feel successful. But if success is a process as well as an outcome, then there are many ways to feel successful as a parent. And I’m not just talking report cards and roles in school plays and things like that. Those are also achievements of a singular, granular nature, gratifying but fleetingly so. No, I’m talking about something else. 

Now the other thing wrong with all those examples listed above is that they have much to do with the parent feeling successful because the child has achieved something tangible - but very little to do with whether the child feels successful. And that’s what really counts, isn’t it? Isn’t it? People? Am I right?

So, you want to feel successful along the way, while you raise the child. Otherwise you are in danger of projecting all kinds of goals onto them that are really YOUR goals. To avoid this fate, success can’t be about outcome only. It has to be about process. What is the process by which you are a successful parent? More important, what is the process by which you raise a successful child? I’d say it’s by helping your child handle life. 

Because really, what do we (and here I will revert to “I”, because I’m not going to try to speak for you, Readers) actually want for our children? I want my children to discover a passion, to find a way to work related to that passion that pays them money. I want them to be resilient, to be good citizens, to have well-balanced mental states, to accept disappointment without being crushed, needing extensive therapy or meds long-term, and to have several deep, meaningful relations with others. I’d love for them to fix the environment, or the political system, or to make great art, but I’m trying to be realistic. Today. I’d also like them to produce grandchildren and live near me and want to keep in touch. Not to mention to eventually rue the tight-mouthed way some of them have to speak to me nowadays - you know what I mean, don’t you? The speaking only when spoken to and answering by moving the lips as little as possible. Yes, I would like them to rue that.  

So then, how to achieve this ambitious list? Helicoptering? That keeps them close - at least for awhile. It could backfire, though, and send them reeling as far away as possible. Free range? That encourages their independence, which could actually work in your favor, via reverse-psychology, and encourage them to settle close by. 

Tune in next week, when I tackle this question, with a little help from a professional. 

It's Hard to Be Me, but Easy to Influence Me

So I have my annual physical on Friday, to which I will bring my nattering nabobs of hypochondria with me via a list. My younger than me, thinner than me, doctor will respond to each item with non judgemental briskness and hand me a wad of referrals or bland reassurances. These will hold me until the next bout of “oh my God my feet itch - do I have an undiscovered autoimmune disease?”

It’s hard to be me.

Anyhoo, in preparation for the physical, I had to take care of lab work. I went to a different lab than usual, one in the same building as my doctor’s office. I was dreading the wait. I was dreading the whole thing. But I went. The waiting room was small, close, and dreary. Thank goodness it was almost empty. That meant I wouldn’t have to wait long, and more importantly, I wouldn’t have to wait long surrounded by people with indeterminate illnesses pressed cheek by jowl to one another, as my stepmother would say, watching a procession of the lame and the halt, as she would also say. In the close, dingy, small room. Germs, Readers, are what I am getting at.

It’s hard to be me.

But can I just say, the receptionist was a talkative lady. She was chatting away to a woman with messy hair right ahead of me at check in. And, truth, I was preparing to get annoyed by the unnecessary chatting. After all, I hadn’t had anything to eat except a tiny bit of peanut butter that I’d wiped off my tongue when I remembered I was supposed to fast for the blood work. Also, I’m an impatient person. Anyhoo, the messy haired woman finished up her chat with the receptionist just as I was about to sigh.

“You’re really nice,” she said, with a note of wonder, and went to a chair.

I know, I really shouldn’t talk about messy hair. I haven’t brushed mine, except right before a shower, since approximately 1986.

So then it was my turn. And the receptionist, let’s call her Lulu because she knew my name but I didn’t know hers, began to “Hope” me and complimented me on my jacket and before I knew it I was showing her the nifty titanium credit card holder with the mechanical gizmo that pushes the cards up so you can see a bit of each of them but crooks with electronic credit card readers can’t. Then it was party time at LabCorps, and I was demonstrating the gizmo for other office members and there was someone else behind me in line, but she didn’t seem on the edge of breakdown. She was interested in my gizmo, too.

Eventually, I took my seat, as far away from the messy haired lady as possible and listened to Lulu explain to the next lady in line that in addition to being the receptionist she is also a phlebotomist and soon enough I was out of the waiting room and was making a fist in the giant high chair and thanking the phlebotomist who wasn’t also a receptionist for a painless needle stick and I was on my way out when I heard, “Hope!”

A receptionist calling your name is not what you want to hear when you’re on your way out of the lab. Even a receptionist like Lulu. Were they going to need to do it over? Had they forgotten a vial’s worth of precious bodily fluid? Had they already discovered the unidentified autoimmune disease I didn’t know I had?

But, no, it was the credit card gizmo. Lulu had rallied a third person behind the desk AND another lady waiting to sign in for her lab work, and they wanted to see the gizmo. And they all wanted to know where I got it, and so another few minutes elapsed before I got out of the dingy, too small, windowless waiting room.

