Posted on

Always a Giver, Never a Receiver

Are you someone who loves making others happy? Someone who genuinely thrills to see the joy on another person’s face when you do something nice for them or give them a gift?

If you are, that’s amazing. It’s such a wonderful quality to have, the ability to feel joy in giving to others.

Unfortunately…if you’re like many of us who find joy in giving to others, you likely feel extremely uncomfortable and maybe even excruciatingly awkward when receiving a gift or a kindness from someone.

Perhaps you feel on display or called out in a way that makes you feel too noticed or somehow draws attention when you prefer to stay in the background. Maybe you feel indebted or unworthy. Maybe you feel guilty that the person wasted time and/or money on something when you don’t need anything. Perhaps you simply have a vague sense of discomfort that you can’t really quantify.

Either way, when someone gives you a gift, you usually say something like: “You shouldn’t have.” “This wasn’t necessary.” “This is too much.” Or maybe you even say, “Thank you, but I didn’t get you anything.”

These probably make you feel better, less guilty, less awkward. It seems polite and correct to say this sort of thing because “it’s better to give than to receive” as they say.

Except…

Gift giving / gift receiving is a method of strengthening relationships. It’s a way to honor someone or show them you care or thank them or let them know you’re thinking about them. And so many other things. It’s a way for people to grow closer and to share a special moment and good feelings.

If you’ll remember back to the beginning of this post, I asked if you were someone who found joy in giving to others. I know I do. The thrill of seeing someone’s face when you do something nice or give them something can be such a wonderful high.

And I used to be one of those who said things like “you shouldn’t have.” Because I always felt so awkward receiving any sort of gift or kindness from anyone else.

But then I realized that I wasn’t the only person who enjoyed the act of giving. I recognized that by downplaying another person’s efforts or thoughtfulness in doing something for me or giving me a gift, I was robbing them of the same joy I felt in giving to others. I was ruining what could have been a special moment, a moment of bonding and a strengthening of the relationship.

And I bet that’s the last thing you would want to do to someone you love or to a friend or even acquaintance.

I know it might feel awkward or wrong (and it probably will for a  while after you start receiving graciously), but a simple “thank you” or “wow, how thoughtful” or “thank you so much for thinking of me” or anything along those lines will allow that person to have that moment of joy and connection.

And you’ll feel it as well because you’ll be allowing yourself to accept something that another person put thought and time and effort into.

So, three things to keep in mind when receiving gifts: 1. Think of how the other person put thought and effort into giving you something and how excited they probably are to see your reaction, your pleasure in their gift. 2. Recognize that you may feel awkward or caught off-guard or not worthy of receiving but resist the urge to downplay the gift or indicate to the giver any sense that you feel unworthy. 3. Channel the feelings you would receive as a gift giver and pour that into your receipt of whatever gift you’re getting…show the other person your genuine delight in being thought of by them and in receiving something they put time and effort into.   

In the beginning, you may have to simply “Act As If”…you’ll have to act the same as someone you’ve given gifts to in the past, show that same pleasure you’ve seen to the person doing you that kindness or giving you that gift. From personal experience, I know it’ll take at least a little time for it to feel less unnatural to receive something. But it’s worth the effort.

Posted on

Obsessed With Happy Endings?

Are we obsessed with happy endings? And if so, is that really a bad thing?

Brain science, aka Neuroscience, says it can be.

Naturally, we want our happy moments to last as long as possible and our experiences to be happy as often as possible, but (as human beings) we also have a huge preference for things ending happily (the aforementioned Happy Endings). This is totally understandable and not an issue in and of itself, but it can definitely cause problems.

Since we’re a learning species, we generally take prior experience into account, so if something ended badly, we aren’t too keen on repeating that experience. But allowing ourselves to focus only on our previous experiences that resulted in happy endings can cause us to end up making choices based on faulty information because we might be ignoring any bad that happened during that experience.

The same thing happens with experiences that end badly: we can fall into the trap of discounting or legitimately forgetting about any good things that happened during an experience that ended badly, making our final impression of the experience negative.

