Productivity and Shame

Why being kind to yourself might be the best productivity hack of all.

• Visit this compilation of fundraising pages for families who’ve lost homes due to the LA fires. All donations go directly to the families. 👏🏻

• NeuroDiversion tickets are now available: Join me in Austin March 27^th-29^th. 🎟️

Visiting NYC this week so this photo felt appropriate. 📷

I could title this post something like “How I learned to stop connecting my self-worth with productivity,” and that might sound good—but it wouldn’t be entirely true.

Even though it sounds weird, something like “To be more productive, stop hating yourself so much” is more accurate.

But whatever title I decide upon, this is the story of how I stopped hating myself (at least as much and as often) and how it ended up helping me in more than just the obvious “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea” ways.

Almost every day, for years, I would talk to myself in highly negative terms. Much of this internal dialogue related to failures or perceived shortcomings, or perhaps ways I felt disappointed in myself.

Chronic avoidance was a huge problem. I had these procrastination cycles I’d go into. I’d feel bad about something that needed to be done, but I had a huge amount of resistance to actually doing it.

So I’d put it off, but it still needed to be done, so then I’d feel bad again. (Then I’d put it off, then I’d feel worse—you get the idea.)

I knew this was a problem, but I couldn’t fix it, so I told myself what a bad person I was. Then, of course, it would repeat all over with something else.

Other times, I’d work deliriously hard on a project, only to see it achieve less impact than I’d imagined, and I’d feel bad. Why was I so stupid, I asked myself.

I’d compare myself to someone else—always a recipe for misery—and wonder why I hadn’t been able to match their accomplishments.

I’d obsess over someone, either a romantic interest who was clearly unavailable or a famous person I wanted to impress, and I’d get to work.

To feel better about myself I just need to get more done, I’d say. I need to finish the next thing, reach this milestone, achieve this status, or whatever particular benchmark seemed relevant.

Procrastination, avoidance, comparison: these are just a few examples! There were many variations.

Through it all, I’d say to myself: just try harder. Don’t be such a loser.

Let’s pause for a moment. Here you might expect me to say something like “And so I learned to let things go, and stop taking everything so seriously, and embrace slow living, and now everything is better.”

But that is not at all what happened! I know that’s how it works for some people, or at least they say it works.*

*I’m not necessarily doubting them. I just know that the tendency for confirmation bias and placebo effects can be really powerful. Sometimes when we don’t get what we really want, we rationalize by telling ourselves we didn’t really want it. But clearly we did want that thing! Lying to yourself can have unintended consequences.

Anyway, back to my story. I like working hard and I don’t necessarily want to do less. I want to do more of what matters and less of what doesn’t, but that’s very different from just taking it easy.

It turned out that the root of the problem wasn’t overwork, it was shame and self-loathing. I was disappointed in myself, and I let myself know it.

The neurological patterns led to behavioral instincts. What should I do today? Get up and remind myself of my failures, and try to turn the ship around.

I don’t mean to exaggerate. I didn’t always feel this way—many days were good, and sometimes this pattern wasn’t so front-and-center. But negative self-talk as a means of production was always close at hand, a familiar mode of operating that I tended to revert to. I imagine it’s like someone trying to quit smoking, drinking, or eating sugar after many years. These habits can become so comforting!

It Takes Energy to Hate Yourself

So here is the weird thing. It actually takes a lot of energy to hate yourself. Once you stop doing it, you can redirect that energy to more, well, productive ends.

Actually, first you can take a breath and just enjoy yourself more. But then, at least if you’re like me, at a certain point you’ll want to put that energy toward something. And weirdly enough, you actually start being more productive!

I know, I know, being able to get more done isn’t the primary goal of positive self-regard. But it’s a very interesting byproduct.

How to Do It

So how do you stop hating yourself? Ultimately I don’t think the answer is the same for everyone. See, this is what many people fail to understand: figuring out what helps you is part of the work.

The steps or solutions that are most effective for you won’t be exactly the same as the ones for me. This is why there are different theoretical models in therapy, different medications, different spiritual practices, and so on. But there are some through lines—some general principles that can be helpful.

One principle is that you can probably solve some parts of the problem yourself, but others you need help with.

Note: you might not actually need a lot of outside help! Much of what I learned through years of therapy came in the first few sessions.

The same is true with medication: you might need to take it for a long time, or it might help you see things differently enough that you can just take it seasonally or otherwise stop taking it. (Always make these decisions together with your doctor, of course. I’m just saying, sometimes you don’t need the same kind of help forever.)

Still, if you’re stuck, and you’ve been stuck for a long time, you’ve probably tried to get unstuck and it hasn’t worked. So most likely you need some type of outside help.

Another principle is that most likely it will be a range of adjustments that end up helping.

A sudden realization, a lifestyle change, an environmental improvement, taking a long trip to clear your head—or any four or six or twelve other things. A combination of efforts will lead you to improve, which is why the primary cause of improvement can be hard to pinpoint.

For every person who says "xx changed my life," there's someone else who tried the exact same thing and found it didn't help at all. Meditation, ketamine, SSRIs, cognitive behavioral therapy, cold plunges—you name it. It might be good for you or it might not!

Again, most likely some combination of things is what will ultimately make a difference.

A third principle is that change happens gradually, then suddenly.

You might feel like nothing is working for weeks or months, but those small efforts are building up beneath the surface. Then one day you notice you haven't talked down to yourself all week.

The real breakthrough often comes when you realize you've handled a situation differently without even trying. Perhaps you miss a deadline and your first thought isn't 'I'm such a failure' but something more neutral like 'Well, that happened. What now?' That's when you know the new patterns are taking hold.

***

The irony doesn't escape me: I spent years thinking I needed to be harder on myself to get more done. Turns out I had it backwards. When you stop spending all that energy on negative self-talk, you have so much more available for everything else.

It's a strange equation, isn't it? Less self-loathing = more energy = better results.