I was about to walk through the automatic sliding front doors to the parking lot – taking a moment to note my gratitude for the hands-free experience, considering that so many sick people would otherwise be touching the knobs and pulls I would have had to touch – when the obvious truth hit me. Lulu was practicing her Dale Carnegie skills for winning friends and influencing people. 

Readers, Dale Carnegie, while long dead, lives on through a website and courses and of course through his books. My copy of How To Win Friends & Influence people in its current edition carries the subtitle, “The Original is Still the Best! The Only Book You Need to Lead You to Success.”

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People, Principle Number Two, I think. Give honest and sincere appreciation. That’s what Lulu was using. This principle derives from the idea that everyone wants to be recognized for something positive, everyone wants to feel important. Waiting to check in for lab work is one of those things that drains you of any feeling of importance. You add your name to a list. You proffer some kind of plastic card to prove you are solvent. You sit in a germy chair around other line items on a list who are solvent, and you wait. Lulu the receptionist slash phlebotomist knows this, and she also knows that buttering you up by complimenting your jacket or appreciating your credit card gizmo is going to make her life a lot easier. You are going to sit and wait in your yucky chair in a much better mood than if she barely acknowledges you. And it works. She tamed my irritability by praising my titanium card gizmo and having me demonstrate it, and thereby giving me strokes for having the cleverness to purchase this item.

A quick review of the book suggests she also used four of Mr. Dale Carnegie’s “Six Ways to Make People Like You.” These are: be interested in others; smile; use the person’s name (frankly, this can go too far and feel overfamiliar); and – this is similar to Principle 2 of handling people – make the other person feel important.  The other two, Be a Good Listener, and Talk in Terms of the Other Person's Interests didn't really apply. 

The guy was a genius, I tell you. Lulu learned her lessons well. She seemed sincere, and I was handled with deftness. Maybe I was used, just a little bit, but I didn’t mind. At least I didn’t notice it until I’d left the premises.

Or maybe I’m just paranoid.

I will add that to my list for the doctor.

Good News for Moi!

Hi there, Readers! I just wanted to mention that I am now blogging in two places at once. Why? Because I am magic.

Okay, the real reason is that Psychology Today thought my blog was pretty interesting and so now I'm blogging there and here.

Eventually, I will have a button on my blog saying something cute like "Read me on Psychology Today." Right now, however, I have a bunch of code and words and no pretty button. I am working on this, but to tell you the truth,  I don't think the problem is all on my side. I may not be Ms.Techie, but I have installed buttons before. As well as sewed actual buttons onto actual garments. So I do have some experience.

Anyhoo, I wanted to thank all my readers who are not robots or porn sites for reading, and let you know you can read me here or at Psychology Today. As ever, I will endeavor to produce a weekly post on something that relates at least tangentially to success, and always directly to, well, me.

Success Went to My Head (Ask My Niece)

Sorry I've taken so long to post a new post. My head--see, my head--it got all swolled up and I had trouble fitting it in the overhead bin, so my return to Normal, Suburbia, got delayed. I'm better now (steroids), and I'm here to tell you that Success with a capital-S, hasn't changed me a bit.

Portrait of Me by my niece--note large head

Okay, there is a bit of truth up in that paragraph. For one, I did have an actual success, as I mentioned, my guest post in the New York Times (online). It was a thrill. Indeed, it was. At least from the moment I learned my writing would appear before the public until the moment that it did, I was thrilled. After that, the mix of emotions was, well, a mix. Try as I might to avoid reading the comments, I failed. Even though I was prepared ahead of time for a range of reactions, some of them got to me.  Some were supportive, some were abusive. Some were plain silly--like the accusation that I was denigrating an entire metropolis (Boston), by accusing women there of not wearing make-up.

Parse that one, my scores of readers, and your heads might pop off and roll under the seats in front of you. I mean, really, is it an insult to "accuse" someone of not wearing make-up? I mean, is there something wrong with not wearing make-up? And if a whole city (Boston) chooses not to wear make-up, is there something wrong with that?

I rest my case.

Anyway, the other bit of truth in that first paragraph is that I was out of town at my high school reunion and that something in my possession did not fit in the overhead bin  (my carry-on suitcase) on my return.

In the event that any of my readers are under the age of 30 and might, therefore, be alarmed by the knowledge, I will refrain from stating which year reunion it was. But it was a biggie.

I must also point out the fortuitous timing of the publication of my Motherlode piece in the week before my big high school reunion. Not that I'd have had any trouble going without that publication credit in my pocket--I'd already booked the dinner and the flight, I swear--but it was a nice little feather to have along with me. And a few people did mention reading it, and several others also mentioned it, and it was fun to be recognized and have people relate to my written words and find they'd been meaningful to people. Sure, they were mostly other women of exactly my age and background, which is what happens when you go to a girls' prep school in Washington, DC; but we're important. Yes we are.