In other words, we can too often resort to coloring an experience as a whole with how it ended. So, even if it was mostly good (objectively looking back), we would categorize it as a bad experience if it ended badly.

So, what’s the big deal? I mean, isn’t it a bit navel-gaze-y to delve so deeply into every single experience? Why does it matter if we paint our past experiences with such a large brush?

Well, actually it matters quite a lot. Scientists discovered that our amygdala, which is good at seeing overall value, is very influential in decision making. Not such a bad thing.

However, there’s another portion of the brain, the anterior insula, that keeps track of experiences that didn’t end well…in essence, it processes negative endings and, when an ending is unpleasant, the experience causes that portion of the brain to be actively repulsed.

Now, if the activity from our anterior insula is too strong, it can interfere with our amygdala’s overall perception and cause poor decision making that is not based on the actual overall sum of the experience but instead solely on how the experience ended. And this leads to us to less reliable decision making.

For instance, if we have a meal that is barely average but the dessert is really good and we have another meal that is great overall but the dessert is only average, our anterior insula could color our amygdala’s overall perception and make us prefer the meal that was technically worse overall.

It can also affect our understanding of overall value in other areas, such as financial matters and relationships.

Since the average person is unlikely to know for sure if her anterior insula is overactive, a good way to avoid allowing bad endings to screw up our decision making is by creating a list of pros and cons as well as paying attention to whether we are overly focused on the immediate past.

Take, for example, a woman whose relationship ends badly and she goes on to choose new dates based on how they are different from this last, bad partner rather than carefully considering what might have been good in that last relationship and then taking the time to figure out what she does want in a relationship and a partner before trying to choose her next potential partner.

Instead of living in reaction to her last bad experience, she can make her decisions based on choosing the things she wants, which will result in happier choices overall.

Posted on

Stop Dumping On Yourself

So, I’ve been writing lists every day. A list of 10 Somethings (it changes each day) as a way to keep my creative muscle well-oiled and flexible. It’s also a great way to brainstorm for different purposes.

Well, just recently I was at a loss as to what my list topic should be. I had run through all the useful ones I could immediately think of in the days since I’d started the habit. I didn’t want to use the same list topics over and over so soon into my new habit, so I paused to think about a topic I hadn’t covered.

And then I decided to write my list about Things to Improve. I didn’t consciously decide to write about myself specifically, but that’s what happened: I made a list of things I could improve about myself. Not terribly horrible things, just a few ways I wanted to do better and be better (for example, feeling more comfortable with my accomplishments and with feeling pride in a job well done).

Not really a bad thing that I was able to so quickly create the list, but I was a bit disconcerted that it was so fast and easy to come up with all ten. When writing most of these lists, I’d had varying spots of trouble…a few where each idea was a struggle to get down all the way up to a few lists where I kept a decent pace but had to really dig down to find a number ten.

However, with this list, it all just rolled right out of my fingers, into my pen, and onto the page.

Pretty disappointing for a recovering Perfectionist who has made such large strides in self-improvement over these last years.

And it made me think about how easy it is for us to dump on ourselves, to come up with ways that we personally fall short. Of course, some of that is simply the human brain: we’re hardwired to notice problems, to see the negatives.

It’s also a positive sign because we can and should be interested in self-improvement, in besting our past self and continually improving.

At the same time, it can be too easy to slip into the Perfectionist Trap of feeling inadequate and giving up because we just can’t reach that optimal self.

That’s why it’s important to remember that we are always improving and growing. Just because we can quickly think of multiple ways we can improve doesn’t mean that we are broken or inadequate.    

This is not a “one and done” thing. No matter how great we become, there will always be room for improvement. And that’s an awesome thing. Because it means that there’s always more out there for us, there’s always something we can learn and get better at.

Which means that life will always be exciting.

