In some ways this might seem like a simple task — you can “just tell them”.  And sometimes it is as simple as that.  But in many cases it isn’t easy — our thoughts and feelings are complex, or they are conflicting, or we have a sense of something but we’re not really sure how to put it into words.  And there may be a lot of background information that we know but the other person doesn’t (imagine telling a stranger about something that just happened to your best friend).  On top of this, we have to use a language where almost every word has several different meanings.

Perhaps this is obvious, but it seems to me that miscommunication and lack of communication are everywhere.  I’ve been in more than my share of business meetings where almost no real communication happens — people talk at length about something that others pretend to understand but don’t, or different people express conflicting points of view while congratulating themselves about reaching agreement.  And in personal relationships I’ve had my share of arguments that later turned out to be… just misunderstandings.

Here are a few ideas I’ve had (or, more often, borrowed from others), and I’d love to hear your thoughts on ways to “get your message across” more effectively.

Keep it simple

This is classic advice, and I think, very useful.  The simpler you make something, the easier it is for the other person to process and understand.  After all, you’ve probably had a long time to think about your way of viewing things, but the other person must process what you’re saying almost instantly.

If you have conflicting thoughts about something, keeping it simple may mean just picking the one that you feel the most.  If someone asks your opinion about, say, the economy and you have twelve different theories about it, it may mean just picking one and explaining it, instead of trying to talk about all of them.

Another way we add complexity is by communicating our uncertainty, or “hedging” — using phrases like “maybe”, “kind of”, “I’m not really sure but”, “it could be this or it could be that”, etc.  Sometimes this uncertainty is important, and it makes sense to convey it.  But of course nothing in life is certain, and hedging can make what you’re saying less simple and harder to follow (and can weaken its impact).  So when appropriate, removing hedging can make your communication simpler and easier to understand.

Keeping it simple does often mean that you are cutting things out and modifying things just a bit to reduce the complexity.  Does this mean you’re misleading people or “not telling the whole truth”?  If you’re cutting out things that make you look bad and “enhancing” the story in your favor a bit, for example, then yes it does.  But I think you can be true to the spirit of what you’re conveying in a way that gives a faithful approximation to the truth.  For example, when someone asks you what time it is and your watch says that it’s 4:32 PM and 17 seconds, telling them that “it’s four thirty” isn’t misleading — it’s giving your best simple approximation to the truth.

However, at times communicating what you want to communicate requires sharing something more complex.  I think Albert Einstein said it best when he said, “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.”  Do your best to tell the simplest story you can, while still being true to what you need to communicate.

Just to make a point explicit — effective communication is usually not just giving the other person a “brain dump” of everything you’re thinking.  It usually involves putting your thoughts into a form that the other person can best understand.

One more point on this.  “Keeping it simple” also doesn’t mean that you treat your listener as if they were an idiot.  Treating someone like a four-year-old can be frustrating for them, and result in leaving out relevant information.

Bad Example
Al: What do you think of Sara?
Lenny: Well, I think she’s pretty nice.  I mean, sometimes she can be a little, I don’t know, pushy.  But then again, she’s had a rough couple of months, and it’s actually kind of refreshing to have someone that stands up for themselves.  So overall, I mean, good.

Better Example
Al: What do you think of Sara?
Lenny: A bit pushy, but I can handle it.  I like her.

Make sense

Simply… make sense.  Choose words that work well together, and be consistent with yourself and with what people know to be true.

Bad Example
George W. Bush: Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.

Better Example
George W. Bush (revised): Families are the hope of our nation;  it is within families that our dreams take wing.

Speak to the other person “where they are”

It may be hard to believe, but, yes, other people have thoughts and feelings, and they are often different from your own!  In many cases, there is a big difference between what’s in your head, and what’s in the other person’s head.  As mentioned above, an example of this is trying to tell a stranger about something that just happened to your best friend — much of what you want to communicate only makes sense if you know your friend.

I think the first step is simply to recognize that the other person has a different perspective, and to attempt talk to them so that it makes sense from that perspective.  It may also involve a lot of simplification, since you often don’t have the time to go into the background in detail.

This also means trying to figure out what the other person is really thinking and feeling, and addressing their concerns, even if the other person isn’t stating them explicitly.  If the other person asks “Is this the way to Times Square?” you don’t just tell them “no”, but tell them what the right way is and point out something interesting along the way.  Making what you’re saying relevant to the other person is also important, by making it interesting to them and something they can relate to.  Finally, if your views differ from those of the other person, it often makes sense to address those differences explicitly, instead of stating your views as accepted fact.

Pay attention to rhythm and timing

Rhythm and timing are important aspects of conversation.  One a small scale, the rhythm of your own speech matters.  Frequent pausing to search for words can make it more difficult for the other person to understand you, as can stopping one sentence halfway through and starting a different one (“John is really… the important thing is that…”).

On a larger scale, the rhythms of the conversation as a whole are also important.  Taking turns talking, interrupting and dealing with interruptions, handling distractions and “side tracks”, and deciding when to change the topic or bring up an important question are all issues of rhythm and timing.  In many cases, speaking and transitioning smoothly instead of abruptly can make it easier for people hear and understand what you’re saying.

Bad Example

Al: Look, I’m sort of feeling that…  well, to give some background, I’ve always loved football.  And when I get that… when that time of year comes around… I just feel that… I don’t know…

Better Example
Al: I love football season — it’s probably the thing I look forward to the most.

