The Things We Say
This is going to come out wrong but sometimes I feel the worst thing you can do is tell someone that they’re doing amazingly well.
Now, before you react, let me explain. I’m not suggesting it’s a bad thing to recognize great performance by someone you work with - I think that’s absolutely essential. I’m also not suggesting that we shouldn’t be positive or motivational with family, friends and colleagues - it’s important that we help each other along positive intent and actions.
But when we tell people they’ve made it, or that they’ve arrived in an absolute sense, then I think we’re doing them a disservice. Because then it suggests that they’ve got nothing more to do or achieve, that they’ve done or learnt all that there is to learn.
And that leads to complacency, and complacency ultimately leads to (self) defeat. Which is why I say that telling others they are doing amazingly well is a problem.
But, of course, there’s an alternate subtext here in what I’ve just written. And that is, that maybe I’m not actually talking about what we say to others at all. Rather more importantly, I’m actually talking about what we say to ourselves.
Because as much as we struggle with negative self-talk, we have to be equally as conscious of the kind of positive self-talk we engage in.
Because as destructive as negative self-talk is, so is “over-generalized” positive self-talk.
The kind that brushes aside anything about ourselves that is developmental, or that minimizes the improvement areas that all of us will always have. The kind that sways us from the work that’s necessary to think next level, that drives us to change and grow.
This is the kind of self-talk that represents the straight-line path to complacency, which is what leads to us losing our footing and ultimately losing what we have.
The greatest athletes know this and, as a result, never stop seeing themselves as students - always with something to learn, another thing to change and develop. The most elite athletes - even those we believe have a near-perfect game - have full time coaches. Because they know they’re not perfect, that they can still get even better.
The point is that it’s essential that we see ourselves as being on a perpetual quest, and that even while we may have achieved a lot, it doesn’t mean we have the right to keep our perch atop the mountain. We have to continually earn it, continually work at it. Nothing can be taken for granted.