So my head swelled a little (apparently--ask my niece), even though I'm not exactly on the short list for Secretary of State or anything, like one of my classmates. It was just a little piece in the paper. Nevertheless, I signed a contract with the New York Times Company, and I'm getting paid for it, which means I'm a bona fide published writer.

Now that the excitement has died down, and I've re-established myself to myself as a decent mother and person and human being following all those nutso comments in the NYTimes, I find myself back exactly where I started, writing a new blog post for my scores of readers. I do, however, have a small lesson or two about success to impart.

1. Achievement does feel good. However, the feeling is fleeting.
2. What's most important about this achievement is it makes me feel that since I did it once, I can do it again, and it helps me feel justified in pursuing the thing I love to do.

So that's success. And it did change me a little bit. Just a little bit, though. A slightly larger head suits my frame better, anyway. Just ask my niece.

Success: Some Conclusions

Image via Google from alphabetgames.wordpress.com

Okay, so it’s time to check in. What I’ve learned, how I’m feeling about Success. Those self-help how-to be successful books are still in the (reusable) grocery bag. I wanted to wait until I’d examined my own ideas before cracking them – and I still haven’t gotten to them.

So one inspiration for this whole project was Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project. Since she’s one of those hard-driving, confident Type-As, her book and her website, because of course she has a website, are full of tasks, steps and mini-projects for her (and her millions of readers) to do to be, um, happier. ‘Course a happily married, materially and professionally successful Ivy-League educated woman seeking additional happiness seems like overkill. She admits it. But even I’ve had a few friends ask me, in re: success, How much is enough?  For me, unlike perhaps for Rubin, my answer is, “Uh, at least some.”

We’re talking about personal measures of subjective states, ultimately, so it’s a little like trying to ride a seal – slippery purchase there.

Anyhoo, since my last two posts have been about my immobility (conflict, tantrums), I thought I ought to show a few of the things I have been actually doing related to feeling more successful.

First, channeling Gretchen Rubin, I bought myself a dedicated notebook to carry around and jot down short or long thoughts on success. With my trusty notebook secreted away, I’ve pigeon-holed any willing friend, relative or acquaintance and asked her or him for thoughts on success and feeling successful. Then, back at home, or huddled in the car, I’ve written down everything I can remember of what they’ve said.

A few conclusions:

• People have more and different ideas about success than I expected. I expected most people to have what I’ll call the Standard Model.

• Standard Model people feel successful by comparison to norms. By achieving societally selected markers of achievement, by moving up the ladder, they are able to evaluate their lives and feel successful by looking to their peers who are also climbing rungs. *

            *Ambition drives motivation here, and outward signs of success (material possessions, etc) don’t guarantee feeling successful, as there is the drive to climb, and therefore satisfaction only lasts a short time, until the need to achieve kicks in again.  Catch-22 operates here with the following exception:

• Self-aware Standard model people, the rarae aves, who know what enough is for them, and can appreciate their achievements. They accept their limitations, etc, or aren’t hung up on proving themselves to others (!!)

• Classicists take the long view. I’ll call it the Mensch Theory of life. In the Mensch Theory, the question of success is unanswerable until you’re dead, and then you’ll know you were successful if people talk about you at your funeral as a person you could depend on to do the right thing. If you were a mensch, you were successful. The classicists tend to be iconoclasts, or at least unafraid to live individualistically, outside the standard model.

• Spiritual folk feel successful if they can retain faith in the ultimate worth of the pursuit of the Good while tolerating the problem of the ephemerality of everything in life, even the love of family.*

               *This comes across in some as soldiering on in the face of life’s essential futility (and handing one’s friend who’s obsessed with attaining something in life a copy of the Tao Te Ching.) Kinda the shadow or flip side of spirituality and its implication of belief in something More, but I’m a stubborn gal and I can group them however I like.

• Creative types, whether in the arts or sciences, seem to need the spur of feeling frustrated with their achievements to generate new ideas and create their next thing. They feel most successful when creating, and perhaps enjoy their creations briefly, before churning up reasons to make more stuff. Ambition obviously comes into play here, too.

Everybody’s definition includes recognition. Oh yes, even the classicists. They’re just willing to be absent when they are recognized as stand-up folk. Modes vary and may include money, approval, thanks, readers, or mourners talking you up, but however you look at it, recognition is one common essential to feeling successful.

Those are my general conclusions. I don’t want to make this too long, so next time I'll get into a few specifics. I will say that I feel more successful--by writing this blog and noting, through comments, or  FB "likes" or compulsive checking of my page view stats, that each time I post, a few more people are reading my writing. That feels GREAT. (Recognition.)