Be aware of the implicit message

The words we say form an explicit message.  But the other person isn’t only listening to our words — they’re also listening to our tone of voice, and watching our body language and other behaviors.  In fact, this implicit message is very important in helping the other person understand what we’re saying, and whether they agree with it.  It makes sense to be aware of this and realize that sending conflicting or negative implicit signals can make it more difficult to understand your message (or for the other person to accept it).

James:  Thanks for cutting me off!  You just failed your driving test, genius!
Pierre:  Oh yeah, well I bet you haven’t gotten laid in twenty years!

When we get insulted, it seems like our feelings may be mainly a reaction to two things:

• Feeling like other people may accept the insult as true and view us in a negative light
• Feeling attacked, and that others may now view us as having a lower position in the social hierarchy if we’re unable to defend ourselves

I imagine that giving a counter-insult addresses the second point — we’re defending ourselves, and not letting the other person get away with attacking us.

So attacking the other person back may keep us from looking like we’re lower on the social hierarchy, but it has its own problems.  You end up with an antagonistic relationship, where both of you come across as looking bad.  A better goal might be not just defending yourself, but defending yourself and having fun and maintaining the possibility of having a good relationship with the person who delivered the insult.  But how can you get there?

One way might be to “spin” what the other person said as playful or obviously exaggerated, without attacking them back.  Another is to sincerely call the person out on the attack (often indirectly), without taking offense.  Let’s look at the above scenario again, with some alternatives that Pierre might have used:

James:  Thanks for cutting me off!  You just failed your driving test, genius!
Pierre (Take 2):  Oh yeah?  Well you’re… a doody head!
Comments:  By making an obviously childish comeback, Pierre is spinning James’ insult as childish name-calling, and doing it in a funny way, without attacking James back (since “doody head” is not a serious insult).

James:  Thanks for cutting me off!  You just failed your driving test, genius!
Pierre (Take 3): Sorry, Officer Friendly — I’ll try harder next time!
Comments:  This time Pierre continues James’ comment about failing his driving test, by putting James as the officer giving the test.  This make it fun, without really attacking James back.  He does call James out on being unfriendly by calling him Officer Friendly.

Another example:

Biker:  Get out of the way!  Jesus, look at the traffic light please!
Pedestrian (sincerely):  Um, alright… It’s just a bike ride, dude.
Comments:  Biker didn’t really mean his remarks as a request (to look at the traffic light), since at that point it was too late — he meant it as an insult.  But by acting as if it were a request, and sincerely agreeing with the request, he throws Biker off and makes him look out of control and angry in contrast with Pedestrian’s calm and sincere response.  His sincerity also makes it possible for Biker to give a sincere response.

Doing an excellent job… on things that aren’t very important

It might seem that the most effective person would be the one who made sure things were done right.  After all, a great job is always better than a mediocre job, right?  This is true up to a point.  However, there is a fatal flaw in this reasoning, which is that it doesn’t consider that there is often a cost to doing a great job, which is often… spending more time on it.  Time isn’t free, and spending more time on something doesn’t just mean you’ll do a better job on that thing — it also means you’ll do something else less well, or not be able to do something else at all.  Bottom line:  spend a lot of time where it counts, and do an adequate job where it doesn’t count so much.

Doing things that improve our lives… a little bit

Doing things to better your life is of course a good thing, everything else being equal.  But again, there is a cost associated with doing something to improve you life, which is the time spent doing it.  Doing something that gives you a positive but small return may actually stand in the way of doing something that gives a bigger return.  Of course, some things we have no choice about — they must be done, even though we don’t get much out of them (unloading the dishwasher, for example).  But where we have a choice, not doing things that improve our lives a little may actually make time for doing things that improve our lives a lot.

Doing things we enjoy… a little bit

Continuing with our theme, anything that takes time has a cost.  Doing something you enjoy just a little bit can take time away from something you enjoy a lot.  For example, I enjoy checking the news online often during the day.  I’ve found that each time I check the news, I end up spending ten minutes or so reading news stories.  Over the course of a day, this adds up to a lot of time, and all I get out of it is… a very mild enjoyment.  This isn’t to say that taking a break isn’t important — it can be very useful to stop working and do something relaxing or unimportant for a bit to “recharge your batteries”.  But if something isn’t helping you be more productive later, and it’s not that enjoyable now, it might be hurting your productivity with little to show for it.

Doing things for others… because of social obligation and because we’re not assertive

Relationships are very important, and doing things for others can be among the most valuable things we do.  We may do things for others because we care about the other person, we get something valuable out of doing it ourselves, or because it’s a necessary part of our life (such as doing things for your boss at work).  These all make a lot of sense.  But there are other things that we do simply out of a sense of social obligation, because someone has asked us to do something (that may not even be important to them), and it can be difficult to say no without feeling uncomfortable or “looking like a jerk”.  Sometimes, you just don’t know how to say no without looking bad in an important relationship, and in such cases you may just have to give in.  But if the relationship isn’t especially important or (importantly) if you’re able to say no without coming across as a jerk, then being assertive can give you more time to do things that are important (for yourself or others).  So improving your skill at saying no without “looking like a jerk” can help you be more productive.

The bottom line may be that we should, but often don’t, take “the time it takes” into consideration when deciding what to do.  Additionally, we should probably consider the other things we won’t do in addition to the thing we’re currently considering doing or not doing.  The choice is often not between “doing a great job” and “doing a mediocre job” but rather between “doing a great job” and “doing a mediocre job PLUS getting something else done”.  Similarly, instead of a choice between “doing something I enjoy little” and “not doing something I enjoy a little”, there is instead a choice between “doing something I enjoy a little” and “not doing something I enjoy a little PLUS doing something I enjoy a lot”.

