it still doesn’t help. you can call yourself as many names as you want, but it won’t make you a better, happier, healthier or kinder person.
punishment doesn’t work. only positive reinforcement does. be kind to yourself and get better.
But what if positive reinforcement also doesn’t work.
it does, it just takes a little effort and precision. you need to pick a particular thing to reinforce - let’s say starting conversations with strangers for example.
you decide to say hi to a stranger to try and make a new friend. you two start talking and it seems to be going well, but after a bit they look uncomfortable, make an excuse and leave.
your first instinct might be to punish yourself for this. you might say to yourself things like, “god, you idiot, you’re a fucking weirdo! why can’t you just hold a normal conversation? stupid, stupid, stupid!”
this is what’s called a positive punishment, because you’re introducing a stimulus (self-deprecation) that will deter you from attempting to do that again. the next time you think about saying hi to a stranger, you’ll remember how badly you perceived (key word - it’s only your perception!) this one went, and you’re less likely to try again.
positive reinforcement for that sort of situation might go something like this:
“well, that didn’t go as well as i hoped. i can’t really tell what went wrong, but it could’ve been any number of things, including something that wasn’t to do with me at all. it’s best not to worry about it. i’ll try again next time and hope it goes better.”
rationalising like this is hard as hell to do and often requires a lot of repetition and consoling yourself, but by rewarding rather than punishing yourself for the interaction not going as you’d hoped it would you set yourself up for repeating the behaviour with more confidence and doing better next time. this kind of template can be applied to pretty much everything you’re trying to do.
remember, don’t try to deter yourself from doing things you want to be doing.
Okay but what if you like, do call yourself names? But instead of bad names make them good ones like ‘beautiful’ or ‘genius’ or ‘radical broski’ or something?
