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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the Stable Parenting Podcast. Appreciate you taking your time to be here. My name's Shane Jacob, your host.
Today, I want to talk about a paradox. Paradox being something that is right but sounds wrong, kind of an idea. And I'll begin with a quote, okay? This is a quote from one of my favorite people, probably maybe my favorite person.
Shane Jacob said that “Spending time working on your own personal development is a selfless act. Everyone you come and contact with will benefit from your progress, making self-improvement a noble endeavor.”
One more time. “Spending time working on your own personal development is a selfless act. Everyone you come in contact with will benefit from your progress, making self-improvement a noble endeavor.
Okay, so here's the deal. A lot of times we look at a focus on ourself. We look at, hey, you know, you need to love yourself and develop a relationship with yourself, and it sounds like it sounds selfish, right?
You need to practice self-care, whatever all that means to you. The bottom line here is that mental health, okay, is, is simply it's not prioritized by most people. That's just the way it is. And the thing of itis, is there's so much unhealthy and destructive behavior that stems from our thinking, that stems from mental health. Okay.
So I'm going to give you a few examples and kind of dive into this a little bit. One of the things, this is from research, okay. This is from, there's mountains of research on this, but I'm just going to touch on a few things that I got from research.
And one, one, number one is called “compensation for inadequacy.” So when we compensate for trying to feel inadequate is where, when people feel unworthy or inadequate, basically we act out in ways that temporarily hide or compensate for these feelings.
This can manifest, it comes out in arrogance, it comes out in addiction, it comes out in aggression, or lots of other destructive behaviors that are meant to either numb the pain that we're feeling from feeling inadequate or project superiority. Right?
So when we're mean to other people or aggressive or condemning other people, we think that we're kind of making noise like we're better than other people, superior. These are ways that this comes out.
Number two is “fear of rejection.” So, and this is a mental condition, right? We all have probably some amount of fear of rejection, but if we have a deep fear of rejection, a lot of things, there's a lot of destructive behaviors that can happen like lying and manipulation. These stem from a deep fear of not being accepted or loved.
So if somebody believes that they're fundamentally unworthy, they might act out in ways that they think that'll help them gain approval and avoid rejection, right? And you see this a lot.
I mean this is kind of a, this is pretty common, right? We want to control what other people think about us. And so if we made a mistake, we want to try to hide it or manipulate it or lie about it or, so that we are not perceived as weaker because we already think we're weak. So this is just things that are going on inside of our mind.
“Shame and self-sabotage,” is number three. People who feel shame, and you know I talk about shame quite a bit, and shame, we all get to experience shame.
But people who feel deep shame and have negative beliefs about themselves, they a lot of times, we, they, and we, and me, engage in sabotaging, self-sabotaging behaviors.
For example, if you, for somebody that feels like they don't deserve happiness, they might subconsciously be undermining their own relationships.
Number four is “projection of inner pain,” which means that, that's when people struggle with their own self-worth. They tend to project their pain onto other people through their judgment, their criticism, and even sometimes abuse. Okay.
This is a way to, it's basically a way to avoid confronting our own internal struggles. Okay.
Five is “avoidance of vulnerability.” Being vulnerable is one way that we make deep, meaningful connections, but a lot of times we avoid vulnerability when we have a lack of worthiness.
A lack of worthiness makes people fear being vulnerable, which leads to defensive behaviors like withdrawal, they’ll isolate, get angry, or being dishonest again. And these behaviors, they come from a deeper emotional pain. Okay.
And so, some other ideas… Some other people, I hear, when we, a lot of times when you talk about mental health, people say, what about, you know, I began with it sounds selfish, okay. And my quote says that it's one of the most selfless things that you can do.
But a lot of people will say, well, what about serving other people? What about loving others? Isn't that important? You know, and I used to, I used to think this. I had a hard time with this. I'm like, well, they say, well, you have to love yourself first.
You know, and I, I, I didn't believe that. I believed that what I did and how I behaved with another person had nothing to do with what was going on with me.
What I didn't know was, is that that because of the way that I believed about me, my thoughts about me were limiting my capacity to love other people. Okay? And that's the way it is. It's just, it's the law of the universe.
And so, the, a lot of times though that, we'll hear we can have thoughts or hear objections that, you know, that it’s selfish to, you know, spend time working on our own personal development. The thing of it is is that, is that it is actually the opposite of selfish. Okay. It’s the, it gives us the capacity and the ability to give and love more, and it's how we get to be great contributors. It gives us the capacity to contribute more to our relationships.
So there's, some of the arguments to prioritize the relationship with yourself and working on yourself and working on personal progress and working on your own mental health is that, basically research shows that self-compassion, which means having compassion for yourself and fully accepting yourself, is a cornerstone. It's a foundational part of unconditional self-love. It directly correlates with, get this, it directly correlates with reduced anxiety, reduced depression, and reduced stress. Stress. Okay.
So what this means is that improved daily functioning due to better mental health. Okay. So when you think more of yourself and have more compassion and unconditional love for yourself, you have improved daily functioning. Okay? Again, this is all from research, what I'm giving you here today. We get enhanced, we get to improve our personal relationships.
So basically people with unconditional loving relationships with themselves have healthier and more fulfilling relationships with others. It's been proven that basically we have better family dynamics, better professional relationships, better total social networks, like with everyone around us. We have more productivity and we reach our goals more. So unconditional self-love for yourself creates motivation, which leads to more consistent and sustainable efforts towards personal and professional goals. You're going to be moving towards your goals more, the better that you feel about you.