Depending on our political and religious beliefs, it might also include Obama being an “outstanding” or a “disaster” president, and it might include “we are physical machines described by the laws of physics” or alternatively, “Jesus is my Lord and Savior”.  We also have thoughts about what other people’s attitudes and beliefs are (such as “he did that because he only cares about himself”) as well as what we think the best course of action is in a given situation (“we should raise taxes to pay for the fight against global warming”).  Even our understanding of what happened in the past is part of our view of the world.  By a “view of the world” then, I simply mean everything we believe to be true about the world.

Our views of the world are, ultimately, in our heads.  Sometimes we have good reasons for our beliefs, sometimes they are based on incorrect information, and sometimes they are just guesses.  Sometimes we’re right, and sometimes we’re wrong.

When we’re interacting with other people, our views of the world often differ.

And we often want other people to accept our view of the world and attempt to “sell” them on our view.  For example, we might want others to agree with our political or religious beliefs (“We should present all sides of the story in biology, including intelligent design” vs. “Intelligent design goes against everything we know from science and doesn’t belong in the classroom”).  We might want others to agree with our view of the past (“You told me I could return this vacuum cleaner if it was defective!” vs. “I told you you have to contact the manufacturer with any problems!”).  And, we might want others to agree with our evaluation of ourselves (“I am an excellent driver” vs. “You are a terrible driver”).

We directly observe only a very few things, and yet we need to know about many things that we don’t directly observe — so we have to make guesses and inferences about things we don’t know.  Our views of the world are then part direct observation and part guessing (based on reasoning, past experiences, feelings, etc.).  This is one reason why there is so much room for disagreement, since much of everyone’s view of the world is not directly observable.  There is no easy way to verify who is right, so we argue about the more indirect parts of our views of the world.

For example, let’s say a member of Congress has been accused of spending public money for private vacations.  His opponents might have a view of the world that includes, unsurprisingly, that this congressman knowingly spent public money for lavish personal vacations.  The congressman himself on the other hand, might have a view of the world that holds that the trips were for legitimate official business, or that they were paid for with his own money and not the public’s.  So while the two sides have very different views of the world in some ways, they both agree that certain trips were taken.  The very fact that some of the information is not commonly known (what was done on the trips, where did the money come from) allows there to be disagreement about how to “fill in the gaps” around the known information.

These “not easily verifiable” areas are where “spin” comes in, in politics and in relationships in general.  In this example, the agreed on facts might be that this congressman took certain trips, and that he is being investigated.  Both sides then try to fill in the additional details with (and get others to believe) their own preferred view of things.  In this case the two sides might be “more corruption in Washington” vs. “a politically-motivated witch hunt targeting an innocent man”.  This also illustrates that

we sometimes want others to accept views of the world that we ourselves don’t believe

(whether this turns out to be a good idea or not).  In sales, we might want someone to believe that our brand of fertilizer is the best, even if we don’t think so ourselves.  In a job interview, we might want the interviewer to think that we’re outstanding in all areas, even if we have some doubts about some of our abilities.  And of course, sometimes we just outright lie about things (Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!”).

For right or wrong, there are practical reasons then why someone might try to sell others on a view they don’t themselves believe.  And there are (important) “values questions” about whether or not doing this is in general a good idea.  But aside from these, I’m particularly interested in this question from a “great relationships” perspective:

Are there times when trying to sell others on a view of the world you don’t hold is a good idea, in terms of helping you have great relationships?

This is related to previous posts (such as this one about being yourself and this one about great relationships).  In particular, it seems that sometimes getting people to accept certain views of the world can be a good thing (such as thinking they themselves are “awesome” or that the two of you have a close relationship).  At the same time, it also seems that being authentic and sharing your real thoughts and feelings makes for good relationships.  Many times there is no conflict — you actually believe the things that you want others to believe.  But what about times when you don’t quite believe the things you’d like people to accept?

Let me give an example.  Let’s say you have a problem with low self-esteem.  You don’t think you’re good at most things, but you know you have this problem and you’re working on it.  You’d like other people to believe you’re confident.  Does it make sense to act “as if” you’re confident?  This might help others like you more and treat you with more respect, and might even help you actually have more confidence.  However, as I’ve mentioned before, I think that sharing more of your real self in an authentic way has some strong benefits (such as feelings of intimacy).  And I think that sometimes being fake or pretending to support a view of the world that you don’t really hold can get in the way of those benefits.

Having said that, my current thinking is that there are some times when trying to sell a view of the world that is slightly different from the one you actually hold can be overall beneficial and have limited impact on the benefits of authenticity.  In this example, I think that trying to project confidence when you don’t really have it (within limits) can actually help you have more confidence, and can help others enjoy being around you more.  I do think you still have to be grounded in reality, and if you’re really anxious, admitting this might be the best thing to do.  And all of this should take place in a context of openness and authenticity, so that, for example, if someone asks you point blank if you’re nervous, you might share that you were (but perhaps in a funny way or with a dose of confidence thrown in, so they don’t incorrectly think you’re more anxious than you are).

As another example, take intentionally “misinterpreting” what someone says.  If someone asks you with a rude tone of voice “Why did you do that?”, you may believe they’re implying “that was a stupid thing to do”, but you can act as if they were asking you a legitimate question because they were interested.  So you can respond “Oh, because I love the theater and was interested in …” etc. — responding as if they asked a real question.  This can throw them off, since they now have to work harder to be a jerk — they have to be more direct in saying they think you did something stupid (which they may not be able to do without looking like a jerk).

