When You Need a Lift

As they walked out to the parking lot, Ellen tried to console him. "Maybe they were confused and didn't want to admit it," she said. "It took, what, three hours till I finally got it, didn't it?"

Bob was unconvinced. "I don't know, they all just kinda sat there. Like they'd heard the idea before, and they were so bored they just wanted to move on."

Ellen persisted. "Look, I have to get going. Let's meet for coffee tomorrow morning, 7:30."

"OK, but if I'm not there, don't call the paramedics. I'll probably be sleeping off a bender. Just kidding."

Although he's still able to make lame jokes, Bob is feeling pretty low about how his presentation was received. He wanted a more obvious expression of approval, and he was disappointed.

When you depend on praise from others to feel good about yourself, you're giving other people a lot of power. Here are two other forms of this pattern:

Approving multitudes

Dependence on universal acclamation or honor can be even more dangerous, because it can be difficult to achieve. Bob might be caught in this trap.

Acquired treats

Acquired treats are goods or services that anyone with enough money can buy. For some, the intensity of the reward is in inverse proportion to the number of people who can acquire the treat (legally or otherwise).

Instead of praise, approval, acclamation, or treats, rely on yourself. You'll experience a level of happiness that's otherwise unavailable. And with it comes a bonus: you can give yourself a lift whenever you want it.

Here are some things to keep in mind as you build your power to appreciate yourself:

Begin within

When you want to give yourself a lift, focus first on your breathing — a few slow breaths at least. Find your center.

There's no one else like you

We're all unique. People are so complicated that there are too few of us to require repetition. There are some situations that we alone are able to handle best. The needed combination of skills, knowledge, abilities, and interest resides in no one else.

We don't appreciate each other

Think of a colleague at work. Ask yourself, "How often have I thought about his or her uniqueness?" If you're like most of us, not often. And other people think about your uniqueness about as rarely as you think of theirs. In part, this is why so many of us feel unappreciated.

You're the world's expert on you

No one knows as much about you as you do. When you need a lift, rely on the world's expert on you.

If you haven't yet appreciated yourself today, now would be a good time for it. If you have, appreciate yourself for having appreciated yourself.  Top    Next Issue

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Choice-supportive bias is a cognitive bias that causes us to evaluate our past choices as more fitting than they actually were. The erroneous judgments it produces can be especially costly to organizations interested in improving decision processes. Available here and by RSS on April 21.

And on April 28: The Self-Explanation Effect

In the learning context, self-explanation is the act of explaining to oneself what one is learning. Self-explanation has been shown to increase the rate of acquiring mastery. The mystery is why we don't structure knowledge work to exploit this phenomenon. Available here and by RSS on April 28.

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