From striving to acceptance

In the first part of this series, I spoke about how the concept of ‘self-improvement’ can lead to feeling shame (I’m not good enough), which – aside from being wholly undermining and unpleasant – makes it more difficult to create change.

In this second part, we’ll look at the concept of striving, which is more likely to occur in the wake of shame, and how this can similarly keep us stuck.

‘Self-improvement’ keeps us stuck in ‘striving’

What does that mean?

I’m going to borrow a concept from the course I’m currently training to teach - the 8-week mindful self-compassion course from the Centre for Mindful Self-Compassion. They describe this phenomenon that happens where we’re on a path of learning and development, which is as follows:

We naturally make our way through three different states:

• Striving
• Disillusionment
• Radical acceptance

And we cycle through, bobbing from one state to another and back again, as we go.

Striving

Striving means wanting to do better or ‘be’ better, and it comes with the sense that things will only be OK once you’ve got there or achieved.

Striving means being really attached to a particular outcome.  And you can have experiences from a striving state that feel enjoyable or frustrating.  Like in these examples…

‘Wow, I’m doing great!  I feel good about myself because I proved my worth by doing well!  Woohoo!’.  This moment of striving might feel enjoyable.

‘Gah this is so hard, I’m going to be a failure! If I get up early every day this week to work on this, maybe it’ll be OK.’ - An example of striving that feels harder.

Disillusionment

Disillusionment is where you feel like giving up, e.g. ‘What’s the point of trying? This is too hard, I’ll never be good enough.’

Radical acceptance

Radical acceptance means noticing what’s happening in the present moment, and meeting that reality with warmth, compassion and perspective.  

It doesn’t mean that you give up and stop trying (which would be disillusionment), and it doesn’t mean that you have to like how things are. It simply means that you acknowledge whatever you’re experiencing and whatever you’re feeling about it.  

There’s care and perspective that allows you to see things as they really are.

Here’s how the earlier examples would look if radical acceptance was present:

• Excitement about doing well might be held in a wider awareness that achieving this goal does not make any difference to your worth as a human being. ‘Wow, I’m doing great! That makes me feel good, and I know that I am good enough, regardless of whether I continue to do well or not.’
• Radical acceptance in relation to feeling like you’re falling behind might look like acknowledging your feelings of frustration and worry, and remembering that this task is not the be-all and end-all.  ‘Gah, I’m finding this really hard! OK, I’m feeling the urge to work really hard, and I do really care about this, but I’ll be OK regardless of how this goes - I know that I’m already enough. Let me work out how to work smarter and whether knuckling down is going to serve me well on this occasion.’

Radical acceptance gets you out of that state of hamster wheel striving where you perpetually feel that things will get easier after this latest struggle is over.

Radical acceptance in the state of disillusioned feelings might look like:

‘I feel fed up.  Let me step back from things for a moment and take a breath.  I’ve been feeling like giving up – let me work out what I really need, and what’s going to serve me best right now.’

The difference in the radical acceptance state is that you’re not tying your sense of self-worth to the outcome of the task.  And you’re meeting your experience with warmth, compassion and perspective.

Self-improvement and striving

The concept of ‘self-improvement’ keeps us in a state of striving, because it implies we’re not good enough as we are.  It encourages us to attach our self-worth to these ‘self-improvement’ endeavours.  So our activity becomes anxiety-driven, based on our fear of not being good enough.

Radical acceptance and change

When we experience a state of radical acceptance, we relax into feeling loved and safe as we are. This puts us in a well-resourced position, from which it is much easier to create meaningful and lasting change.

As Carl Rogers (the founding father of Humanistic Psychotherapy) said:

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

So instead of chasing ‘self-improvement,’ let’s move to learning and growth from a place of compassionate acceptance, knowing we are already enough, exactly as we are.