Posted on

Someday I’ll Get It Right

I could have titled this post “When Will I Be Perfect?” because “getting it right” and perfectionism can be closely related. A while ago, I learned how detrimental and useless a concept “Perfection” was and so I decided to give up on striving for it. You can read more about my take on Perfection in my blog post, “The Problem with Perfection” but now I want to talk about the dangers of trying to Get It “Right” as an alternative to the Perfection Trap.  

“Someday I’ll Get It Right” has been sort of my unofficial motto for as long as I can remember. When I was letting Perfectionism run my life, this was a constant mantra because I believed I COULD get it “right” if I kept at it. After I let go of Perfectionism, this became a consoling motto to help me deal with the fact that while I might not be able to achieve perfection, I could still strive to get it right.

While recovering from Perfectionism, I quickly discovered “good enough for now” and telling myself I could “get better” in the future. This idea of doing my best “for now” led to its own troubles, which included a tendency toward phoning things in with the idea that the next time would be when I could do it better and the contradictory but oddly sensical putting things off because it felt almost like a waste to bother doing it when I clearly couldn’t do it right the first time anyway.

While it seemed for a while like “someday I’ll get it right” was better than living with Perfectionism, there was still a big problem with relying on “Someday I’ll Get it Right” and that is that it can quickly turn self-defeating and useless when it becomes a crutch like Perfectionism.

Mostly because getting it “right” can be a way to keep beating yourself up but it can also be a way to easily let yourself off the hook for not really trying (both of which can often be that nasty old Perfectionism sneaking in through the back door).   

I don’t often find myself slipping back into Perfectionism (although that’s a habit that rears its ugly head whenever I work on a project that’s important to me in some way), but I do often still find myself thinking “Someday I’ll Get it Right” when I run into a snag or I’m feeling particularly inept at an activity.

Thing is, it’s okay to feel down on yourself at times. We’ve all been there. And it’s even okay to remind yourself that you’ll get better (and to remember and remind yourself how you’ve already improved in that and other areas), but when it becomes a broken record and/or you notice that it’s turned into more of a consoling shrug-off than a gentle reminder that we can and should work on improving, then it’s time to take a look at what it is you’re working to accomplish and make sure that you aren’t sabotaging yourself or making excuses instead of putting in your best effort.

And we should also remember that getting something “right” can be just as impossible and damaging as trying for “perfection”… If you’re giving yourself a pep-talk to keep working at it, Good Stuff. But, if you’re beating yourself up or phoning it in, then it might be time to change tactics.

Either way, taking time to look at what you’re doing and how you’re doing it to see if there’s something you can improve or if you can find an alternate route is a good thing. And it’s important to be more aware of the things we’re telling ourselves and make sure that we alter them when needed. Having a regular, periodic review for ourselves and our personal development is something we all need.

I know it’s something I work on consistently. Sometimes I need to remind myself that my effort is good enough for now and, while I may improve over time, I don’t need to be 100% or ultimately improved at that moment. The only thing I really need to care about is whether I’m making my best effort in that moment.

Putting my best foot forward when doing something is what counts. If I’m having an off day or I’m pressed for time, I can still make progress. I don’t have to have this “all or nothing” mindset that perfectionism and “getting it right” want me to adopt.

Babies don’t learn to walk all in one go and no one learns anything in a blink from zero to expert. It may seem like baby just started walking one day, but she was preparing and taking the steps and the practice needed before that day. It’s the same with anything else we learn as humans. We put in the time and the practice in whatever form it needs to happen before we become great at something.

So, no need to beat ourselves up or fall into the “all or nothing” trap. Instead, we can put the time in on what matters and remind ourselves that any work we put towards it will make it better, even if it doesn’t feel that way.

Posted on

Are You Completely Resigned to Fate, or Are You Actively Co-Creating Your Destiny?

Maybe you’ve never given much thought to Fate or Destiny, except when life seemed to be kicking you in the teeth. Or maybe you have given it some thought but you think of Fate/Destiny as something that is mostly in movies or one of those one-off sort of things for major events.

But the ancient Greeks understood Fate and Destiny as two distinct concepts. They thought Fate was determined from the moment of birth and could not be changed while Destiny was up to the individual, made by their own actions and reactions during their day-to-day life.

