Anita:

Thank you for your in depth response! Very interesting that you brought up the external locus of control. What you said makes sense and I am familiar with the term. What is interesting though is that for the last few years I have felt what I thought was a very strong internal locus of control. To the point that I felt how people respond to me is mostly a product of how I feel and am projecting myself. For instance when working in retail, I made a point not to complain about ‘bad customers’ as 99% of the time if I was in a positive place that energy would seemingly just be reflected back to me.

I am not sure what has changed, that all of a sudden I am bending like water. Although I have always to an extent – more recently it feels extreme and trying to avoid it can often feel even less natural.

I feel myself at times ‘snap out’ of this whole chase but again, its only 5% of my life currently where I snap out of it and have a good time.

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Josie:

Haha I can resonate with the “do I have an authentic self?” question as of recently. I think I do, but I’m not sure where it hides, or how I find it when I want to.

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Eliana:

Yes I think this is a core part of it. And I do feel very restricted. Following this kind of advice for the last 5 years. I have been very ambitious and when I had spare time I would listen to audiobooks (e.g. whether walking, travelling, driving, gardening, brushing my teeth- Any time I can multi-task I would listen to self-development audiobooks). I really believed that I would reach a point where I couldn’t not integrate these principles and become highly successful like the people these books talk about. With the amount of effort I was putting in how could I not?

However, like you said these claims are very restrictive and they talk about things like ‘life’ so I would try to apply these principles to my ‘life’ in what I am guessing is an unqualified way. So i thought, if I am going to ‘CRUSH’ business meetings and high stake things in the future – it should be a walk in the park to be good in low pressure places like grabbing a coffee, ordering some food etc. But I put my own pressure on and now doing these things make me feel some uncomfort, whether anticipated on in the interaction. Its strange because I do put myself in high pressure situations and often cope (e.g. presenting to schools or at workshops,  training exercises in the military) yet basic things can rip me apart. And it leave me not knowing when I am going to get up infant of a crowd if I am going to be highly confident or crumble. I actually don’t know – because its so inconsistent.

I didn’t expect to write that much –> But feels good to get it out and have other people give their thoughts.

Eliana: 

Thank you for going into detail sharing some of your story. I appreciate it

For me, I don’t remember being a ‘pleaser’ growing up. I grew up only with my mum, but she loved me and my brother and gave us everything she could, I didn’t feel disadvantaged by it. But as I progressed through high school I became more self-conscious and less free spirited, although confidence did built in other areas.

Yet toward the end of high school I started reading self help books which their extremely big claims like “you can be anything” “you can do anything” “always be confident” “if you do this you can xyz” kinda stuff and I really took it on. And by trying to be better in my ‘life’ in every area, over time I think it has resulted in me adapting to be better in each area based on that areas standards, instead of bringing myself to that place. And as I mentioned now its sometimes adapting to each person I speak to which if at a workshop or at work talking to colleagues can be very decentering. With customers its not usually a big issue, but as a customer I struggle to feel comfortable over the last few years as I ‘try to be a good customer’ too instead of being myself and now I just find the whole process awkward. Its weird because I can be very comfortable and at ease at parties ususally and just recently made it onto a video at a music festival which was just me high fiving people and giving out free stuff as a volunteer (shared to a 100k+ following) and then I feel self-conscious and shut down trying to order a coffee.

I’m rambling a bit now – but basically it feels like the ridged adoption of poor unqualified beliefs over a number of years has really got me in some knots I don’t know how to get out of now that its automatic and unconscious.

I like what you said about boundaries too. Something I have been noticing recently and I am happy you have remained me in your message!

Anita-
The girl I was dating was buy a book at the bookshop. I wasn’t into reading books….pretty standard for a lot of 17 year olds. So while she was looking I checked out the non-fiction sortof business/self-development kinda stuff. And Im like hey this stuff is cools so i bought a book. It wasn’t that i was coming from a frame of ‘I need to be better’, but rather ‘I can get ahead’ this stuff is really helpful and I just wanted to learn amore and more, it was a real interest. But these books send a message that you can always be doing more better etc one of the quotes was “In bed think about impossible things” – I’m like thats awesome. And over time, for simple situations I would go ‘how can i make the best use of my time and how can I get something out of X’. And I’m guessing that this mindset translated over to social things ‘ How can i have the best impact in this simple non-significant encounter. Hmm how can I make them feel better? whats going to be the smoothest interaction. And I really thought with practise anything was possible so I could become really good at these different things, which will help me in the future for business etc.

^ Im sure this is not the whole picture though. Im sure I got self-conscious at times for many things. I have always cared a lot about what people think of me such has not going out until I’m dressed the way i want to. But in lower high school and end of primary I got a lot of attention from girls and people in general.

It quite contextual. I can be super awkward for periods. Then other periods in summer I get a lot more comfortable and confident. And when I do army reserve training where there is a culture of ‘not trying’ literally if you tried to please someone it feels awkward. its just not about that. And in this environment I’m probably one of the most natural confident guys at army training. Then at other times I go to pay for petrol and feel like I have to be nice and acknowledge them with a smile or some eye contact before i leave even if I’m NOT in the mood. other times – that kind of shit never enter my mind. If I am with my close friends, just having them around gives me a lot of confident no matter what the environment and I feel a lot more confident than most people.

Its just so transient and changing. And because this happens, i over analyse it in my mind a lot (although I try not to and try to be present etc instead. Then sometimes i think but I have to think about it to solve it, then I got well its probably that I’m thinking is why its happening so then sometimes I start a ‘mindful’ dialogue that is a dialogue non-the less.

The only strategy I can think of is to try meditate more and work towards cutting the over thinking><