I do think you have to be careful because if you do too much “selling views you don’t hold” you will come off as (and feel) fake.  I suspect that being authentic is a very important principle (for having great relationships) but that in a few judicious ways you can benefit from slight changes to the view of the world you’re selling, and still maintain an overall feel (and reality) of authenticity.  As always, I love to hear any thoughts on this.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.  — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Be yourself!”  We hear this phrase in many contexts — as advice for children worried about how to act at school, or for a junior high school student just starting to go on dates, or as general advice for having good relationships and friendships, not to mention endorsements from people like the esteemed Mr. Emerson mentioned above.  On the flip side, there are probably just as many jeering and booing as applauding this statement, suggesting that perhaps this advice doesn’t take the realities of the world into account, or that it is just too simplistic to be useful.  But what does it really mean to “be yourself”?  I think it’s not always clear what “being yourself” might mean, and not even clear what you might do to “be yourself” — but I do think that some of the ideas around “being yourself” may be relevant to having great relationships.

Saying what you “feel like saying” vs. Communicating what you feel

What might “being yourself” mean?  It could mean that you say whatever you feel like saying.  So if you’re at the opera and you feel like standing up and (inappropriately) shouting “Bravo!” in the middle of a quiet scene, you would do so.  If you’re physically attracted to someone, you would tell them, even if they’re married to your friend.  As you can imagine, saying and doing what you “feel like doing” can get you into a lot of trouble.  And sometimes our feelings conflict — we might feel like saying two different things at the same time.  So there may be some problems with saying what you feel like saying.

Perhaps even more importantly, what we feel like saying in the moment may not accurately reflect what we actually feel, as paradoxical as this may sound.  One great example of this is that when we are angry, we may have a strong urge to verbally hurt or attack the other person.  In this state, we may feel like saying things simply because they will hurt the other person, not because they actually reflect our feelings, such as “I never loved you”, etc.  And as much as we wish it weren’t the case, it seems to be part of human nature that it sometimes just “feels good” to criticize someone or yell at someone, regardless of whether we really believe the criticisms (take “Judge Judy”, for example, who seems to really enjoy telling people off).  In other words, feeling like saying something and feeling that something are two different things.

So I would propose that something more useful than “saying what you feel like saying” would be… trying to successfully communicate what you actually think and feel to others.  And here I’m going to start using “being yourself” to mean just that.  There are probably other things that would also be useful here too (such as following your own ideas about the best course of action instead of what others think is best), but for now I’ll focus on trying to accurately communicate your real thoughts and feelings.  As used here, “being yourself” can be contrasted with withholding your thoughts and feelings by not sharing them, or making up fake “thoughts and feelings” which you pretend to have but don’t really.

Communicating our thoughts and feelings applies to the words that we say, and it also applies to the emotion we express in our tone of voice, body language, facial expression, and so forth.  And it also should probably mean that we talk about things we are actually interested in (instead of pretending to be interested in things we’re not) and not just repeating things that we’ve heard other people say just to talk (but rather saying things we actually mean or care about).

Communicating your real thoughts and feelings takes skill

Saying what you feel like saying may take a lot of courage (whether it turns out to be a good idea or not), but it takes very little skill — you just blurt out whatever comes to mind.  Communicating your real thoughts and feelings so that someone else understands them, on the other hand, is hard to do well and can require a lot of skill.

Our real thoughts and feelings are often complex — we win an award and feel proud, but also embarrassed;  we find one of our friend’s habits extremely annoying, but also love and respect her.  Given this complexity and how intangible our thoughts and feelings can be, it can be difficult to communicate them so that the other person really understands them accurately.  For example, if our friend invites us to dinner and we’d like to go but are too busy, and if we just tell the friend that we’re too busy, they might believe that the relationship isn’t important to us.  In this case, it would take work to communicate the whole picture, that in fact (it turns out) we actually do value the relationship.

So communicating what you are actually thinking and feeling is a skill, and not something that can just occur by “not filtering” or “saying what you feel like saying”.

Social modification

So I’ve described what I’ll mean here by “being yourself”.  But is being yourself (by trying to communicate your real thoughts and feelings) a good idea?  To explore this, I want to bring up the opposite of being yourself, which I call “social modification”, which is trying to express not what you really think and feel, but some altered version of those.

We all learn from a very early age that other people have strong reactions to our actual thoughts and feelings.  Sometimes these reactions are positive, and sometimes they can be quite negative.  For example, a young child might learn that telling a certain joke gets the grownups to laugh and say she’s funny, but expressing her dislike for one of mommy’s friends results in a lecture and an upset mommy.  Sharing what we’re really thinking can make us vulnerable — others may be angry with us or make fun of us or try to hurt us in some way if they don’t like what we say.

Being the intelligent creatures that we are, we soon learn that by hiding, faking, or exaggerating our emotions we can change the reactions we get from people.  In this way, we socially modify what we say to others, our tone of voice, and body language.  In short, we become actors.

Social modification can be a good thing

Making social modifications to our conversation clearly has benefits.  We avoid anger, disgust, and other negative reactions that other people might have to some of the things we might say.  For example, telling someone you “hate” the Christmas present they just gave you might result in them feeling hurt and angry, which is not only bad for you (having to deal with their anger) but also for them (feeling hurt).  More seriously, in some countries expressing certain opinions is not only unpopular, but against the law, and hiding your true thoughts and feelings can be necessary just for your physical safety.  So there can be serious consequences to what we express.

