Remember Your Value

Since today is International Women's Day, we're posting our newsletter a little early. This edition applies to men also. We all need to remember our value.

Concepts like “tough love” and “reverse psychology” have been very popular at times.??Parents use tough love on wayward children, or addicts or other issues.??They supposedly love their children so much, they imposed rigid boundaries and limits to keep their children in line.??

What if you weren’t a wayward child? What if you didn’t struggle with addiction? When is tough love not appropriate for the situation?

Reverse psychology is popular too.??A manager questions an employee’s talent, implying they can’t do something. The manager then minimizes their ability. So, the employee tries harder and harder to disprove the manager’s implications. This can be?motivating, but it’s also manipulative. Another type of reverse psychology is emotional blackmail.?

Our society promotes a version of tough love. These are some potentially toxic phrases we see often.

·???????? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.?Not always true.??What doesn’t kill us can make us weaker, crippled or traumatized.

·???????? No pain, no gain.?Not always true.?We do not have to endure pain to gain knowledge, skills or strength.?

·???????? Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.?Not always true. This implies most people are well-meaning, but they lack stamina. There are many people who are both qualities.

·???????? Suffer in silence.?Not always true. We are communal beings who survive better together. When we share our pain, we process and distribute its intensity. We get acknowledgement, appreciation, nurture and support. People are not meant to be isolated with their suffering.

·???????? A pizza place down the street has a sign saying, “The reward for good work is more work.”?Why is more work a reward? I can see the relationship between good pizza and more people wanting it. This might cause an increase in business or “more work.” However, piling on work because someone is productive is demotivating.

·???????? All these trite, glib phrases can become mantras. People live by them, work by them and judge others by them. That’s the problem with catch phrases. They don’t apply to every situation, but they can become blanket philosophies to motivate people to endure abuse.?

Resilience is another emerging concept business is adopting. Cultivating resilience is a prized skill.??Unfortunately, becoming more resilient might mean we are tolerating more and more toxicity?professionally or personally.??

The Great Resignation was directly related to people gaining distance from toxic workplaces. The mass exodus made it quite clear people were tired of being mistreated. The concept of resilience now seems to be gaining traction as a way to guilt people back into those very same toxic environments. People might say, “Well, you’re just not resilient enough.” Or “If you were more resilient, you’d be able to succeed here.”??

A friend of mine grew up in a toxic, dysfunctional family.? Her mother always described her as rebellious, obstinate, and disruptive.? Because the mom created this negative reality, my friend tried harder and harder and harder to disprove her lies.? My friend is generous, compliant, conforming – the exact opposite of her mom’s descriptions. The mother’s “reverse psychology” caused my friend to believe things about herself that were blatantly not true.? It took her decades to realize and disprove the mom’s falsehoods.

She shared this story with a group recently, and someone said, “You were a lump of coal.? You withstood the pressure and turned into a diamond.”

My friend responded, “No! I was already a diamond.? What I withstood is called abuse.”

Don’t give abusers credit for making their victims strong.

Someone?told me once, I was like Aladdin. I was a diamond in the rough. Okay, a diamond in the rough is still a diamond. It may need a little cleaning, polishing or a chisel here and there to make it sparkle.??

A diamond doesn’t need more crushing.?Having grit, determination or gumption is not the same thing as absorbing adversity created deliberately by someone else.? We don’t have to suffer to be successful.

Most of us are already diamonds.??We are rare. We are precious. We are valuable.?

·???????? When we remember our value, we remove ourselves from those who minimize it.?

·???????? When we remember our value, we don’t tolerate discounts.?

·???????? When we remember our value, we advocate for ourselves.?

·???????? When we remember our value, we leave toxic environments.

·???????? When we remember our value, we protect our safety.

Remember your value.