Toward or Away? How To Shape Our Best Self.

The concept of Best Self is central to my psychotherapy practice.

When I talk about Best Self, I refer to the purposeful, in-flow, and resilient state of an individual resulting from behaviours that align with (a) their core values and (b) the impact they wish to have in the world. A key requirement is that the behaviour underlying their Best Self does not intentionally cause harm to others.

Behaviour is the key to achieving one's Best Self.

Behaviour refers to an individual's actions in response to external factors (people, objects, and the natural environment) and internal factors (thoughts, emotions, and sensations). These actions can be verbal or non-verbal, and can be observed by a third party or by the individual through self-reflection.

How Behaviour Shapes Our Best Self

Whenever I discuss behaviour in the context of Best Self, I classify it into two types:

#1: Behaviour That Moves Us Toward Our Best Self

These are actions that align with your values, create meaning and fulfilment, and help you move forward - even when you're facing difficulties or experiencing pain.

For example, if you deeply value honest communication, then you might choose to share your emotions with a friend who hurt you, even if doing so risks relationship rupture. You might also choose to stand up to a corporate bully who violates your strong sense of fairness, even though that creates professional risk.

In both cases, your behaviour helps you move toward our Best Self.

#2: Behaviour That Moves Us Away From Our Best Self

These are actions that do not align with your core values, and can lead to unnecessary conflict or disconnection from your goals.

For example, acting angrily or contemptuously toward someone when empathy and kindness represent your core values. Or cheating on your exam when you know that hard work and mastery of your subject represents who you want to be.

In both cases, your behaviour moves you away from your Best Self.

The Dominance of "Away" Behaviours

In my experience, the most common type of behaviour is Away-focused. The reason: these behaviours often stem from deeply rooted avoidance patterns. The avoidance of pain usually exerts a greater pull on us compared to the pursuit of pleasure.

Most avoidance patterns are developed during childhood and early adolescence to help us adapt to threats from our caregivers. Unfortunately, after engaging these protective responses on hundreds of occasions, the adaptive behaviour becomes a maladaptive unconscious response in our adulthood.

Here are a few examples of unconscious avoidance patterns that usually move us away from our Best Self:

• People Pleasing. This behaviour allows us to avoid the perceived conflict or punishment that might arise from setting boundaries and saying "no". Many of us developed the people-pleasing pattern in childhood when compliance with authority figures' requests was required to avoid physical threats or loss of connection.
• Procrastination. This behaviour allows us to avoid the underlying fear of humiliation or shame of not "being enough", which are rooted in childhood experiences of painful feedback or comparisons to other children. You can read more about procrastination here.
• Desensitisation. This pattern takes place when we choke off our underlying emotions, such as sadness, fear, or shame. This response likely arose when we were verbally or physically attacked for showing those emotions ("You're crying? I'll give you something to cry about!") and had to quickly learn how to desensitise to comply and survive.

So how do we overcome Away behaviours?

The key is to become consciously aware of our avoidance patterns. Psychotherapy is an effective, evidence-based approach to raising awareness. Another approach is to regularly seek 360-degree feedback from our family, friends, and colleagues, and identify the common themes.

You can read more about how to make our unconscious behaviours conscious in this article.

Cultivating "Toward" Behaviours

If we want to experience our Best Self, we need to develop awareness of our avoidant patterns, and then cultivate Toward behaviours that will get us there.

Here are 3 key steps to cultivating Toward behaviours:

• Identify Your Core Values. Core values represent deeply meaningful ways of how we want to be in this world, and help us move forward in spite of any obstacles or pain we are experiencing. I outline two ways to develop your core values in this article.
• Describe Your Toward Behaviours. Now that you have developed your core values, you want to understand what your Best Self sounds like and looks like. In detail, describe what you will be saying and doing when executing your core values. In other words, what would a third party actually observe about you when you're being the best version of yourself?
• Test the Toward Behaviours. Now that you have described your Toward behaviours, a highly effective way to test their validity is to rehearse them in a simulated environment. Simulations recruit your thoughts, emotions, and behaviours simultaneously; this produces lots of data that help you decide whether the Toward behaviour is a keeper. Two approaches that provide this simulated environment are Chairwork and Interpersonal Role Playing; in both cases, practice them with a trained therapist.

Next Steps

Achieving your Best Self is a process of observing patterns, understanding your core values, and committing to intentional behaviours.

Start by recognising both Toward and Away behaviours in your day-to-day life. With consistent practice, you can identify unconscious patterns and start demonstrating actions that help you move toward the best version of yourself. Using tools like Chairwork or Role Playing under the guidance of a psychotherapist can help you solidify these behaviours in a safe, focused way.

The journey toward being your Best Self can be slow and full of setbacks. Remember to show compassion and kindness to yourself as you move through this process.

I hope you find this useful.

References

Kellogg, S. (2014). Transformational Chairwork: Using psychotherapeutic dialogues in clinical practice. Rowman & Littlefield.

Rozin, P., & Royzman, E. B. (2001). Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(4), 296–320. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0504_2

Strosahl, K. D., Robinson, P. J., & Gustavsson, T. (2012). Brief interventions for radical change: Principles and practice of focused acceptance and commitment therapy. New Harbinger Publications.

Wilson, K. G. (2014). The ACT matrix: A new approach to building psychological flexibility across settings and populations. New Harbinger Publications.

I am a Psychotherapist and the director of Intermind. I help individuals, couples, and families overcome their mental health and relationship challenges. I am also a specialist in Workplace Psychotherapy and a dedicated Mental Health Educator.