And in addition to avoiding negative outcomes, making social modifications to what we say can also result in positive outcomes.  If we pretend we’re really excited that an acquaintance just arrived at a party (even though we feel just so-so about it), the acquaintance may feel good about themselves (people like having them around), which in turn may make them like being around us.  This could even lead down the road to a deeper friendship.  Similarly, telling stories we’re not really interested in, just to be able to have something to say, might ease any social awkwardness that could result from having nothing to say, and then later we may have a chance to talk about things that we are really interested in.

Some possible benefits of being yourself / not socially modifying

Like most things, social modification can be taken to an unhealthy extreme, and there are some pretty clear examples where social modification can be bad.  Lying to people in an attempt to deceive and take advantage of them, or withholding important information as an attempt to hurt others, seem clearly to be examples of social modification gone awry.  But what about the more mild types of social modification — giving others false compliments, exaggerating our excitement for something we think others like, hiding our excitement for something we like that’s unpopular?  Are there any benefits to sharing your real thoughts and feelings and not socially modifying?  I think that there can be a number of benefits:

Feelings of intimacy. It can just feel good to know a lot about another person and to have them know a lot about you.

Not having to spend effort trying to figure out what others think. We spend a lot of effort trying to figure out what other people are thinking and feeling.  When others are open and honest with us, we can stop trying to figure this out, and feel confident that we know what the situation is with them.  Others also enjoy not having to figure out what we really think.

More accurate understanding of what others think. Similarly, when we guess what other people are thinking and feeling, we often make mistakes.  This can lead to misunderstandings and unnecessary issues.  Communicating what’s really going on can clear these up.

Not having to spend effort maintaining “dual realities”. It takes a lot of work to keep up not only with what we really think but also with a socially modified version of things.  Whether we’re pretending to feel differently than we do or think differently than we really think, we have to remember the role we’re playing, put effort into generating fake emotions, and can’t “let our guard down” for fear of letting our real thoughts and feelings come out.

Getting what you want. By saying what you really want, think, and feel, you are able to have a discussion with others about those things, and this allows what your really think and want to be considered by others.  If you don’t say what you really want, it’s difficult for people to give it to you, even if they are willing to do so.  Similarly, if you have concerns about things or issues with other people, they are often unlikely to be addressed unless you communicate those concerns or issues.

Feedback and help from others. Through sharing what’s really going on in your life, you are able to get others’ opinions, suggestions, and assistance.  If you’re facing a problem and you keep it to yourself, you have to deal with it alone.  On the other hand, if you share it with others they may have ideas about solutions to your problem you may not have thought about.

Feeling like people understand you. People sometimes say that they want to be “understood”.  And I think that we do want to feel like other people “get” what we think and feel.  Sharing our real thoughts and feelings makes this possible.

Feeling free. I think there is a sense of freedom that comes with letting people know what you really think.  And conversely, there can be a sense of constraint in trying to conform to what others expect or want, or in trying to pretend in order to please others.

Gives the impression of strength. One of the perhaps more subtle benefits of sharing what’s really going on is that it can actually be viewed as a sign of strength.  Given the benefits that can come from sharing your real thoughts, in many cases it would make sense to “be yourself” unless there were reasons not to.  I suspect that many of the reasons for not sharing are based on some kind of weakness, and that deep down we have a sense of this.  In this way, there is a sense in which someone who shares their real thoughts may appear strong, and someone who socially modifies may appear weak (there are exceptions of course).  For example:
         1) A strong person doesn’t have to worry too much about what others think, and so is free to say what they really think.  A weaker person is very concerned about what others think and may try to gain approval through changing what they say to fit with what others want.
         2) A person who has nothing to hide can say what they really think, but hiding your real thoughts suggests you may have some weakness that you don’t want people to know about.
         3) Alternatively, you may not say what you really thinking because the other person is weak and “can’t handle the truth” of what you really think.
         Because of these (and because people have a sense of this), the very act of not being open and honest (which people can often tell) can come across as being weak.  For example, the kid at the party who appears to be talking about things he doesn’t really think in an effort to get people to like him, ends up coming across as very uncool.

So how does this all shake out?

It seems like there are benefits to social modifying, but also benefits to being yourself by not socially modifying and trying to communicate your real thoughts and feelings.  So, to socially modify or to not socially modify?  To be yourself or to not be yourself?  As is often the case, I suspect the best approach lies somewhere in between.

It seems to me that when possible, sharing what’s really going on can be the most rewarding — it can lead to intimacy, getting what you want, feelings of freedom, and knowing what others are thinking instead of having to guess.

The benefits of socially modifying include helping you avoid other people’s hurt feelings or disapproval, and getting good things you can’t seem to get otherwise (telling a story you’re not interested in at a party in order to get people to like you).  You might also socially modify because people you care about find certain things unpleasant (such as not talking about how great your girlfriend is around someone who’s just been through a bad breakup).

However, I imagine that there are often skillful ways to avoid bad outcomes / obtain good outcomes and be authentic and honest at the same time.  For example, when sharing something that might hurt someone’s feelings, you could deliver it in a way that shows you think that overall the person is great (that this thing doesn’t affect your relationship or their awesomeness).  And at parties you could be more skilled at coming up with stories that you actually care about.

To sum up, I imagine that “being yourself” is very rewarding when you can pull it off, but that sometimes socially modifying is necessary.  Through getting more skilled, we may increase the range of situations that we can “be ourselves” in.

And, I actually think that this feeling is right — I think that very frequently I’m not in fact doing everything I could to make my life great.

