A few months back, I was helping manage one of our “FEARLESS Experience” weekend intensives. We were out in Santa Monica taking guys through Day-1 of social confidence, freedom, and connection exercises.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in May 2018.
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If you are hard on yourself, that’s almost certainly a lack of self-love. Check out our first-ever The FEARLESS Man Live | Masculine Self-Love Edition, July 11th-12th. Virtual tickets available so you can even attend from wherever you are in the world!
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This first day is about connecting with everyone – men and women, young and old. But when opportunities come along to talk to a woman you like, we of course encourage you to go for it.
I was helping the coaches keep track of students and doing my best to give useful extra feedback. I was in the zone, totally focused on watching one of the guys finish up the exercises for the evening, when all of a sudden, I hear Brian, our founder, and some of our other coaches yell up the sidewalk to me: “MIKE!”
From their tone of voice, I knew it could only be one thing.
“What? Where?”
“Right THERE!” Anthony laughed, nodding towards a group of women a few yards from them.
And there she was. I’d been looking right past her to watch the student. We all have at least one “type” and she fit mine so well that only the likes of Rihanna standing next to her could’ve made my eyes open wider.
The coaches know me too well. And there they all are looking at me…along with a group of students, including at least a couple that were my personal clients – I got them to come take this program. A lot of pressure, and only one good option: Go. Now.
I’ve come a LONG way with FEARLESS; from rarely connecting with women I was truly drawn to, to regularly dating pretty cute, cool girls. And ones I REALLY like when the situation is right or when I’m really feeling the mojo.
My standards have risen so much higher. And all with a physical disability, too. The pre-FEARLESS Mike would be elated about my “new normal” dating life, and most of the rest of my life, as well.
It’s that next level of self-confidence and social freedom with women that I’m after. You’re not supposed to be a match for everyone, but I want to have the self-esteem and freedom to be my best, most authentic, deadly-attractive self in all situations.
I walked past my audience, tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention amidst her circle of friends, said hello, and gave her an in-the-moment compliment about how beautiful or sexy she was. I wasn’t as relaxed and grounded as I wanted to be, but she lit up anyway and our initial connection felt great. I could tell she was very curious about me…for the moment.
After briefly chatting, she noticed everyone just up the street watching us and asked me who they were. I hate those situations and usually don’t handle them well, but I laughed and acknowledged, “Yeah, they’re my friends. They’re just being guys.”
I introduced myself to her and her friends, and asked them if they were doing a photoshoot because one of them had a DSLR camera. For some reason, I didn’t stay with that topic. Things got quiet.
They were quiet. I was quiet. “Don’t be afraid of silence,” I thought. “A little awkward silence can be good if you just stay grounded and present!” … But I wasn’t present anymore. I was way in my head, worrying. Getting weird. Not being myself.
And then they turned away and restarted their conversation. Ugh.
Everyone congratulated me on how solidly I went up to her and how she lit up. I too, did feel good about how I’d practiced what we preach in front of students: stepping into tension, going for it without hesitating, being very direct…And things I really didn’t like to do or handle: getting a woman’s attention from behind, when she’s in a group, and again, handling her commenting on the guys watching us…very well. I felt really good about that.
But then I started doing that thing, again.
After briefly feeling good about myself, that other voice came in: “Why didn’t you just keep asking about what they were up to with the camera, idiot?!” “Why didn’t you stay more grounded?” “You STILL suck at keeping conversations going, damn it. Why can’t you be like Matt?” “She was the most “your type” woman you’ve talked to in weeks, she LIKED you, and you still fucked it up.”
“Unless your ‘total package’ women fall into your arms, you’re so AWKWARD.”
Brian, Dave, and all the coaches had pointed this out to me time, and time again as a student, and I now see it in other students all the time: beating yourself up. Previous personal development coaches had harped on it with me, too.
Being hard on yourself and the 1-Percenters
Being hard on yourself is an absolute growth, success, confidence, and happiness killer. As Brian teaches, most growth and success happens in consistently making 1% improvements. And if you don’t let yourself feel good about the 1-percenters, or you punish yourself for “failures” and not doing it as well as you think you “should,” you seriously slow down your progress.
Because instead of training your mind to find all the small victories and reward you with dopamine hits that make you feel even better and gear you towards more success (ESPECIALLY when it comes to working on your confidence – so much of it is about feeling good about and loving yourself)…you’re training yourself to look for failure and feel shitty about yourself.
It also can make it hard for people to give you constructive criticism or great guidance. It made me close to uncoachable sometimes as a student, because Brian would give me some feedback I really needed to hear, and I’d get all heavy and beat myself up for it…instead of just figuring out how to work on it. And then feel bad about beating myself up!
I read a great piece in The New York Times the other day about this very topic and how to stop being so hard on yourself. A lot of it’s really in alignment with what we teach and there’s more and more science coming out to reinforce how important it is to stop being hard on yourself that they reference:
The Blessing & Curse of our Negativity Bias
Evolutionarily, we have a negativity bias that makes negative experiences seem more significant than they really are and gives more weight to the negative…stuff (flaws, mistakes, and shortcomings) than the positive.
