Developing Self-Trust
The first time I got an e-mail from Vlad Dolezal I immediately wanted to reply by starting Dear Mr. Impaler. I didn’t though, because I felt sure he wasn’t that Vlad. The reason I was quietly confident was because it was obvious to me, here was a guy that liked helping people. I would imagine Vlad the Impaler was more into sucking blood and presumably impaling people than writing ebooks and offering advice on self-improvement.
Not long ago I did an interview about Life Coaching and what Life Coaches do with Vlad. If you like you can listen to me ramble on here. I see him as a genuine up and coming blogger with some great ideas and this post is a case in point. By the way, I haven’t edited his post, people do really hurl themselves at me. Or is it hurl over me? I forget which now, but anyway check it out.
Developing Self-Trust
If you’re reading this, that probably means Tim has decided to pick *me* out of the thousands upon thousands of hopeful guest posters who throw themselves at him every day! (I wonder how he can do any chores outside the house with so many people throwing themselves at him. Must be wearing a full-body armor or something.)
One of the things I love about Tim’s blog is that it’s NOT BORING! So the last thing I would want to do is write a boring guest post here, eh?
Instead, in this post, I will try to:
- Convince you that you’re half-crazy
- Make you believe you’re not in control of your body most of the time
- Achieve world domination
Sounds good?
Okay, let’s get started!
Imagine you have a friend. A very special friend… because the only way you can communicate is by leaving written notes to each other. You can never see each other in person, or talk to each other.
One morning you wake up, and you find a note that says “Buy some stock in XYZ Corporation. It’s bound to go up.”
At first you’re wary. But you decide to take a few bucks, and buy some stock. And guess what? Your friend was right! It goes up!
Days pass by, and you almost forget about the incident. But two weeks later, the same thing happens. This time you spend a bit more, and your friend is right again!
This scenario repeats from time to time. In fact, your friend starts giving you a “confidence interval”. For example, “Buy some stock in ABC Corporation. I’m 80% sure it will skyrocket today!”
And your friend is almost always right. You develop more and more trust in them. Sure, sometimes they’re 60% confident about a transaction and it fails. But that’s okay, you understand.
Then, one day, you find the following note:
“Buy some ASDF corporation stock! RIGHT NOW!!! IT’S BOUND TO GO UP MASSIVELY BEFORE LUNCH TODAY, I’M 100% CONFIDENT ABOUT THAT!!!”
Since you trust your friend by now, you immediately take out all your bank savings and invest them in ASDF Corporation. And BAM! The company declares bankruptcy, the stock plummets, and you lose all your savings.
Would you still trust your friend after this?
The reason I told you this whole story… is because something like this is happening in your life. EVERY DAY!
The Different Selves
You probably think you’re just one person. (Wait, what?)
First the good news. No, I didn’t send out an evil warrior to chop you in half as you were reading this post. You’re probably still “just one person” in that sense.
But also… I find it pretty useful to think that each of us is several DIFFERENT people, depending on our emotional state.
For example, when my alarm clock rings at 6 in the morning, I’m not the same person that set the alarm clock. I’m drowsy Vlad, whereas the person that set the alarm clock for so bloody early was probably either excited Vlad or creative Vlad.
Imagine for a second that your alarm clock wakes you up at 5 in the morning. You have a vague recollection that you had a good reason for setting it so early, but you can’t remember what the reason was. Are you going to get up, or just set the alarm clock two hours back and go back to sleep?
It all comes down to how much you TRUST your other self. The one that set the alarm clock.
By now you’re probably seeing what I meant by the metaphor at the beginning of this post:
1. ‘Your friend’ is really just you… in a different emotional state
2. The “written notes” are simply memories (and sometimes actual written notes)
3. ‘Buying stock’ is simply making decisions based on your other self’s information
4. Gaining or losing money is simply either improving or worsening your life
And the whole relationship is built on trust.
Building Self-Trust
In the past, I used to be pretty reckless with how I treated my other selves. I would set an alarm clock for 5 a.m., because it seemed like a good idea in the evening. In the morning, I would get up, because I naively trusted myself. Then I spent the whole day feeling lousy and tired. The investment didn’t pay off.
It took a while before I could convince myself to get up at 5 a.m. again.
So nowadays I respect my other selves more. Because if drowsy Vlad didn’t trust me, there’s nothing I, excited Vlad, could do to wake up early in the morning. (Aside from building a devious contraption involving a vibrating alarm clock, a rope, a bunch of pulleys and a water bucket. That way, I could completely bypass drowsy Vlad and hand control to shocked Vlad instead.)
To build self-trust, don’t just throw reckless commands at your other selves.
Think a bit, and maybe place some conditions (a confidence interval) on them.
Here are the key ideas from this post:
1. You’re not exactly one person
2. You can only make suggestions to your other selves, you can’t force them into anything
3. Mutual trust benefits all of your selves
The whole point of communicating between your selves is to improve your life.
I’m not expecting you to be fully convinced yet and start running around telling everybody they’re really several people trapped in a single body. (Though if you do, make sure you get their reactions on video!)
Just remember, the next time you place a “to-do” suggestion, it will probably be executed by somebody else. So make it sensible. And also, the next time you delay doing something because you’re feeling lazy… you’re convincing your other selves that you’re a procrastinator, and they’ll trust you less (unless you have a good reason). So make sure you have a good reason for being lazy.
And that’s it! Now just one question remains. Do I honestly have your best interest at heart… or did I write this whole post just to see how much crackpot nonsense I can get you to believe?
If you liked this post you’ll like Vlads blog and you can access it by clicking here.
