The Definitive Case for Never Beating Yourself Up Again

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I want to address a fear that often comes up for people when they start thinking better thoughts about themselves.

They start to notice themselves feeling good. And then they pause. And they say something like “Hang on. This feels risky. If I feel good about myself today, why would I try to be more successful tomorrow? Won’t I just laze around and do nothing? Won’t I lose my edge? And then won’t I lose everything?”

They tell me, in essence: It is dangerous to feel good about myself and my life.

And here’s what that might sound like:

If I tell myself I’m beautiful now, I won’t be motivated to lose weight.

If I tell myself I’m brilliant and successful as I am, I won’t be motivated to work hard.

If I tell myself I’m a whole and complete person when I’m single, I won’t be motivated to go on dates.

These are all beliefs, not facts.

And these beliefs reveal an assumption, which is: There is some part of me that doesn’t want to do the things that I need to do to get to my goal.

I like to call this the Saint and the Goblin story. When you believe this story, you think that there are two people inside you. There’s The Long Term Saint, who sets goals and makes plans and creates this incredible life vision for yourself. And there’s The Short Term Goblin, who just fucks up every choice in the moment and makes your life hell and prevents you from getting what you want.

And when you see the world this way, your whole life becomes a battle between the Saint and the Goblin. Every time you do something that doesn’t align with your goals, you think “Oh shit! The Goblin is winning! If I don’t stop him, he’ll mess up everything!” So you look for plans and systems and tactics and environments that you think will keep the Goblin at bay. When you “do well,” you give yourself a gold star. When you “do badly,” you beat yourself up.

And everything you’re doing makes total sense, within this belief system. You’re acting completely logically in the context of your underlying belief, which is: I can’t trust myself.

Let me offer you an alternate perspective.

There’s no such thing as The Short Term Goblin.

As soon as you want something, you already want to do all the things that will get you there.

The only thing that can stop you from doing those things is if YOU make it a painful experience.

I know this feels unintuitive, but stay with me.

If someone came up to me and said, “Pooja, you’re terrible at playing baseball. You can’t throw, you can’t catch, and you can’t hit. You never practice and you’ll never get better.”

You know what my response would be? “Yep! I sure am! Why are you talking to me? I don’t give a shit about baseball.”

And after that conversation, I would continue to not practice baseball. I would continue to have “bad throws” and “bad catches.” And I would feel completely fine.

When you don’t want something, you feel no pain when you take no action towards getting it. My blank baseball practice log, and my low batting average, and my complete lack of practice discipline don’t bother me. I couldn’t care less.

This also means that the pain you feel when you see yourself not taking action toward your goals is proof of how badly you want to take action.

You are not lazy. You are not unmotivated. You are not broken. And you definitely don’t “need to want it more.”

So what’s going on? Why would you not do something that you wanted to do?

The only reason is if it felt painful to do it.

And the only reason it would feel painful to do something is because of what you tell yourself while you’re doing it.

And one of the major sources of your pain is your own Goblin story about yourself.

If you think “I’m so fat and ugly. I need to get my shit together,” every time you eat a salad, you are making eating salads painful. You are blocking yourself from doing something you actually want to do.

If you think “I’m so hot and I deserve to be even hotter,” every time you eat a salad, you are making eating salads fun. You are getting out of your own way and supporting yourself in doing something you already want to do.

If you think “I’m so behind. I can’t believe I haven’t done this yet,” every time you work, you are making working painful.

If you think, “I’m fucking brilliant, and I can’t wait to see what genius thing I come up with today,” you are making working fun.

If you think “I’m a failure for still being single. Why can’t I just pick somebody?” every time you go on a date, you are making dates painful.

If you think, “I have a great life. There’s no way for me to screw this up,” every time you go on a date, you are making dates fun.

You think there’s something in you that doesn’t want to do things, and you need to beat yourself up to make yourself do those things.

But here’s what actually happens when you believe the Saint and the Goblin story:

1. You want your goal. You want to do the things that will get you to your goal.

2. But you believe you can’t be trusted. You believe that the only way to prevent the Goblin from taking over is to be harsh and vigilant and strict with yourself.

3. Those harsh and vigilant thoughts — even though they were well-intentioned! — make doing that thing painful.

4. So of course, next time that thing comes up, you avoid doing it. Nobody likes pain!

5. But because you believe the Goblin story, you interpret your avoidance as proof that the Goblin exists — that you cannot be trusted.

6. So you double down on yourself. You’re more strict. You’re more harsh. You have a more painful thing you tell yourself while you do it.

7. You loop from 4–6 until you finally just give up on the goal and decide “I don’t want this anyway. I need to care less about having that.”

8. But of course you don’t care less. You do actually want that thing! So after a little while of “caring less,” you go back to 1 and start again.

The reality is that you already want to do things.

Everything in you wants the goal. And everything in you wants to do the things that will get you to the goal. If you didn’t want to do those things so badly, you wouldn’t be so upset when you didn’t do them.

The only thing that stops you is if you make doing those things into a painful experience. And all you need to do is make it fun to do what you already want to do.

The source of this whole painful loop is that one, sneaky, seemingly helpful little belief: I can’t trust myself.

It was never the case that you couldn’t trust yourself.

You were always aligned. You always wanted to do the things that would have gotten you exactly where you wanted to go.

You had a perfectly good reason why you didn’t do what you wanted to do.

You could have looked at your reason anytime. You could have kept it or changed it anytime. Your inaction was actually a helpful indicator light, not a problem.

The only thing that happened was that you didn’t trust yourself.

There’s no Goblin in this picture. This is the story of the Saint and the Ally:

• I already want to do the things that will get me to my goals

• If I ever notice I’m not doing them, I always have a good reason

• I can trust myself to look at my reasons and decide whether I want to keep them or change them

• I can trust myself to get what I want

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