Too often, we live our lives as if they had been pre-determined and set in stone well before we had any say in them. We act as if we have no control over what happens to us or our lives. And this unconscious belief turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy…so we end up resigned to a “Fate” that might have been different if only we’d taken action to change it.

It’s easy in our busy lives to let events unfold how they will or to turn a blind eye to something until it becomes too painful to ignore any longer. Sometimes you can’t imagine how you might make a change or you think you’re powerless to make a change at all. And sometimes you’re operating under a belief about how the world works that keeps you in circumstances and situations that are terrible for you, even when you desperately want to find a way out. There are even times when you simply can’t muster the mental or emotional bandwidth to deal with a painful or detrimental issue.

The problem is that most of the time you’re too close to your own life to see clearly or to see all possible options. It usually takes a different perspective to help untie the knots that seem to bind you. So you shouldn’t give up. You should always strive to find solutions and alternatives to anything in your life that isn’t working for you. Because, ultimately, leaving your choices in someone else’s hands or in the hands of blind chance is very much a recipe for disaster and dissatisfaction.

You may not always feel up to the task and sometime it might feel as if life is against you, but you do always have a choice. And you can choose to make the choice that’s best for you or you can choose to allow someone else or “blind fortune” make it for you. It’s up to you. You have the power in your own life.

So… Where in your life are you allowing “Fate” or someone else’s actions to decide how your life progresses? Where are you taking action to affect your life? Is there some place you should or want to take action but haven’t because of some idea that nothing you do could possibly make a difference?

Posted on

Rewiring Your Brain (aka Neuroplasticity)

Have you ever tried to do something you were good at a long time ago but hadn’t done in a while and, when you tried it after so much time, you weren’t as good as you remembered being?

Not too long ago, while looking for something new to add variety into my repertoire of healthy physical activities, I decided to start riding a bike. As a kid, I was a very adept bike rider. I rode my bike pretty much every day during the school year and definitely every day during summer. I roamed the streets and dirt roads in the area around the house I grew up in, easily putting hundreds of miles on that bike each year. It was like I’d been born on that bike.

But, fast forward twenty-odd years later, when I visit the bike store to test ride a model I’m interested in. And I’m dismayed and incredibly embarrassed to discover that I’m as wobbly and as unsteady as a kid learning to ride for the first time! It felt so awkward, I half-wondered if they made training wheels for adults.

Thankfully, I didn’t change my mind about getting a bike and riding again. I still brought the bike home and gamely went out on regular excursions in the evening. And it was worth it because, each time I rode out on my new bike, I regained some of the skill I’d had previously.     

Most of us know, in a general way, how the brain learns and retains information, but I bet very few of us give any thought to how that actually works and to why we sometimes learn something, only to forget it or be worse at it after we’ve put it down for a while. I know I didn’t give it much thought…until my little bike embarrassment.

I’d taken for granted that bike riding again would be just as easy as if I’d only stopped riding a few days before (“it’s like riding a bike” and all), but I had to put a little time in on the bike to get confident and capable again.

I’ve always been interested in learning and how our brains work, and in one of my deep-dives, I learned about Neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is how our brains learn and how they forget, too. I don’t want to chance boring someone who’s not at my level of geekly interest, so I’ll sum it up: babies are born with all parts of their brain connected to all the other parts. But, as they grow into children, the connections that get used are strengthened and new ones are created for anything they learn and do regularly while unused connections weaken and disappear.

This pathway trimming is a natural and necessary part of growth and development, and it’s done for a very good reason: our brains use up about 25% of our energy as adults…and even more of our energy when we’re children. So, pruning out the unused pathways is just like pruning a tree – it helps the rest of the tree (i.e., brain) get stronger and more efficient.

Now, we still create new pathways as adults when we learn something new and we still strengthen the pathways that get regular use, but our brains are never quite as limber and elastic as they are when we’re children.

The good and the bad news is that we also get rid of pathways that aren’t used. Good news because it’s great for our brains and bad news because if it’s something we need again, it’ll require practice and repetition to get back up to speed.