Link Love: My good friend and real live marketing guru Dean Hunt, recently published a post I wrote called ‘What The Heck is NLP?” Actually I called it something else, it was Dean that exercised editorial control and substituted ‘heck’. About 20% of the material (mainly the beginning) was taken from a post I wrote some while ago here. The rest if it is new and if you want to know a bit about NLP, check out ‘What the **** is NLP?”
NOTE: My life coaching book, Know Yourself – Change Yourself has now gone forever and a huge thanks to all of you that bought it! However, I’ve decided to continue to offer ‘Stress is for Suckers‘ for FREE .
If you want guaranteed ways to beat stress, then go and get yourself a copy (and retweet it!) before I change my mind. At the time of writing it still says $9.99 on the store page. Ignore this you’ll not be charged at checkout.
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Comment by Joely Black on 3 April 2009:
Just what I needed to be reminded of today. Self-trust has always been something very important to me, but oddly in some areas of my life I still struggle to trust the notes left by my other selves.
J xx
Joely Blacks last blog post..Learning to listen to myself again
Comment by Tracy on 3 April 2009:
That is an interesting way to look at it and I can see how it has worked in my own life. It’s very easy for one slip up to convince us that we are procrastinators, lazy, messy, disorganized but harder to build up trust so that we see ourselves as reliable go-getters.
One thing that springs to mind is if I’m treating myself this way, how must I be treating those around me? And how is not trusting them keeping me from much needed support?
Thanks for the post, Vlad.
@Tim you scared me! My German teacher was inexplicably Romanian with a voice that made Vincent Price seem perky and he told us all about Vlad the Impaler. I am putting overcoming my fear of people named Vlad on my mega wall of awesome success that I went ahead and pretended you told me to build.
Tracys last blog post..I’d like to introduce you to my son
Comment by Laurie on 3 April 2009:
I have learned to listen to my inner voice. It is usually right.
Today all my selves are telling me to be lazy! I have been out of town and am bushed. Today is my birthday so I am going to veg without guilt and read a good book. Maybe one of Tim’s! :-)
Comment by Pace on 3 April 2009:
I like your way of thinking about this, Vlad. Thanks for sharing this post with us.
Paces last blog post..It was me, all along.
Comment by Vlad Dolezal on 3 April 2009:
@Joely:
Ah yes, those evil other selves, leaving you will all the work and keeping all the fun to themselves ;)
(Hmm, now that I think of it… whenever I’m in my evil overlord self, could I somehow hide a stash of money that my other selves wouldn’t know about?)
@Tracy:
You were absolutely right! All us people called Vlad ARE evil. Muhahahaaa. (You might think I’m joking now, but wait until we take over the world)
@Laurie:
Cheers! I love days like that :)
@Pace:
No prob buddy. May the contrafibularities be with you.
Vlad Dolezals last blog post..Don’t be Afraid to Ask for What You Want
Comment by Tim Brownson on 3 April 2009:
@ Vlad – Thanks for this post mate and my apologies for being so negligent in promoting it. I was up to my eyes in blood, gums and dentists I’m afraid.
This was a very cool post and spot on in many respects. If you get chance, check out Virginia Satirs work. She developed the theory of ‘Parts’ and used it to great effect in family therapy in the 80’s. Cool stuff.
@ Tracy – LOL, a voice that made Vincent Price seem perky, I like it! And I DID tell you that. I used a very complicated NLP procedure called 6 Step Bullshitting via e-mail.
Comment by Stephen – Rat Race Trap on 4 April 2009:
What an interesting perspective. I love this blog. I know when I come here I am not going to be bored, but I’m going to find something different. Thanks!
Stephen – Rat Race Traps last blog post..Develop the Courage to Take Risks
Comment by Tumblemoose on 4 April 2009:
Vlad,
We had a frank discussion amongst ourselves over here at Tumblemoose and we all agree the points made here are worthy of a bit more introspection about the expectations we have set up. We had some bickering over who was setting up which tasks for the other, but in the end we did decide to trust ourselves a bit more, we all shook hands and are a bit better for the experience.
I, um – we thank you.
George
George
and
George
Tumblemooses last blog post..An Ebook service that’s just write for writers!
Comment by Vlad Dolezal on 4 April 2009:
@Tim:
Cheers, I’ll check that out ;)
And don’t worry about not promoting this post too much. I’m sure a lot of great people saw it anyway :) (Also, if I came up with a wittier title that might have helped :p)
@Stephen:
You’re welcome.
@George:
You’re welcome.
So are you.
And you too, George!
Vlad Dolezals last blog post..Don’t be Afraid to Ask for What You Want
Pingback by My Two Posts on Other Blogs, Plus a Fun Way to Lift Your Mood in Under a Minute | Fun Life Development on 18 April 2009:
[...] because Tim Brownson has a very unique writing style. You’ll understand when you see it. Now read my guest post on The Discomfort Zone. (The post has a boring title, but interesting content, if I may say so myself [...]
Comment by Stefanie Hartman on 1 May 2009:
Great post. It’s when we learn to listen and trust that little voice in the back of our heads is when we can truly be successful.
Comment by Respectable Reviews on 3 October 2009:
What an interesting perspective. I love this blog. I know when I come here I am not going to be bored, but I’m going to find something different. Thanks!
Comment by Rehab on 3 October 2009:
Thank for such a motivating article. Having self-confidence is something that I need improving. I find it hard sometimes to present my self in a crowd or during a panel interview.
Comment by Red37 on 13 October 2009:
It’s almost as if society wants to pit us against each other in some metaphorical boxing ring. ,
Comment by Miss68 on 22 October 2009:
That’s exactly the strategy which the party successfully followed in the local elections – maximising votes where they were needed. ,
Comment by Kelvin73 on 23 October 2009:
Counseling and therapy simply must be kept free of political ideologies. ,