So it seems like there are two problems here then:

Problem #1:  A bad feeling that seems to say we’re not doing our best

Problem #2:  Actually… not doing our best — resulting in lower productivity and behavior that is less than optimal for helping us reach our goals

Before we go on I want to clarify a few things that I don’t mean by “doing your best”:

• I don’t mean doing everything that other people think you should be doing.  This includes society, bosses, religion, parents, friends, moral rules, etc..  That is, of course, unless you happen to think that they’re right about something.
• I don’t mean being a workaholic.  I think the best life often involves working hard, but also enjoying yourself.  And even the best way to be productive sometimes is to take breaks.
• I don’t mean being successful.  We only have limited knowledge, we can’t predict the future, there are many things beyond our control, etc., so all we can do (obviously) is the “best” we can do, given our limitations and what we know now.  Doing the best that we can may be unsuccessful, and our “best” decisions may turn out badly.  But, they’re our best shot at success.

There are a couple of approaches we could take to addressing these problems.  A classic solution to Problem #1 is to suggest that we “stop being so hard on ourselves / cut ourselves some slack”.  I suspect that some variation of this could work — if you stop caring so much about “doing your best”, you might stop feeling bad about it.  I think some version of this may turn out to be a good idea.  However, I don’t think this addresses Problem #2 — if you just “cut yourself some slack”, you’ll still likely end up doing just what you’ve been doing, which is… not your best.

Another solution might sound ridiculous, but here it is:  Do your best.  Crazy, isn’t it?  This would work (duh) because it would  1) help you feel like you’re doing your best (because you are), and  2) mean that you’re doing everything possible to reach your goals, given what you know now.

Of course, this would be a simple solution if only doing your best were easy, which it is certainly not.  But I don’t think we should just dismiss doing our best out of hand, as if it were an impossible dream.  If it were possible, it might not only help us reach our goals, but also help us feel better about things even when they don’t work out the way we’d like.  I suspect that some version of doing your best is possible.  Here’s one (partial) idea about how you might go about doing your best, which is, admittedly, not easy either:

Conscious Decision Making + Discipline = Doing Your Best?

It might be that doing your best involves two components:

• Conscious Decision Making: Consciously thinking about and deciding on what the best course of action is, to the best of your knowledge (discussed in a previous post).
• Discipline: Being able to actually do what you’ve decided the best course of action is, even if it’s difficult.

Of these two, I think that discipline is by far the more difficult.  Discipline is also probably what most people think of first when they think about being productive.  However, I’ve been trying to do these two for a while now, and I’ve found that I frequently forget to consciously decide what to do (which often results in not doing my best).  As simple as it sounds, one of the biggest indicators of whether I end up doing something approximating my best, is whether I’m consciously asking myself what I think the best action is.  I’ve also found that conscious decision making seems to help with discipline — it’s hard to do the right thing when you don’t even know what the right thing is.

Of course, there are still questions such as What’s the best way to make decisions? and How do you get discipline? (big questions indeed).  But perhaps it’s a start.

Much of the time, we just act “automatically”, without really thinking about our decisions.  This is often a good thing, since if we thought about every single decision, we’d soon spend so much time thinking that we’d never get anything done.  Imagine, for example, if you had to give serious thought to which shoe to tie first or whether to take a bite of your french fries or your hamburger next.  In short, we couldn’t function if we had to give thought to every decision.

Conscious and unconscious

To digress for a moment (to give some background), I think it’s helpful to make a distinction between “conscious” and “unconscious” aspects of the brain.  By this I simply mean that there’s a lot going on in your brain, and that much of what happens, happens outside of our awareness, i.e. unconsciously.  For example, when you hear a sound, you can “just tell” where it comes from (as in “it’s coming from over there!”).  In fact (and horrifyingly for some!), behind the scenes your brain is doing a lot of complex math to compare the sounds from your two ears to figure out where the source of the sound is.  The mathematical analysis of the sounds is happening unconsciously, while the sense of “where the sound is coming from”, the result of that analysis, is present in consciousness.

To avoid confusion, by “unconscious” I’m not talking about some sort of Freudian unconscious with secret personalities running around your brain having their own distinct thoughts and feelings (such as the “id”, the “superego”, etc.).

To get back to decision making, I think that much of our decision making happens unconsciously, meaning that our brain just handles making the decision, without the decision being consciously thought about.  Conscious decision making, on the other hand, happens when we consciously think about a decision, and come to a conclusion about what the best course of action would be.  We sometimes engage in conscious decision making for important decisions (“should I accept Job Offer A or Job Offer B?”) or when making a group decision (the dreaded business meeting or deciding where to eat with friends).

Conscious decision making influences, but doesn’t control, our actions

I should add an important caveat here.  By conscious decision making I mean (as just described) that we consciously think about several courses of action and come to a conclusion about which one we think is best.  However, we’ve probably all had the experience of thinking about the best thing to do, making a decision… and then doing something completely different.  For example, if you’re single you might have the experience of seeing someone you’re attracted to, debating whether to approach them, consciously deciding that you should in fact go talk to them… and then walking away out of fear of rejection.  So it seems that making a “conscious decision” (thinking about the best course of action) may influence what we actually do, but doesn’t directly control what we actually do.

While making decisions without thinking is certainly good in some cases (which shoe to tie first), I suspect that in other cases we might benefit from more conscious decision making.  For example, we’ve probably all had days where we’ve “wasted time” doing something unimportant, later wishing we had done something else, and yet at no point did we consciously decide to spend our time as we did.