It’s an important mechanism because, as Charlotte Lieberman writes in The Times, “when our safety or moral integrity are on the line, it’s crucial that our brains tell us good from bad so that we learn the right lessons from our experiences.”
The problem is not the feedback – it’s, as Brian always says during intensives and seminars, the meaning we create out of it. What we make it mean about ourselves, “like when you lie in bed at night needlessly replaying an awkward interaction…This is where we get into the harmful, counterproductive side of self-criticism,” Lieberman writes.
Do you want to be forever young? Stop being so hard on yourself.
And this doesn’t just mess with you in the short term. These kinds of thought patterns can “interfere with our productivity, and it can impact our bodies by stimulating inflammatory mechanisms that lead to chronic illness and accelerate aging,” says Dr. Richard Davidson, founder and director of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also teaches psychology and psychiatry.
Yup. Beating yourself up could accelerate aging…aka death, guys. The Times also lists a host of other negative health outcomes you could end up with if you don’t stop being so hard on yourself.
Being hard on yourself isn’t the way to motivate.
Brian always points out that you don’t like to stop being so hard on yourself because you think that will make you “do better,” for lack of a better way of saying it…but that doesn’t happen.
That’s hard for a lot of people to accept – it was for me. “I have to be hard on myself so I SHAPE UP ALREADY and fucking (do/stop) _____ once and for all!,” I’d think as I sat on the FEARLESS couch.
But science is backing Brian up. One study cited in The Times found decreased motivation and productivity liked with self-criticism, and another found it leads people to becoming preoccupied with failure. Recipe for success, right?
The aversion to stop being so hard on yourself that I had (ok, still often have) and many others have is a big one:
“Research shows that the No. 1 barrier to self-compassion is fear of being complacent and losing your edge,” says Dr. Kristin Neff, associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. “And all the research shows that’s not true. It’s just the opposite,” meaning that self-compassion can lead to better results than self-criticism ever could.
And studies have also shown that focusing on self-compassion “led to greater personal improvement, in part, through heightened acceptance…(it) spurs positive adjustment in the face of regrets,” says Neff, citing a 2016 study.
Nothing hugely surprising if you’re into personal development – actually love yourself…actually treat yourself like (hopefully) you treat friends, family, and romantic partners you love when you’re giving them feedback because you care…and you’ll grow more. Nice to see science backing that up, though.
So how do you find more compassion and stop beating yourself up? The Times prescribes their “3 steps to self-compassion”:
Step 1
“Make the choice that you’ll at least try a new approach to thinking about yourself. Commit to treating yourself more kindly — call it letting go of self-judgment, going easier on yourself, practicing self-compassion or whatever resonates most.”
Lieberman notes that meditation is “one of most portable and evidence-based practices for noticing our thoughts and learning to let them go.”
Step 2
“…meet your criticism with kindness,” Liberman writes. If your inner critic says, “You’re lazy and worthless,” respond with a reminder: “You’re doing your best” or “We all make mistakes.”
Step 3
The final step is the biggest, long-term key:
“Make a deliberate, conscious effort to recognize the difference between how you feel when caught up in self-criticism, and how you feel when you can let go of it.”
“That’s where you start to hack the reward-based learning system,” says the psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Judson Brewer, director of research at the Center for Mindfulness and associate professor in medicine and psychiatry at University of Massachusetts Medical School.
“How much better might it feel to take a breath after making a mistake, rather than berating ourselves?,” Lieberman writes.
“All you have to do is think of going to a friend,” Dr. Neff said. “If you said, ‘I’m feeling fat and lazy and I’m not succeeding at my job,’ and your friend said, ‘Yeah, you’re a loser. Just give up now. You’re disgusting,’ how motivating would that be?”
It really is that. If I were my best friend, I’d put a hand on my shoulder when I started beating myself up over that girl in Santa Monica and say “Dude, that was awesome. Stop being so hard on yourself. You walked in there like the man and she liked you. With all that situational pressure you faced that I know has been hard for you. Just keep it up and you’ll keep growing and sweep those stunners off their feet. You got this.”
And a little later, after I was done with my pity party, that’s what I started doing, and what I’m doing my best to do faster and faster.
Treat yourself like you would treat your best friend, a family member you care about, or a partner who you’re madly in love with – or how those people would treat you. Whatever gives you the feeling of real love and compassion for yourself. And read The Times‘ full piece: Why You Should Stop Being So Hard on Yourself
Their “Smarter Living Newsletter” is also worth giving your email up for.
If you are hard on yourself, that’s almost certainly a lack of self-love. Check out our first-ever The FEARLESS Man Live | Masculine Self-Love Edition, July 11th-12th. Virtual tickets available so you can even attend from wherever you are in the world!
