Bonus Episode: Moving the Comfort Zone Needle
Not my usual newsletter, round 2 🌊
Welcome to another bonus episode of my monthly newsletter. There’s no theme really to these, except that they usually come at times when I’m sort of having a meltdown, or moving past one. Check out my last bonus episode where I talk about the extreme melancholy of missing someone from months ago.
At my default, I don’t think that I’m a very good person.
Part of this is because I found people who thought too highly of themselves annoying, or in some extreme cases, unbearable. But, while anyone can agree that a healthy level of humbleness is essential to success in life, I don’t think most people feel like they’re just not a great person.
There have been a number of personal life experiences that have lead me to wonder where my moral compass is and why I can’t just bring myself to do the right thing, all of the time. I actually do contribute some of this to my perpetual state of melancholy, or as the kids call it these days, depression, but I take pride in finding a way to climb out of the pit of despair time and time again. c
Healing and progress aren’t linear, and the process for me to climb out of my pit of despair includes a re-mapping of who I want to be and what my priorities are. I started doing this after I read the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People back when I was 21. And while I’m not great at revisiting this map on a regular basis, it has been coming to light for me as of late, in ways that almost feel like the universe is telling me, “You can’t keep ignoring this”.
Last week when I was in one of my human trashcan moods, I did what I usually do and reached out to a close friend. My best friend Hayley, who I went to high school with, has talked me down from many ledges in my young adult life, but it’s been a while since I’ve been in this self-loathing mood. In the midst of my venting, or lack thereof, Hayley admitted that she just didn’t fully understand what I meant when I said I’m a bad person, or why I feel that way. I was in the mood to get shit done, so I drew a rough diagram of how I was explaining, and sent it to her accompanied by a voice note.
I re-drew this diagram with a bit more clarity below
Essentially, all humans behaviours and decisions are driven by motivations. These motivations come from all kinds of places, but a lot of them can be traced back to how you were raised and how you were taught to rationalize things. I’m not saying my parents raised me with no moral compass, I’m just saying it sort of feels like to me that a lot of people were raised with that moral compass prioritized.
It’s not even with regards to how one treats other people, but the sort of behavior that one expects from others, and their own standard of treatment for themselves.
To me, despite this likely being untrue, the average human makes the decision to do the “right thing” purely based on principle, and that doesn’t put them out of their comfort zone, or if it does, it only does so slightly.
Sometimes what it feels like for me is that my comfort zone leans a lot more in the “bad motivators” side of the spectrum and that pushing the needle into the “good motivators” side is more difficult for me than it is for the average person.
On one side of the spectrum, I wrote “straight up sh***y and void of conscience”. This is the far side of the “bad motivators” spectrum, where I would categorize things like vengeance, insecurity, and malice. On the other side, I wrote “perpetual growth and improvement, altruistic”. This is where I’d categorize things like extreme selflessness, genuine care and concern for others, etc. In other words, doing the right thing just because it’s the right thing.
But what does it all mean?
I think what’s worth addressing is that naturally, what’s considered “bad” and “good” is extremely subjective. So, when I’m saying that I think I’m a shit person, it’s likely that many people would disagree.
It’s also worth addressing that I’m likely vastly overestimating the average human capability to operate at a 50/50 balance between bad motivators and good motivators. Of course, from where I’m standing, I only see what’s presented to me by a person on the outside. I’m missing the gap where they reason with themselves, consciously or sub-consciously. At the same time, I’m also vastly overestimating my own behaviours and where they’re rooted from, and I’m missing the bigger point, which is that this is a spectrum, and a dynamic one at that.
This is how you begin to move the needle of your comfort zone.
I started to think about this spectrum after a therapy session where I was trying to explain why I was still speaking to someone I used to hook up with, despite being in a new, monogamous relationship with someone else. The honest answer was that I started to become involved with this person almost out of pure vengeance, lust, and ego fluffing— this was someone who I had met through my ex-boyfriend, and I liked having the upper hand in that “battle” against my ex. When I went to Ecuador for 3 months, I told myself that when I came back home, I’d drop that entanglement, since it wasn’t serving me anyway and it made me feel like an afterthought, wasn’t fulfilling, etc etc. What really happened is that I came back home and got involved again, on and off— off when I felt so shitty from how I was being treated, and on again when I wanted to indulge in the “bad” side of the spectrum.
I didn’t really want to stop talking to this person because I loved knowing that I could get his attention and feel attractive and good about myself. I loved knowing that if my ex-boyfriend ever found out, he’d be upset.
I wasn’t gaining anything from this entanglement, but when I explained to my now-boyfriend why I was still speaking to this person, it felt like I had no leg to stand on, besides the fact that I felt this person had become a friend, and that I didn’t really have a ton of friends in town. And when I was explaining it to my therapist, she said that all of this was fine and understandable, but that I should be asking myself if this entanglement contributes to who I want to be as a person and how I want my life to look.
Doing the hard thing, one thing at a time.
This all made me stop for a second and ask that annoying, time-old question: Who do I want to be? Do I want to be the person who entertains men for the sake of inflating my ego, even if I have no genuine interest? Do I want to be the person who becomes entangled with someone else so that I can have the metaphorical upper hand? With someone who hasn’t shown up for me or demonstrated interest in me on a fulfilling level? Do I let my insecurities, the cheap wins, the jealousy, and the vengeance take the wheel, and drive my life? Who I let into my life?
I had a realization several times in my life that come after feeling like a human trash can, which is: sometimes doing the “right” or “good” thing is much, much harder than doing the “bad” thing, and operating on that side of the spectrum. It seems obvious, but when you’ve built up your own narrative around your life and relationships, it’s hard to take a step back and evaluate why they exist to begin with.
Sometimes, operating on the “perpetual growth” side of the spectrum doesn’t even feel good. Not the first time you choose growth over “straight up shitty”, and not the 5th. But what you tell yourself every time that you choose perpetual growth over shitty behavior, subconsciously and even consciously, is that you are now the kind of person who does just that. You’re the person who stops talking to men who treat you poorly. You’re the kind of person who doesn’t sleep with someone just to get back at someone else. You’re the kind of person who is fulfilled enough within yourself and your close, supportive connections, to not need external validation.
And then eventually, this track record of operating on the “good” side of the spectrum starts to pay off. You feel better about yourself. You have room in your life to focus on fulfilling connections. You get told by others that you’re a piece of garbage, and simply pay no mind to it, because you are doing your best.
That’s what moving the needle on the comfort zone of motivating behaviors is like: one decision at a time, over and over again. Slipping up here and there is perfectly normal, and frankly, it’s a part of the human condition. The idea is that you begin to build a narrative for yourself through your own decisions and relationships that is so strong that external factors don’t impact it, that operating on the “shitty” side of the spectrum for one decision, for a day, for a month, don’t lead to you losing sight of your own goals and who you are.
TL;DR (weird to put it at the end of a piece, I know)
The average person isn’t as great or as moral as you think.
Being a good and shitty person is a spectrum, not a binary.
Think long and hard about the person you want to be and the life you want to lead. Think about what you’re doing now and who’s in your life and how this contributes to the former bit.
Mapping out your narrative and gathering “wins” under your belt and the right support system help keep you on track.
Poco a poco, take it one step at a time. Don’t be impatient with yourself as you begin to operate on the “growth” side of the spectrum.