Reframe Bullying, Achieve Goals

Do you avoid being alone? Do you keep yourself busy so that you don’t feel the space of aloneness crowding in on you? Do you substitute feeling alone with drugs or alcohol? I received a book to review that spent the first two-thirds of its verbiage on bemoaning the sad life of self–absorbed women victims of misguided parents, friends, relatives, sick uncles, alcoholics, self-absorbed partners and employers.

I’m a compassionate person, but after reading 150 pages relating events about these sad, desperate people, I’m feeling burned out. Within these pages, I found two solutions to this sorry state of aloneness: become more self-absorbed by finding your life force, and return to your secret garden. Granted, there are still about a hundred pages left, but I don’t think I can endure the potential for self-absorption much longer.

I am reminded of a time when my daughter, Debbie, started playing clarinet. Yes, the first year of playing an instrument can be difficult for the listeners, but Debbie had a natural musical talent and in the spring of that first year, she was preparing for her fifth-grade band concert, soloing with “Pop! Goes the Weasel” and adding her own little improvisation to the end of the tune. She decided one beautiful day to practice outside on the side porch.

As she practiced, our neighbor walked by and said, “Debbie, you sound like a sick cow!” I heard the comment and waited for Debbie’s response. Debbie continued to practice and when she finished and came back inside, she said, “Mom, I think our neighbor doesn’t feel very good about herself.” She played beautifully in her concert and continued to study clarinet and is now an accomplished clarinetist with a doctorate in clarinet performance. Had she been one of those self-absorbed victims, I shudder to think what might have become of her. But rather, she saw through our neighbor’s ugly comment and labeled it low-self esteem instead of a personal attack.

Although I understand that there may be people in this world who suffer at the hands of bullies, abusers, inept parents, and others, I’m sorry to say that this book I’m reading probably does not offer the solution to their pain.

Grit Gets Me out of My Slump

I’m in a slump as can be seen by the dearth of entries in this blog. What is in my way? For the past several months, I have been feeling at loose ends, not focused, starting and not finishing projects, setting goals and failing to follow through on many of them. Being self-employed I sabotage my own ambitions by wanting to spend more time playing Scrabulous on Facebook than on anything else on my to-do list. I’m good at Scrabulous and I’ve won all the games I have played so far (which isn’t all that many) but all I really want to do is play Scrabulous and win, win, win. Maybe there should be an Olympic Scrabulous event.

What is it about the psychology of winning? Why do we want to win? To show that we’re better than others? Better than the best? What is so important about winning? Why do I like it when my score is higher than my opponents? It makes me feel good about myself, yes. Is that it? Does it make me feel less about others? No. I appreciate their wanting to play. But I’m afraid that if I win too much, they won’t want to play anymore. But I don’t want to cheat just to let them win. That’s why I was wondering whether I could play Scrabulous solitaire. But that would not be as much fun because of the social interaction. So do I let up a little or try to win? If someone lets up a little and lets me win, would I like it better than losing? No. I wouldn’t like the absence of a challenge.

So to figure out the answers to these questions, I Googled “the psychology of winning” and found an article in Psychology Today Magazine by Peter Doskoch called “The Winning Edge.” In it he outlines several qualities of people of average intelligence who accomplish their goals to solve difficult mathematical problems or get good grades in school. These qualities like grit, passion, ambition, self-discipline, optimism, and persistence comprise the winning edge. In addition Doskoch says, “Truly gritty people, however, tend to set especially challenging long-term goals” like the mathematician who spent ten years working on proving a theory as opposed to those who fail to show grit. And concerning getting good grades, he says, “The data demonstrate the need for parents and teachers to praise effort rather than ability.” It’s not how smart people are, it’s how much effort they put into achieving their goals.

So winning has nothing to do with besting someone else. It has to do with setting a goal and focused effort toward accomplishing it that might mean indirectly being better than someone else, but mostly it means achieving a personal goal to have a better time, get a higher score, of make longer, higher point words. So it looks like I have substituted playing Scrabulous for accomplishing my goals.

Does that get me out of my slump? It helps me see that without persistence, passion, self-discipline, ambition, optimism and grit, I’m not going to achieve my goals. Maybe that’s all I need to get started again on my goal of selling ten books a day, writing eight articles a month, earning more money, and starting an investment portfolio.

Source:
Doskoch, Peter. “The Winning Edge.” Psychology Today Magazine. Nov/Dec 2005.