Now, thankfully, for something like riding a bike, learning is stored in the area of the brain that holds our procedures and processes. The spot that isn’t as prone to be majorly revamped or written over. And so it’s really just a matter of getting used to doing it again, getting some practice, and forgetting to be unsure and nervous….i.e., getting past the annoying habit of your brain to have a freak out when doing something that it’s not used to (or has not been used to in quite some time).

It’s harder and involves more effort and time to get back up to speed with something that is more purely knowledge-based (which is why I can speak maybe a smattering of the French I learned over the space of FOUR whole years in high school). If it’s something you did for any length of time and/or practiced pretty regularly to get to expert or competent level, then it’s likely you can pick it back up a bit quicker than you might if you were learning it for the first time, but it won’t stay in your brain indefinitely if it’s not used.

This is why one of the main “rules” of Neuroplasticity is “Use it or Lose it.” With the brain, anything that isn’t used on a fairly regular basis, is more apt to be rewired (written over by something else) and lost to us.

The good thing about this is it means we can get rid of bad habits. The bad thing is that we can also get rid of good habits the same way…lack of use or doing it regularly.

Which brings me to another part of Neuroplasticity and learning/forgetting: “Neurons that fire together, wire together.”

This just means that things we learn at the same time or conditions that exist when we learn something have a tendency to be linked in our brains. Which is why people trying to quit smoking can find that being in certain situations or around certain people, etc., can make them crave a cigarette more intensely even if they had been having success with avoiding the urge.

And this is why bad habits can be so hard to break. Not only are they entrenched from repeating them, thereby strengthening the pathways in your brain, but they can also be linked to other situations or behaviors that are good or simply not detrimental. So when you experience or perform the linked situation/behavior, your brain gives you a hit (an urge) for the bad habit.

But no need to lose hope, the fact that our brains retain their “plastic” quality into adulthood means that we can still learn new things and get rid of stuff that’s no longer useful or is actively hurting us.

It’s just something we have to work at, something we have to either commit to actively learning and continuing to use or commit to actively unlearning and persevering in our vow to get rid of.

Posted on

The Problem with Perfection

For a good chunk of my life, I had a long-standing dalliance with Perfection.

Perfection was my lover, my better half, the one I dreamed about. If you’d asked me, I would have insisted perfection was possible, that it was something that could be achieved with enough ambition and commitment.

In fact, I never consciously considered Perfection to be something that was terribly hard as a rule, let alone impossible. Maybe I would have said it was more like an Ideal to aspire to if pressed on the point, but I would never have admitted that it wasn’t totally possible for me or anyone else to achieve perfection. And I never would have admitted that the idea of perfection could negatively impact my life.  

After all, “perfection” is just a word, and the ideal of perfection couldn’t possibly be a bad thing…right? Right?

Except I had myself convinced that I NEEDED to be Perfect and that I COULD Be Perfect… IF I tried hard enough. That was a Story of my life. It was important to me. I wanted to be the best, to do the best at everything I attempted. I wanted my best and the best to be one and the same, “trying” by itself was not an acceptable alternative.

And, certainly, my Inner Critic didn’t consider the ideal of perfection to be some vague platitude to “try your best and that’ll always be good enough.” No. My Inner Critic used Perfection as a measurement of my self-worth and my personal and life success. So when I fell short or feared I might fall short, my Inner Critic berated me and never let me forget my shortcomings.

Which meant that I had incredible amounts of pressure on me and on everything I did. Which meant that I had impossible standards and goals to live up to and try to achieve.  

Which translated into setting myself up for failure and untold amounts of trouble in my life.

Because “Perfect” doesn’t really exist. (There, I said it.)  

Sure, we may say something is “perfect” or wish for something to be “perfect” but what we really mean is that this “perfect” thing makes us happy in that moment or satisfies a requirement we have at that time…or, in the case of something we imagine could be “perfect,” we believe it would make us happy and/or would satisfy some requirement.