So the concrete outcome is that higher success rates in career advancements, in personal projects, and in life's aspirations, in everything, proven by documented with research, higher success rates in the things that you want to accomplish in your lifetime.
How about better physical health? Ever think about that one? I mean, that one comes up. When, when we, when we care more about ourselves, we end up caring more about our body, and it aligns with value in ourself. And so the outcome is that we have improved physical health. So we have better weight, better blood pressure, and we actually reduce the risk of chronic illness. Are you hearing me? Reduce the risk, proven by research, of chronic illness. We have closer, we obtain our weight goals more, we have better blood pressure and reduced risk of chronic illness. Okay. This is big time. So important.
And it makes me wonder why I didn't, and so many people don't, for such a good part of their life focus more on mental health. And I know a lot of the reasons because I used to have them all as beliefs myself. A lot of times critics question the practicality of, is this really time well spent? Can you really prove, is this evidence-based benefits?
But the, the pursuit of a solid loving relationship with yourself directly improves your mental health, your personal relationships, your productivity, and your physical health, and your social contributions, how you interact with the world. These outcomes, okay now, do you remember what I said? I want you to key in on this. This does not mean that you've achieved a perfect relationship with yourself.
It doesn't mean that you've evolved to perfection. It doesn't mean that you are, you know, you've reached some pinnacle somewhere. What it says is that people who are in a pursuit, if you are committed to, and if you are intentionally working on improving your mental health and your relationship with yourself, that outcomes are measurable and they impact your life. Okay. And it makes this endeavor, it enhances your life. Okay. Basically, it gives you a better quality of life.
So basically, the bottom line is is life is better when you love you. When you're working on you, and I've seen this in myself and I see it in my coaching clients. When I change, the world changes around me. When my coaching clients change, their world's changed.
Okay, the bottom line is that mental health is seriously overlooked. It's really that a lot of us deem it just unnecessary, unimportant, selfish, weak. I hear this from a lot of men, you know, it's like they may or may not say it out loud, but you're like, you don't need that. You know, the fact that I would admit to something that I need to do to change me shows that I am not a hundred percent. It shows a weakness.
Okay. That's an idea that a lot of men have. Women, not so much sometimes, but not so much. Women more easily accept the idea that they’re works in progress. Men think that anything to show any sign of weakness, you know, is unacceptable. And so, which is like humility, right? Humility is the strength. Most of us men have it backwards. Okay.
What the deal is, is that it's not weakness, it's strength. Humility is being open and being teachable. It's being able to look at…Humility is being able to look at yourself, okay, and say, I am unfinished. I'm imperfect. I have flaws and that's okay. Okay. Because I'm working on, and so I'm open and I'm teachable and I have a growth mindset. That's what that means. Okay. That's what those things mean. That means I'm open to learning and I'm teachable and I have the strength to see myself and have it be okay as I am.
That is what it means, and that is the key. So I'm pleading for men who hear this to come with me on this and take a look at yourself and just say, “Hey, wherever I'm at, it is a fact that I have, that I’m flawed and that is just fine. I'm right where I need to be. And if I haven't, I'm going to commit to, you know, closing some of those flaws, fixing them, working on improving and evolving and progressing and changing me to see how good I can become.”
I mean, you ever think about what the end goal could be? Because I think it's limitless. I don't think there's an end to how much that you can get done, how good you can be, how evolved you can be, how well you can manage the thoughts inside your mind, how good of relationships that you can have, how well you can handle the negative emotion in the tough times. I don't think that there's a like, yeah, well, you got this done and you've succeeded now, you can go on to the next thing in life. I think it's an ongoing thing, and I think it's limitless of how, you know, of what we can actually become in this lifetime.
And I think we don't use up much of our potential because we're really not trying and really not going for it.
Developing you, you know, pursuing a loving relationship yourself is one of the most selfless and noble acts that you can commit to doing. I honestly believe that. I've seen it in my own life. And let me tell you something, okay, here's why I can guarantee you that is a selfless act. Because when I didn't, people suffered around me. So did I, by the way. People suffered to some degree, sometimes a lot and sometimes not a lot, but people suffered and people suffer less. The people that I influence, including who is here, who can hear my voice right here right now, those people are benefiting more than they ever would have had I not committed to me. And it's continued as of now in a commitment to me. Okay.
And I mean, people suffered in my life. They suffered a lot, okay? A lot of the people closest to me suffered a lot because of my failure, my lack of a commitment, okay? My lack of commitment to really, to really take a close look at me and say, how can I refine me? How can I improve me? How can I progress in this lifetime?
Time spent with you is time well spent. And it is one of the biggest gifts that you can give to yourself, and it's not just to yourself, okay? It's to the people that you love and everybody that you come in contact with as long as you're breathing. A commitment to your mental health. I, I am a believer in physical and mental health. And if we neglect it, we will suffer the consequences.
And there's so much to gain. There is so much to gain and it's such a worthy use of time that I can just say I, for your own benefit and your family and the people that you love the most, consider being more intentional with what you're doing with your own mental health. Whatever that is, okay?
On that note, don't forget that Stable Living Coaching right now has a free two-week trial going on just for a short period of time. Whether this trial is going on when you hear this or not, Stable Living Coaching is always available and your friend and your support to become all that you can be. And you can sign up and get more information or schedule a call with me at stablelivingcoaching.com.
Thank you so much for being there. I have faith in you, my friends, and I am, I’m with you here every step of the way. Remember, you cannot fail as long as you Don't Ever Stop Chasin’ It.
