Self-acceptance sucks.
I heard someone on a podcast argue this recently, a guy I usually think is pretty smart. I’d been reading one of his books to learn some of the gazillion things about having a business that I never needed to know in my other life as a literature professor.
So when I heard him start to rail against self-acceptance I groaned. Everyone has blind spots, but this is such an important one. And given his reach, he was actively promoting this particular blindspot to a lot of people.
Basically his argument boiled down to the idea that self-acceptance means just being happy with where you are, which enables laziness and leads to crappy outcomes. Instead, he argued that real self-worth comes from holding yourself to a higher standard than anyone else does. It means being exacting and not taking your own excuses.
Here's the problem.
This is exactly what every perfectionistic, hyper-vigilant super-smart person suffering from avoidance ALREADY FUCKING BELIEVES. For this kind of person, making self-acceptance conditional on success is the whole fricking problem.
To see what I mean, imagine that deep down I believe I'm not really good or smart or charismatic enough to be successful in my profession. (Not that far from my mental state at one point in time.) But, let’s say that I also think that if I can manage to get this one promotion, then I could prove this vision of myself wrong. I’d no longer have to walk around thinking I’m a secretly crap every day.
How is this prospect of conditional self-acceptance going to work as motivation for my going after this promotion? Here are three likely outcomes for this kind of scenario, which I’ve seen over and over in myself, my students and my clients:
I may be so afraid of not succeeding that I won't even try, because a 'no' on the application would feel like a NO on me as a person. (Avoidance Type 1: Total)
I may be so afraid of being turned down that I don't try very hard, so if I get a 'no' I can tell myself it wasn't a REAL verdict on me. Because I leave open the possibility that if I'd tried harder I might have gotten it. (Avoidance Type 2: Partial)
I may become so perfectionistic and over-invested in the application that I can't finish it because every time I look at it I feel in my bones it isn't good enough (Avoidance Type 3: Effortful)
Another way to to put it is this:
Let’s say you had the chance of winning the one thing you most want in the whole fucking world: to be able to think you are really, truly good enough.
But you would also, at the very same time, have a seemingly much greater chance of losing that same thing—forever. How easy would it be to take that bet?
Not that easy.
So why do we so many of us believe, just like Smart Business Guy, that we should make our self- acceptance conditional on meeting high standards? I think there are two main reasons.
First, we think that lack of self-acceptance makes us hungry and willing to put up with the slog of achievement. We think if we accept ourselves ‘too soon’ we'll just rest on our inadequate laurels and do jack shit.
We’ve already seen that lack of self-acceptance creates exactly the same no-progress result. Feeling like everything is riding on each attempt at success is paralysing.
But for the purposes of this thought experiment, let’s say we removed that paralysis by providing self-acceptance ahead of time.
Why then would we go through the pain of transformation, growth, putting our skills and talents on the line and finding out what we're really made of, once earning our own worth wasn't the reward?
Well, here's a reason: how about because we fucking want to?
And if you automatically think you will be the one person who wouldn’t want to do anything if you didn’t hate yourself, just consider this:
How much do you enjoy being bored?
Probably not at all. It’s no one’s favourite, but smart brains need big problems to chew on or they start unravel. My dad, a retired electrical engineer, started teaching himself Python in his mid-70s for 'fun'. One of my clients, who already had a PhD and a JD, decided to learn Italian in her spare time. When I wrote the book I'd always wanted to write as a professor, I didn’t think, Great, now I can finally coast. I thought, Shit, what the am I going to do now?' So I got looking until I found it. And I’m not particularly hard-working. My brain just really, really hates not having a project to engage it.
Your desire to chew on big problems doesn’t come from thinking you suck. It comes from your talent and skill and how your brain likes to work. And none of that will disappear if you start to really believe in what you can do. Quite the opposite.
So much for reason #1.
Reason #2 is less about what all smart people share and more about what makes some of us different. For some people, the risk of losing self-worth doesn't create avoidance. The avoidance byproduct happens most for people whose intelligence gets intertwined with perfectionism, vigilance and risk aversion. We fixate on the chance of loss, and we are driven to try to prevent it at any cost.
But, if you don’t have avoidance as a kind of in-built tax on practicing conditional self-acceptance, then this approach may seem to be working great. It seems like you’re earning your own self-respect. You likely feel better in lots of ways as the successes pile up. You stop even noticing the conditional nature of your self- acceptance, because you're meeting the conditions so well.
But then you hit a wall. Sometimes it’s a failure you can’t just bounce back from. Sometimes it’s the point where it feels like there is nothing left to do and no mountain left to climb. Your self-worth is still conditional on success, but the success is no longer delivering the worth. It turns out that the emotional sinkhole inside never actually went way, and it feels like you’re falling back into it.
This is the point where people who’ve never suffered from debilitating avoidance before start to encounter it, in spades. They suddenly can’t motivate at all. And then, like all us avoidant folks had to do a while back, they have to learn out how to accept themselves separate from all those amazing achievements.
The timeline might be different, but the reward is the same.
When we have self-acceptance, we get to do it because we fucking want to, instead of in a never-ending attempt to keep the emotional wolf from the door. We get to do it for the pure glory and unmatched delight of spending our lives doing big things with our brains and skills. And we don’t have to get stuck in avoidance—Type 1, 2 or 3—because it doesn’t feel like we’re risking our entire self-worth every time we take a shot at something harder or better.
This most definitely does not suck. But don’t take my word on it. Try the exercise below and find your own proof.
Your Homework, Should You Choose To Accept It
Most of us have accepted the value of conditional self-acceptance for longer than we can remember. Usually we think we can't let up or we’ll lie on the couch for the rest of our lives. So a great first step to shedding this framework is to challenge your brain to find evidence for the opposite belief. Here's how to get started in just five minutes.
Set a timer for 5 minutes.
Write down three pieces of evidence that self- acceptance leads you to POSITIVE ACTION not inaction.
Do it somewhere outside your head. Phone, sticky note, whatever—as long as it’s outside. Inside is where our brain bullshits us. Outside is where we challenge the bullshit.
Do this every day for a week.
To get you started, here’s three examples from my life:
When I stopped trying to turn myself into the 'right' kind of graduate student and did the sort work that came naturally to me instead, my career took off.
The more I notice how strong I'm getting (rather than how weak I still am) the more I feel like doing my workout instead of skipping it.
Accepting that I really, really want a long break in the afternoons made me willing to get up earlier and knock out most of my work by 1 pm. I get much more done than when I was judging myself for not working an regaulr 8 hour day with a standard lunch break.
Your turn!
Do this for a week and you will start to see how powerful preemptive self-acceptance really is. And if you’ve got questions, hit reply or drop them in the comments.