How to make self-judgement useful
Self-Judging Sealions! Graham here. This post:
Self-judgement. Ever-present monster? Or misunderstood pooch?
Some of us find things harder than other people, for no good reason. If that’s you, it’s easy to judge yourself.
Jim doesn’t get so worked up about going to a party, I’m such a fragile flower
Jane doesn’t think about dying whenever something goes wrong at work. I’m such a screw-up.
This practice of self-judgement - of comparing our abilities to other people’s - it’s an ever-present monster for many of us.
But is it really a monster? Or is it a misunderstood pooch who’s just barking for attention?
This issue, what do you do when your Comparison Canine is in full attack mode, and his target it is your whole self-worth?
Comparing yourself to others is part of who you are
How else did you ever learn how to do anything if not through watching others and seeing how you measured up?
Comparison and self-judgement are crucial tools for self-knowledge and personal growth.
We are social creatures (even when we’re hiding in our bedrooms). How do you even know who you are if not - in part - by comparing yourself to those around you?
Comparison can be useful
Comparison is a very useful thing if you want to work on a particular skill.
Let’s say you play basketball, but your jump shot isn’t all that consistent. First off, how do you even know it could use some work? You look at your teammates, you look at your opponents, you see how you measure up.
'BORK! BORK!', says your Comparison Canine. ‘YOUR JUMPSHOT SUX!’
Now, this might not feel great in the moment. Comparison Canine is not the most articulate companion. His barking might initially manifest itself in the creeping prickles of shame, or those whispers of self-doubt that say ‘stop trying to shoot the ball, just pass it to Jonathan. He’s an actual basketball player.’
But if you can listen to what all that barking is trying to tell you, there’s something useful to be found.
You’ve compared yourself to your friend, and you’ve noticed they do something better than you. That’s useful information. You might choose to pass your friend the ball more, if the aim is to try to win the game. Longer term, you might choose to work on your jump shot.
And how do you know what to try, to improve your jumpshot? Again, comparison is useful. You look at your teammates, you look at your opponents. You notice what they’re doing differently.
Look at that judgemental face.
The problem is, we over-use comparison
Somewhere along the line, we started using comparison for something it’s not so useful for. Self-worth.
Instead of applying it to one particular skill, we apply it to our whole sense of self.
‘BORK! BORK! JONATHAN IS REAL PERSON! YOU ARE PRETEND PERSON! BORK!’
It’s like there are two types of self-judgement. The first is simply judging some aspect of yourself, some specific behaviour you engage in. This is how you get better at basketball.
The second type of self-judgement is the more literal interpretation of the word. It’s judging your “self” as a whole. This is how you eventually quit your basketball team because you’re convinced they don’t want you anyway.
Self-judgement works best when it is specific and self-contained
This makes sense, because self-judgement is really just a form of feedback.
Imagine a colleague has some feedback for you about your work hours. If they say something like, ‘I’ve noticed you’ve been coming in later than everyone else, what's that about?’, that might prompt a useful discussion. But if they say, ‘I’ve noticed you’re a lazy git who obviously isn’t fit for a 9 to 5’, the conversation probably won’t go anywhere good.
Often, when we notice an unflattering comparison between ourselves and someone else, we jump straight to that second conversation. We take our perceived weakness as a referendum on who we are as a person.
This is where comparison stops being useful.
When you try to judge your whole self, the whole system breaks down
You’re at a family gathering, and you notice your brilliant sister’s seemingly effortless social butterfly-ing for the millionth time. You think ‘I AM JUST A WORTHLESS SOCIAL CATERPILLAR, I SHOULD GO LIVE IN A TREE.’
So, not very specific.
This vague, non-specific response isn't all that useful. It doesn’t tell you anything about what you could try to do differently at social gatherings. It’s also super discouraging. So even if you can identify the things your sister is doing differently to you, you’re now convinced you could never do those things yourself.
Consider your top 10 self-judgement hits. How quickly do they snowball into the most vague and globalising statements?
‘I’m just not a people person’
‘I’ll never be like her’
‘I’m just a piece of shit’
In flowchart terms, it goes something like:
And of course, you notice this trend. You know when you’ve stopped trying. You know when you find something too damn hard. But typically you don’t think, ‘I’ve stopped trying because I’m discouraged’.
Instead you think, ‘I’ve stopped trying because I’m a loser.’
Which is even more discouraging.
What happens when you try to be more specific?
If you were to try to be more specific, how might you respond to seeing your friend or sibling’s dazzling social skills in action?
Maybe it’s something like: ‘she is really good at small talk. I never know what to say.’ Or ‘she can actually remember all our extended family members’ names. Dammit how does she do that??’
This more specific analysis of the situation gives you something to work with. What is your Comparison Canine actually trying to draw your attention to, with all that barking?
What can you learn from the comparison?
And don’t stop there. What could you actually learn from this comparison? Why is your sister so much better at small talk than you? What’s the trick?
Is it that she always seems to remember one thing about each person at the gathering, from the last time she saw them? How could you try to do that yourself this time, so you’ll be better prepared for the next get-together?
Next time your Comparison Canine is getting jumpy, when those little nags of self-doubt are gnawing at your insides, see if you can identify exactly what he’s barking at. And what he’s trying to teach you.
Yeah okay that all sounds good, but how do you actually do that without just sliding back into self-doubt-town?
Not everything your Comparison Canine barks at is going to be useful information. 90% of it may be useless noise you can’t do anything about (‘BORK! BORK! YOU’RE THE SHORTEST PERSON ON THE BASKETBALL TEAM! THIS SEEMS LIKE PROBLEM?? BORK!’).
Just like when Bodie barks at the invisible strangers passing anywhere within a kilometre of our front door, Comparison Canine’s barking is not finely calibrated.
So it’s not just about listening more closely to all that barking. It’s about listening in a particular way.
Alfred Adler (a contemporary of Freud who was less interested in dreams, and more interested in social connections) put it this way.
Adler argued that by far the most important comparison you can make is not between yourself and other people, but rather it's to compare yourself to who you were yesterday, or last month, or last year. Because in the end, all those comparisons we make between ourselves and other people, they're just clues, whispers of a possible future version of ourselves we could aim for.
For Adler, continual growth is what gives life meaning. And growth is hard. It takes great courage. That's precisely why it's so important to find a way of looking at your own weaknesses that doesn't merely discourage you.
Not perfect, but not perfectly screwed either
Adler advised us to approach our inevitable self-judgements with what he called ‘affirmative resignation’.
Affirmative resignation is a particular attitude you can cultivate toward yourself. It’s not positive thinking, it’s not ‘I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay.’ But it’s not the other extreme either, it’s not ‘I’m the worst and I may as well accept it.’ It’s somewhere in between.
Affirmative resignation is a willingness to see your faults, but not to see those faults as a reason to give up on yourself. It’s a willingness to be an average human being - not perfect, but not perfectly screwed either.
It's a willingness to keep trying, even when you don't know if you're worth the effort.
And it’s not an easy attitude to cultivate. We humans like our extremes. They offer certainty in an uncertain world.
But when you can manage a little affirmative resignation, when you can say to yourself, 'I probably have some redeeming features, even if I still don't really know how to make a salad', you might notice your Comparison Canine calms down a little. Sure, he’ll still bark at the merest hint of possible self-judgement, that's his job. But if you’re curious and willing to investigate, he just might lead you somewhere worth going.
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