But, if we could look at these things objectively, we’d see that they don’t actually have anything we can point to that could be put into a definition of “perfect”…the qualities that make or might make something “perfect” will be different for each person and even each instance of so-called perfection. It’s a subjective concept and essentially a meaningless term.

And, yet, we all tend to have this ideal of perfection and what constitutes perfection. Usually, we don’t measure up. Sometimes, even when our lives are going well, they don’t really measure up either. At least not enough.

So, we continue to beat ourselves up when we fall short. Sometimes we stop trying altogether. We may tell ourselves we’re still trying, but we find ways to avoid actually going through with any real efforts. Because trying opens us up to the possibility of failing.

I know this is what I did to myself. I would constantly get stuck in this cycle of wanting to do better and be better, but there was always something in my way. Whether it was my family or other obligations, I never seemed to have enough time for anything.

But the problem is that it was Perfection that was always in my way.

Deep down, I knew that if I didn’t try—if I “couldn’t” try because of everything else in my life that needed to come first—then I wouldn’t have to be disappointed by failure if (or when!) it came.

And, if I didn’t fail, then I could continue thinking that Perfection was attainable for me. That my goals and dreams were attainable.

Somewhere deep inside I had the fear that if I ever failed—even one teensy tiny bit—then I would have to give up forever, that I could never again dream or try for something.

Instead of trying a different way or trying again, failure was this permanent situation that would forever brand me as inept and unworthy. Even a small failure implied that Perfection was out of reach for me and that would have gutted my life.

Because the dirty little secret of Perfection is that it’s shiny and alluring. It makes us believe that we can get there some day, that it’s possible to have everything that we want.

That’s the problem with perfection: it makes us sabotage ourselves to avoid the chance of failing while also making us unhappy with ourselves and our lives.

Posted on

Setting Better Boundaries, for your health and theirs

Sometimes when someone I love wants to ask me a question or needs something from me, I just want to bury my head in the sand, hide under a cover, or book a one-way ticket to a faraway destination. Do you ever feel like that?

And when you feel like that, you might automatically dive into Guilt-mode, considering yourself a total monster and/or go out of your way to help (no matter how busy you are) to make up for feeling that way…only to then feel resentment over time lost from something else you wanted or needed to work on.

As much as we love our children, our family, or our significant other, when we have loose or nonexistent boundaries, those relationships can be filled with painfully contradictory feelings of love and resentment.

Boundaries are important not just for your physical, mental, and emotional health but also for the health of your personal and professional relationships, your capacity for helping others, and your ability to accomplish whatever needs to be done in your life.

Because when you have poor boundaries, you take on too much and often say “yes” when you’d rather say “no”… This habit of over-committing leads to feelings of anger and resentment, a tendency to be continually overwhelmed, and higher levels of stress.

But, having healthy boundaries allows you to have better relationships and a more manageable lifestyle balance. It lowers stress and fosters more compassion and generosity in your life.

One of the most important steps to setting better boundaries is knowing yourself. You have to understand what your values are and what’s most important to you. This may seem simplistic but it’s often harder than you think to know what you really want from life and from your personal and professional relationships. All too often, you get what you want mixed up with what others tell you you want or what you and/or society thinks you SHOULD want.

While you’re learning more about yourself and your values & goals, you can also practice the second step, which is being kinder to yourself. You have as much value as the next person and you also have your own unique set of contributions to the world and to those in your personal and professional spheres of influence. So remind yourself that you’re a valuable and deserving person who should be treated with kindness and respect…which having healthy boundaries will allow. And if you struggle with boundaries or you take missteps, have compassion and understanding for yourself — i.e., give yourself a break — and then keep creating and maintaining those healthy boundaries.

Finally, recognize that you don’t have to be a pro at boundary setting and maintenance right away. All you need to do is take it one moment, one day, at a time. Setting better boundaries won’t happen overnight. It takes persistence and consistency to set and maintain healthy boundaries. So start small and work at a pace that’s manageable for you but also a pace that keeps you regularly moving towards healthier boundaries.

