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The Courage to Change

The world wants to know if you have cojones, if you are brave

 — Cormac McCarthy

Are you brave?

Talk's cheap. When someone asks you that question, your answer is free of the burden of real and present risk. But life asks about your courage by presenting you with obsticals and demanding decisions in real-time. Are you going to face this problem or run away from it? Will you stand up or be rolled over?

If you are like most people, you are brave in the domains of life where you have high self-efficacy and cowardly in domains where your self-efficacy is low. The courage that makes a difference is the willingness to overcome the fear of trying out different perspectives and ways of responding in a domain of life where you have low self-efficacy.

The personal history of most every adult is populated by repeated failures in at least one domain of life. For some, it is a history of failed relationships; for others, repeated failures to control the use of some incentive. Therapists who take a history of their client's problem often observe a recurring trajectory of external events and internal states that leads to the failure. Given that the individual is sufficiently dissatisfied to seek therapy, how come they haven't abandoned their unsuccessful strategy on their own?

When you doubt your competence you are reluctant to try out new strategies. For example, Barry appraises social situations as threatening. He is reluctant to experiment in this domain because he feels too incompetent to cope with the novel challenges that may arise. This presents a challenge for our collaboration.

As his therapist, it is clear to me that the map he has been using to guide his social performance sucks as evidenced by the bad outcomes he experiences. So I recommend that he create a new map that does not cause him to self-sabotage. But even though he feels particularly incompetent in this domain, he is resistant to reconsidering the way he views things here. You would think the opposite would be true: If someone feels incompetent in a certain domain, they should be especially open to changing their beliefs. Consider the observations that contradict this reasonable expectation:

In contrast, those with high self-efficacy are much more likely to suspend their judgment and be open to the information they receive, which enables them to respond flexibly to the events that happen. For example, those who believe they are socially competent have fewer pre-judgments about what others will think of them than does Barry.

As an observer watching Barry's struggles from a distance, I am not weighed down by the burden of his low self-efficacy and the pressure of high-stakes performance in a threatening situation. So I deliver this message to Barry: "Your negative beliefs about what others think of you are no more objectively true than appraisals that would be more helpful. If it is truth you seek, then do the research to discover what the truth is. If you don't want to do the research then at least restrict your conclusions to what you can support with observation. It is more accurate to say: 'In the past, I acted like a wallflower at parties and no one approached me.' But your judgment of yourself as intrinsically unlikable and doomed to social failure goes way beyond your observation. The only function of your negative appraisal of yourself is to impair your social performance."

Needless to say, these insights are more persuasive from a distance. Barry experiences his challenge differently than I acknowledge in my well-meaning advice. My challenge is not to show Barry the foolishness of his resistance, but to make it possible for him to perform flexibly and heroically in a high-risk situation.

It looks different than it feels

We know that the premises Barry used in the past have resulted in bad outcomes, so suspending judgment altogether would be good advice if he could do it. But that is too much to ask of someone whose burdens are greater than what philosophers and dispassionate observers have to bear. For Barry, the party with strangers is a threatening situation and he depends upon his familiar, if cockeyed, map to get him through it.

Do you have the cojones to experiment in a domain of low self-efficacy?

Imagine you were Barry. your therapist is asking you to perform in novel ways in what you see as a threatening situation. You expect that your social incompetence will doom your attempt to comply with this recommendation to embarrassing failure. The therapist dismisses your fears and tells you to suspend your judgment and pretend you see things from a different perspective than you do.

In domains in which he is confident about his skills, such as coding, he is flexible enough to take on challenges that others would consider threatening. Barry might advise such avoidant individuals, "Don't worry about failing, just focus your attention on the problem at hand."

Doing personal research in a threatening situations is not an easy sell to someone with low self-efficacy. Both the therapist and client must realize that experimenting with new ways of looking at things when the stakes are high requires courage and structured preparation. The therapist is asking Barry to do something very difficult. To add insult to injury, it looks easy to observers, so Barry will get no recognition for taking on this heroic task but will appear to be childish and cowardly if he refuses.

Battling the Motivation to Defect

The dangers to ancient warriors. who faught with swords and axes, were clear to all. As a result, they received recognition for their obvious heroism from others. To perform heroically despite the fears and desires that might motivate them to defect, many founce the strength to persevere in philosophies such as Stocism.

 

 

 

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