Anxiety is very successful at carrying out these three purposes, by 1) drawing our attention to danger, 2) making us feel miserable until the danger is no longer a threat, and 3) pumping adrenaline, increasing our heart rate, and other physiological changes that prepare the body for action.

Since it helps us avoid negative outcomes, anxiety is in many ways a good thing.  But in spite of its benefits, anxiety has its downsides as well:

• It can continue to make us miserable even when we’re doing all that can be done
• It can make us miserable about dangers that aren’t very important or which are extremely unlikely
• It can actually make a negative outcome more likely (such as worrying about a presentation the next day making us unable to sleep the night before)
• The physical changes caused by anxiety are often inappropriate for the actual danger faced (for example, a rapid heart rate today doesn’t help you face being laid off next month)
• The physical changes can have negative long-term effects on our health (heart attacks, ulcers).

Because of these downsides of anxiety, there are reasons to try to limit the amount of anxiety we have in our lives.  However, if we lower our anxiety, can we still take future dangers seriously, and take action when needed?  Since anxiety helps make us aware of dangers and work to prevent them, might we be less likely to pay attention to danger or to work hard if we don’t have much anxiety?

In support of this idea that “relaxation means less performance”, we have probably all seen Buddhist monks or meditation “gurus”, who seem very relaxed but at the same time also seem almost kind of… out of it.  In other words, if we get rid of anxiety might we lose some of our ability to effectively cope (in actions) with the everyday urgencies of life?  I don’t know if this perception is accurate (it may very well not be), but my question is, is it possible to be relaxed and relatively free from anxiety, and at the same time perform at a high level?

I don’t know the answer to this, but my guess is that the answer is “yes”.  My own sense is that it may be possible to use the built-in anxiety / danger-detecting machinery that we have to give us information about dangers, but at the same time be able to consciously turn it off when necessary (or at least to turn off the “making us feel miserable and cranking our heart rate” part of it).  In other words, keep the information, get rid of the misery and physiological changes.  I imagine this might work by allowing anxiety to initially alert us to danger as it usually does, but then being able to turn it off (perhaps through attentional training or other techniques).

My working definition of a “great relationship” is one in which… you feel great and the other person feels great.

In other words, lots of really good feelings, not so many bad feelings.  This might be simple, but I think it gets at what is really important.  Relationships, like everything else, can be measured by how much they further our goal of just… being happy.  So the next question is of course:

So what kinds of things cause good feelings in relationships?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and based on my own personal experience and what I’ve read, I’ve come up with six ideas — six things that I suspect make a big difference in whether a relationship has a lot of good feelings:

• Lots of High Value, Not Much Low / Negative Value
• Lots of You, Not Much “Not-You”
• Awesomeness
• Awareness
• There’s Something (Good) Going On
• Independence

Lots of High Value, Not Much Low / Negative Value

As obvious as this may sound, one of the aspects of great relationships may be that there are many highly enjoyable (or otherwise important) interactions in the relationship, and relatively few minimally enjoyable or unenjoyable interactions.  This is especially important in conversation — you want lots of things that are valuable or enjoyable, and few things that are neutral or negative in the conversation.

Examples of high value might include:  humor, playfulness, fun, adventure, discussing topics you’re both interested in, being present to what each of you is really thinking or feeling, doing an activity you both enjoy, or being shown something new or a new way to get something you want.

On the other end of the spectrum, examples of low / negative value might be:  a boring story, talk about something you don’t find interesting, an insult, or complaining.

Lots of You, Not Much “Not-You”

We all have our own unique way of looking at the world.  Sometimes we share our real thoughts and feelings with others, but sometimes we choose not to share.  Other times, we not only withhold our own perspective, but actively pretend we have thoughts and feelings that we don’t have.  For example, we might pretend to like something we don’t, or ask questions when we don’t really care about hearing the answers.

I suspect that one of the things that causes good feelings is to have a lot of your real thoughts and feelings “out there” in the relationship, meaning people know what you think, how you’re feeling, and what’s going on in your life.  Similarly, I suspect that putting “not you” out there results in bad feelings (though, say, having to pretend in order to please others or having to talk about something boring).  This means that relationships with more real thoughts and feelings “out there” might result in better feelings than relationships with less of ourselves or more fake thoughts and feelings.

Awesomeness

As I described in a previous post, we’re constantly telling “stories” about what happens to us.  These stories give meaning and value to our experiences, in the sense that they tell us how the things that happen to us fit in to a bigger picture of things we care about.  For example:  Is this job going well or poorly?  Am I popular or unpopular?  Is Sally really my friend or is she just out for herself?  And so on.

Since our stories are interpretations, there is a lot of room for “creativity” on the part of the storyteller (which is each of us).  In other words, we could tell wildly different stories about the same set of experiences.  When coming up with our own stories, I think we have to take into consideration both being true to the facts AND telling the story we want to be true.  And sometimes, the stories we tell have a big influence on what happens.  For example, if I tell the story “Sally and I have a great friendship”, then I may act in such a way that we do indeed become good friends.  On the other hand, if my story is “Sally is jealous of me and I can’t trust her”, then my resulting actions may very well lead to a negative relationship.

Not surprisingly, when our stories are favorable, we tend to feel good, such as “I’m good at my job” or “People like me”.  And when our stories are unfavorable, we tend to feel bad, such as “I’m lousy at my job” or “People hate me”.

Back to “awesomeness”.  One of the things we want very much is, quite simply, to be awesome.  We want to be competent and a good person and skilled and special.  When part of our “story” about ourselves includes being awesome, we feel good.  And importantly, if you can make another person feel that they are awesome, then they will feel great.