Posted on

Remembering is a Revisionist Act

Ever wonder how some memories seem so crisp and easy to recall, while others are barely bits and pieces that you battle to bring to mind?

Whether it’s reminiscing with a friend or relative about a past event that both of you remember in slightly different ways, struggling to recover an important detail when you need it again, or simply trying to recall where you parked your car, our memory is important and an aspect of our brains that we use most every day. And yet, very few of us have any real clue about how it works. Even our best scientists don’t know everything about memory.

Science hasn’t completely figured out how the brain creates, processes, and retrieves memories, but we do know that memories are recreated backwards and the details are filled in bit by bit as you work to recall the memory. Unfortunately, we still haven’t discovered the exact, step-by-step process of memory retrieval and so we can’t fully comprehend how it works.

What we do understand, though, is that the brain doesn’t keep memories as a whole piece, ready to play back like a recorded video. A memory is, in fact, compiled into a semblance of a whole each and every time you attempt to access it. And during this process, it’s filtered through the biases of personal knowledge and cultural & societal views. Sometimes you’ll even remember something that didn’t happen because your brain is interpreting or filling in with what it understands as truth and reality.

Which means that each time you remember something, you are re-creating it and the chance is that you’ll only be able to recreate bits and pieces. You may even create a false detail or two. With older memories, you might be unable to recreate any more than a hazy overview or feeling.

This means that each time you remember an event or experience from your past, you have the opportunity to find the meaning and highlights that benefit you rather than cause you pain or discomfort.

This also means that you can actively revise the narrative of these memories to improve & tweak your understanding of your own personality, skills, and abilities and then use that better understanding to enhance your life and make more progress towards your goals.

It means you can be a Victor in your life story rather than a helpless leaf on a raging river.

Posted on

How to Create Personal Agency & Be a Leading Character in Your Own Life

You know how sometimes in your life, you feel like you’re being dragged around from one crisis to the next, constantly trying to catch up, and never having time to get to anything you want and need to do done, and you wish desperately that something would change, that you could be more in control of your life and maybe even have some actual time for yourself?

Well, being an active participant in your life is called having Personal Agency and I’m going to talk a little about how you can stop using all your time to fix everyone else’s lives, stop living completely for others, and find some time to have a life yourself. 

Agency in fiction or movies is a character quality that makes a story entertaining, the thing that shows us that a character is a main character, someone we should watch because they’re actively participating in the story and so are interesting.

Having agency allows you to influence your own life and your story. It allows you to be effective when it comes to writing your stories and directing your life. It gives you more command over your life.

Achieving agency means understanding that you already have at least some agency. Even if you avoid making decisions or taking action, even if you feel like you have absolutely no control over your life, you’re still taking action or deciding to not take action…that is, you’re choosing inaction when you don’t make decisions or delay making decisions because you don’t want to deal with something.

By choosing inaction or choosing to wait until a decision or action is out of your hands, you’re still making a choice, and that choice to let inertia or someone else make a decision for you is likely to result in an outcome you won’t be happy with.  

To correct this habit of inaction and regain conscious control of your agency and thereby expand and strengthen your personal agency, you must acknowledge that you’re the person responsible for your actions, your thoughts, and your feelings. Even if you abdicate that responsibility, you’re still responsible for choosing to give up your agency.

With that understanding, you can acknowledge that you have responsibility for your life and your actions and behaviors and that you must claim that responsibility. This means that you have to take action in your life and advocate for yourself even when it’s hard or you’d rather hide your head in the sand.

One way to increase your understanding of agency and work on improving your own personal agency is to look at your life and find an area where you’ve been successful as well as an area where you want to be successful but haven’t been as of yet.

Ask yourself: What are the qualities and behaviors you exhibited, the techniques you used, that allowed you to achieve success in the first area? And then consider, how can you bring those techniques, those behaviors or actions, to the second area to help you achieve success there as well?

Agency isn’t something that only superheroes or fabulously wealthy people have, it’s something that each and every one of us has and can cultivate to our own benefit.