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Keeping Your Chin Up On The Way Up
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| Beatflux |
There's this great article about dealing with the disappointment of not reaching your goals. To sum it up, if you measure your current progress against where you started, you will feel much better than if you measure how far you have to go.
It seems like Bubbletoe(Richard Butler) is struggling with this issue, so maybe it'll help.
Here's the most relevant part of the article:
| quote: | For some reason, very early in life, people learn one of two ways to do that measurement, and which one they learn makes a huge difference in how happy and satisfying their life is.
Either they 1) measure themselves against the Ideal (in other words, they measure their progress against the Gap, which is always large and never gets any smaller), or 2) they measure themselves against A1 (their starting point, against which progress can continually grow).
Each way of measuring has a completely different emotional and psychological result.
Those who measure themselves against the Ideal end up unhappy, frustrated, and disappointed. They do not get to experience a sense of accomplishment or a sense of achievement. Whatever they do, it feels like a failure, because they are still just as far from the Ideal as when they started.
This creates incredible dissatisfaction and low self esteem. They may achieve a lot, and may contribute to the world a great deal, but emotionally and psychologically it does them no good.
Those who measure themselves against "Actual 1" (their starting point) have a different result. These people look backward to measure their progress. In fact, that is the rule: always measure against where you were, never against the Ideal.
Always measure backward, never forward. Because they measure against where they started, they experience great psychological and emotional reward. Over and over, they experience satisfaction and a sense of progress and optimism. They keep spiraling upward, always making progress -- and enjoying their progress.
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Link to full article |
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| RichieV |
| who is bubble toes ? |
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| Beatflux |
| quote: | Originally posted by RichieV
who is bubble toes ? |
Richard. He goes by buttletoe on the Anjuna forums. |
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| Acton |
| quote: | Originally posted by Beatflux
if you measure your current progress against where you started, you feel much better than if you measure how far you have to go. |
In my opinion, this is how any progress should be measured :)
Music related or not! |
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| RichieV |
i disagree
Unless you analyze why you didn't meet your goal, you might not streamline your process. I think his problem is that his goals are probably a little unrealistic. |
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| DigiNut |
I also disagree. There are in fact four options when it comes to self-evaluation:
1. Don't measure at all. These people never improve, but there is a certain appeal to their blissful ignorance.
2. Measure against past progress. This is (usually) good for your self-esteem, but your only frame of reference is yourself and you therefore get no real feedback on how much or how fast you've progressed. There's never a "sink or swim" test. Results are better than (1) but only marginally.
3. Reference against the impossible "ideal". This usually leads to rapid progress but also burn-outs because, obviously, every attempt is a failure. I liken this to high-stakes gambling; it can pay off huge dividends with the right combination of timing and luck, or it can backfire horribly.
4. Set practical goals that are just outside your zone of ability and comfort. If you fail to meet them, analyze the reasons and apply that knowledge in the next attempt.
While it may make you feel good to compare your current state against your past state, you must "measure forward" if you actually want to continue improving; otherwise, you might be silently and unknowingly migrating to category (1).
Has anybody ever used one of those niche-market, shareware or in-house computer programs where the developer had the bright idea of showing you the time elapsed instead of the time remaining? How does that make you feel, really? Do you calmly say to yourself "well, it's already been 5 minutes, it can't be much longer," or does it make you want to kick the thing?
When you're on a long trip, it matters not how far you've traveled, it matters how far you have left to travel. You just also have to know your destination, and your destination has to be a real place. |
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| aLviNx80 |
i agree.
i actually do this all the time to encourage myself .. keke |
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