Just shy of two months ago I posed a challenge to readers: Every night for a month, finish the day writing down three things you like about yourself. The next morning read the list back. By the end of the month there would be dozens of positive affirmations to supplant the all-too-common negative thoughts that permeate most days.
I promised to do it too. Four days in, I failed.
It was part forgetfulness. But there were also those nights after a bad day when I just didn’t feel like racking my brain for uplifting self-talk, even though I knew that doing so would probably make me feel better. It was just easier not to fight the inner dialogue that relishes in criticizing, name calling and second guessing.
More than 170 people responded, from around the country and the world, wanting to try the self-love challenge with me. Many said they’d lived their whole lives battling feelings of failure and low self-esteem. Others said they could simply benefit from a positive boost. When I checked back in with them a little more than six weeks later, only about 40 responded. About half of that group finished, or at least, came a lot closer than I did.
(In hindsight, we all would probably have been more successful if I’d established weekly check-ins. Lack of motivation or accountability seemed to account for some of the reasons people didn’t finish.)
Much has been written about the way the human brain fixates on the negative, especially when directed at the self. Some self-loathing is obvious, such as berating yourself in the mirror for gaining weight, while some digs are more subtle, like an impulse “I’m such an idiot” when you forget your keys.
Kristin Neff, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of the book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, said there’s a reason why, for example, in a job performance review the nine glowing remarks bounce off when the one bad one sticks.
Our brains are wired to be aware of danger, so “negative information is more salient than positive,” she said. Self-criticism comes from our evolutionary fight, flight or freeze instincts.
“What happens when we think of negative aspects of ourselves or feel inadequate, the same system gets triggered,” she said. “The fight is attacking ourselves and flight is when we avoid [the problem] and freeze is when we ruminate on it. Any perception of an inadequacy or mistake is interpreted as a threat.”
Just this week, a reporter at the New York Times wrote a short piece about the morning she found out she’d won a Pulitzer Prize for work she’d done for her former employer, the Boston Globe. When she was summoned to her editor’s office she fretted, “Am I in some sort of trouble? Are they going to tell me that this new job — my dream job at the New York Times — has all been a terrible mistake?”
Even those people at the top of their chosen careers are crippled with self doubt.
Several years ago, Raj Raghunathan, a University of Texas business professor, was pondering his own happiness and created a new MBA course called: “What are the determinants of a fulfilling and happy life?”
To the surprise of some of his colleagues, the class was an instant hit, as even the brightest students realized they might be on track for a successful life, but not necessarily a happy one. At the start of the course, Raghunathan asks the students to keep a two-week log of their “mental chatter,” just jotting down the thoughts that pop up spontaneously throughout the day. What most find out is that their mindless inner dialogue is considerably more negative than they assumed.
Most of the MBA students reported having thoughts of inferiority, being unloved and feeling powerless. Raghunathan, author of the new book, If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy? found that even the smartest and most successful people struggle, perhaps more, with personal fulfillment. And one of the reasons is that they’re frequently comparing themselves socially and professionally and feeling inadequate as a result.
One reason Neff thinks people may have failed the self-love challenge is that it asked them to focus on self appreciation when they should first try self compassion. The difference in the approaches is that in the latter, people first recognize the existence of their flaws and the negative self talk. Then they accept that they have shortcomings like everyone else does, and appreciate that their brain’s focusing on them is just an evolutionary way to self protect.
“Thank your inner critic for trying, and it’s only then the self critic can relax enough — ‘She’s heard my message and I don’t have to shout so loudly,’ ” Neff said. “Ironically, being kind to our inner critic allows space for these other voices. Compassionate motivation is more effective than criticism.”
But those who did make it through the challenge said the theory that people could carve new positive-thinking pathways in their brain to override the deeply ingrained negative ones worked.
Patsy Allen, 62, of Carmel, Ind., did it with her daughter, 36, for the 30 days. They would write down their three things and then share them with each other in the morning. The accountability to each other helped them stick with it, she said.
“I often found it a challenge to come up with more than one — sometimes even one was difficult,” Allen said in an email. “Gradually, I started looking at small things that I do for others and felt good writing them down. It can be so easy to dismiss ourselves. Also, I learned to congratulate myself for facing fears of any size.”
Another woman, Shannon O’Hara, 58, of Chicago, wrote that she is generally confident but there is always a nagging voice in the back of her mind pointing out her flaws. After the 30 days, with a few skipped here and there due to forgetfulness, O’Hara said she felt her well-being improve. She found herself wanting to complete tasks or be kind to others so she’d have things to write down at the end of the day. She also said she found it made her better at turning off the negative voice.
“I might write one good thing and think, ‘Yeah, but you totally screwed up on . . .’ ” she wrote. “In the past, the screw-up would be the most powerful memory of the day (and, perhaps, the week.) Now, when the screw-up pops into my head, I think, ‘That memory is not appropriate here, put down the good stuff and don’t dwell on the bad.’ ”
When Cosmin-Stefan Silaghi of Romania emailed after first reading about the challenge in March, he said he was facing a major life issue and that my story came at just the right time. It was a struggle some days to force himself to identify his good qualities over the 30 days, he said afterward, but it made him realize how much time he spends dwelling on negative emotions.
“I learned that you can feel good about yourself even when life’s hard and it’s kicking you to the curb,” he said. “You can find beauty in pain and problems, even at first you can’t see it. It helped me see every problem as a challenge rather than a defeat.”
Maybe it’s time to give the challenge another go.