This brings me to what I call mutual awesomeness.  Mutual awesomeness is when the “story” you tell is that you and the other person are both awesome.  Being awesome together can be a great feeling.

In contrast, things that aren’t mutual awesomeness include:  low self-esteem (where one person thinks they are crappy even if they think other person is great), derogatory (where one person thinks the other person is crappy), and “mutual crappiness” (where the story is that both of you are losers).

Additionally, it also feels good to think that life in general and our present circumstances are also awesome.  Therefore, the more the story we tell is that things are going well and that the future is bright, the better we feel.

A lot of great feelings can come from being around people that we respect, who make us feel great about ourselves and the future.

Of course, all of this has to be tempered with an awareness and facing of reality, which is dealt with in the next section.  The idea is that you balance portraying things as awesome with being aware of things as they really are.

Awareness

Awareness means that you are in touch with your current situation and with what other people are thinking and feeling.  It feels good to be around someone who “gets it” and understands your perspective.  It’s also nice to be around someone who is aware of things such as their own weaknesses and limitations, whether someone is being serious or joking, and social realities and cultural expectations in general.

There’s Something (Good) Going On

As simple as it sounds, this one means that you treat the relationship as if there is a relationship, and as if the relationship is a good, close one.  And yes, this is another “story”.  For example, let’s say you just met someone new at work.  The next time you see them in the break room, do you say hello, or just go about your business without saying anything?  By acknowledging them, you are making a statement that the two of you do have a relationship.  In contrast, not saying anything sends the opposite signal, that you don’t have much of a relationship.

This carries over to other things as well, such as inviting them to do things or sharing things that are going on in your life.

Independence

As important as it is to have a real sense of there being a relationship, it is also important to have a real sense that the two of you are also independent, in that you retain your own perspective, feelings, opinions, and actions.  I suspect that a fundamental human desire is to both have relationships and retain some sense of independence.  I also think that we like being around others who can act independently.

Being independent means that you can challenge each other, call each other out on inconsistencies, or disagree about things and have that be okay.

Technique #1: This technique is based on the idea that anxiety is present when there is a possible danger in the environment, in order to make sure you are paying attention to the danger and doing everything in your power to prevent the danger from affecting you.  If you can “satisfy” the anxiety by attending to the danger, taking appropriate measures to deal with it, and being convinced that you have done all you can do, the anxiety will no longer need to be there and can be reduced.

1. Name the danger. Often we have a feeling of anxiety without explicitly thinking about what we are anxious about.  So the first step is to get specific about what we’re worried about — what is the possible danger?  Sometimes there will be several dangers at the same time, in which case you should pick one to focus on first, and then repeat these steps with the remaining ones.
2. Figure out what you can and should do about the danger. The next step is to form a plan — what should you do about the danger?  Sometimes the answer is “nothing”, which is okay.  You may not know specifics about all that will have to be done, which is also okay — you just need an overall plan and next steps.
3. Decide to implement your plan. This step simply involves deciding that you will carry out your plan.
4. Write down any future actions you’ll need to remember. This can be in a “to do” list on paper or in a computer or your cell phone, etc.  The important thing is that you no longer need to rely on anxiety to remind you.
5. Determine whether continued anxiety is helpful. Anxiety does serve a very useful purpose in some cases.  In particular, it prepares your body to deal with short-term threats by increasing your heart rate, releasing adrenaline, etc.  If you are in a situation where you may need to respond to a short-term threat, such as someone following you at night, then it makes sense to keep the anxiety turned on.  However, in many other cases the threat is longer-term or of such a nature that increased heart rate, etc. is unhelpful.  Ask yourself, “Does having a fast heartbeat and sweaty palms and feeling terrible help me handle this situation?”
6. If further anxiety is not helpful, imagine thanking and dismissing the anxiety. You can thank the anxiety for bringing this potential danger to your attention, and let it know that it’s services are no longer required.  It has provided a useful function, but staying longer is not necessary since you’re handling the situation and doing all that you can do.  If there is nothing that can be done, you’re still doing all that is possible, and so anxiety is still no longer needed.

Technique #2. This technique uses the idea that sadness, in contrast with anxiety, is about negative things that have already happened or which you can do nothing about, whereas anxiety is about something that hasn’t yet happened and which you might be able to avoid.  In a sense, sadness and anxiety may be incompatible emotions.  Of course, things get complicated and depression and anxiety can very much co-exist, but there still may be a sense in which a type of sadness is incompatible with anxiety.  The idea here, then, is to imagine that the worst has already happened and evoke sadness, which may cause the anxiety to dissipate.  [As a side note, I personally have found that sadness often isn't nearly as unpleasant as anxiety, and in fact sometimes doesn't seem unpleasant at all, ironically.]

1. Name the danger. Same as above — get explicit about the possible danger.
2. Figure out what the worst-case scenario is. Try to imagine the worst possible outcome, even if that scenario is unlikely.  Don’t hold back — think of all of the negative consequences of this worst case.
3. Imagine that the worst-case scenario has already happened. Try to vividly imagine that the worst has happened.  The more details and negative consequences, the better.  Imagine that there is no more time to fear the worst — it has already happened.
4. Think about how much it sucks that this has happened. Think about how awesome it would have been if things had gone differently, and how everything is ruined now that this has happened, exaggerating the negative outcome if possible.  If you can work up some tears, so much the better.  The worst has happened, now you’re going to have to live with it.  Imagine this for a few minutes, and see if the sadness lessens the anxiety.