Vulnerability is good, but it's not enough

For a while being “strong” was a simple thing, at least in my simple mind. Strong people faced their fears, overcame challenges, didn’t whine or complain, and had the mental fortitude to do difficult things.

As a kid, (growing up in the 80’s/90’s) that was a pretty straightforward definition of what it meant to be a “strong” or “tough” person. And, for better or for worse, as a boy growing up at this time there wasn’t many more important things to be other than strong or tough.

This has evolved over time though, in many ways for the better.

As most of us know now, one of the problems with the prior definition of strength is that it often meant pretending to be strong or at least maintaining a perception of strength, was more important than actually being strong. As long as we didn’t whine or complain, show vulnerability or weakness, or ask for help—then we were all good. ?

The reality is almost all of the “strong” people throughout history were scared or sad or needed help at some point; it just wasn’t as socially acceptable to admit it. That resulted in a lot of people suffering in silence, thinking that there was something wrong with them.

All of that pent up fear and vulnerability, ruminating in a world that was expecting you to be strong, predictably resulted in a lot of pain. Either pain for the individual who started to feel shame or self-hate because they weren’t strong enough and/or pain for others who had to suffer because the shameful person turned into a bully to try to compensate.

That perception of strength has shifted though, and we’ve gone through a movement where vulnerability is now viewed much more positively. It is OK to be scared or sad or overwhelmed. It is OK to ask for help. It is OK to admit when we are not strong enough to do the hard thing.

That is why in many ways the reframing of strength is a positive. If we let people know it is OK to feel fear or like you’re not good enough, that helps to alleviate the pain and shame.

We are all humans, no one is perfect, we all make mistakes, and we all have moments of weakness. We have to give ourselves permission at times to be messy, imperfect, and weak.

I do think there might be one more evolution required though on this “strength” concept.

Just like it was wrong for us to think being strong meant never showing any vulnerability, I also think it is wrong to think of being strong as only/always being vulnerable.

That might sound obvious, but I see a real risk of it in the world today. We need to close the loop on this idea of strength.

Strength is ultimately meant to be a tool/trait/virtue that we utilize to do hard things. So much of the beauty to be found in this world requires us to do hard things, so mental strength is critical for that.

Initially we misunderstood strength and as a result faked it, which meant we often weren’t able to do the hard things. We weren’t actually strong enough, we just pretended to be.

Then we understood the importance of honesty and vulnerability to uncover true strength, which is a great step forward. But we don't always close the loop.

Acknowledging our fears or insecurities are crucial to finding true inner strength, but only if we take the next step to actually overcome those fears and do the hard thing.

You see that part of the definition was never wrong; we need to overcome our fear, doubts, and weakness to do the hard thing.

But if we allow ourselves to just swim in the vulnerability, we can never actually get to doing the hard thing. If we just focus on the fact that it is OK to be scared or OK to ask for help, we can get really cozy and comfortable in that space and never want to take the next step.

Doing hard things is (sorry for the obvious point here) really hard. Our natural state is usually to avoid hard things. It’s the exact reason we avoided acknowledging our vulnerability to begin with. It was uncomfortable, it made us feel bad about ourselves, and it made us think we looked bad in front of others.

We don’t want to feel bad, so we avoid it. In the first version of strength we’d bury our insecurity to avoid it and let it come out in harmful or bullyish ways.

In the second version of strength we can use vulnerability and acceptance of weakness as a shield. It protects us from feeling bad, by allowing ourselves to believe our work is done.

We can convince ourselves that we are already strong because we admitted our faults and weaknesses, therefore we shouldn’t have to do anymore. And let me be clear, it is very true that it takes way more strength to admit you’re scared than it does to make pretend you aren’t.?

But we still have to finish the job.

As awesome as it is that so many more people are open to being vulnerable, that is just a means to an end—it is not the end. If everyone just stops there and doesn’t do anything to improve than what have we really accomplished?

The point of developing mental strength is so that we can do hard things, help those around us, and be the best version of ourselves. To me, that is the game of life, a constant striving to be better.

To be better we need to 1. Identify the areas we need to improve (this is where vulnerability is so important) AND 2. Do the work to actually improve.

Let me use a personal example to quickly try to illustrate this. My wife has some health issues. There was a time when I thought being a good husband/dad/person meant figuring out how to deal with those issues without feeling sorry for myself or asking for help.

The mindset I had was that doing the right thing was putting my head down and getting it done. If someone tried to suggest I might need help or it might get overwhelming, I dismissed them. Being strong meant not needing help or getting overwhelmed, remember?

The result was I didn’t do a good job dealing with it. I was not being a good husband/dad/person. Because I couldn’t have an honest conversation with myself about it, there was no chance of me actually figuring out how to get better.

So eventually, when I was able to admit that dealing with my wife’s health issues was really hard, that was a good start. It was really difficult for my ego to handle, but it was true. I didn’t know what to do, I was overwhelmed at times, and I needed to admit that to myself.

Obviously, I can’t stop there though.

If the goal was to do right by my wife, I hadn’t achieved the goal yet. Yes, it was true that it took courage and strength to admit my shortcomings. Yes, it was also true that finally being honest with myself gave me the opportunity to be better.

But if I stopped there, nothing actually changed, aside from maybe me feeling a bit better because I unloaded the burden of feeling like I had to be superman, which is good. Actually, it is so good, that it is the reason we have to be careful.

There is that shield I mentioned before. It would be really easy for me to claim victory here. My ego could jump in and say

“Hey listen, you did something really hard and brave. I am proud of you. Let’s settle in here for a bit before we take any more big steps. You’ve earned a break from doing more hard things.”

That’s seems so much better than actually trying to improve.

That is so much easier than trying to reset my expectations for our relationship, better control my anxiety and anger in moments of stress, or be more patient and compassionate when I was filled with grief and rage.

And that’s my point. The hardest thing to do, the thing that takes the most strength, is taking actions to be a better person.

Acknowledging our vulnerability was never meant to be the end game (despite what so many self-help books, influencers, and Tik Tok shorts will tell you). It is an unbelievably difficult step that you should take pride in, but it is not the end of the game.

Vulnerability is meant to be a means to find true inner strength so that you can continue to improve. If you’re not using it to improve than you are just using it to hide behind. None of this is easy or clean, it is all a process that takes time. I in no way mean to imply being vulnerable is a bad thing, I mean to imply it is not the final step.

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True inner strength = honesty + vulnerability/humility + a willingness to take action to be better