Why It's So Hard to Work for Ourselves
Photo by Vadim Sadovski on Unsplash
This is the fourth post in my writing series, An Accountant Learns to Write Again. The first three posts are here:
Part 1: An Accountant Learns to Write Again
Part 2: If I Can’t Write as Well as a Professional, Why Bother?
In my last article, I discussed the concept of growth and fixed mindsets, pioneered by Stanford researcher Dr. Carol Dweck. Learning about the growth mindset rocked my world. I never realized there was an entirely different way to see my failures and setbacks — not as painful condemnations against me but as information in a natural learning process.
However, when I tried to adopt a growth mindset, I immediately ran into problems. From a growth mindset perspective, learning and growing is the primary purpose, not proving ourselves to others or showing them what we can do. Our validation and self-worth comes from within rather than from constant feedback. But when I tried focusing on learning as my primary purpose, I got so bored, so fast.
At the time, I was starting my bookkeeping practice — which is part of my writing journey because working for myself gave me the flexibility to have more time to write while still producing an income. But working for yourself can be lonely. I wanted someone to tell me I'm doing a good job. I yearned for camaraderie with coworkers, people with whom I can cheer my successes and commiserate over setbacks. I did have some of that through networking groups, but most of my time was still spent alone.
Writers have a similar problem. Most of our work is done by ourselves, and we may go long stretches of time before producing something worth reading. As an employee, I had no problem staying on task. When I work for myself for myself, I slept in too often and let myself off the hook too easily when I didn't "feel good." Achieving my own goals didn't motivate me enough.
External Validation
At the core of the fixed mindset is the belief that we are defined by labels other people give us, and these labels can't be changed. If students are labeled "low-performing," they may give up easily and not try to improve their work. If they're labeled "smart" or "talented," they may be happy to be seen that way but also afraid of making mistakes lest they lose the love and validation they were receiving.
Parents think they can hand their children permanent confidence — like a gift — by praising their brains and talent. It doesn't work, and in fact has the opposite effect. It makes children doubt themselves as soon as anything is hard or anything goes wrong. If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, seek new strategies, and keep on learning. That way, their children don't have to be slaves of praise. They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence.
— Dr. Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
What if we grew up in a household with little to no praise? In the Chinese household I grew up in, my parents expected me to get A's at a minimum. If I made A's, I've simply met their expectations, and there was nothing to celebrate. B's and C's felt like failing, and I would drop everything to get my grades back up. Genuine praise was few and far between.
I believe this upbringing set up my intense fear of mistakes, resulting in a black-and-white thinking that I had to either be one of the best or I was a disappointment. At the same time, I never felt satisfied with my achievements. When teachers praised me at school, I got the validation I rarely received at home, and this led me to constant pursue validation from authority figures for my sense of meaning. If I wasn't good enough at a subject and my work not special enough to be noticed, I became easily discouraged and moved on to something else.
If we tend to believe that our value comes from other people's praise, it can be challenging to work for ourselves and toil for long hours before we ever see the results that can earn us that praise. I also realized that even if I set up my business, created the website, networked with the right people, and finally got the clients, validation was not guaranteed — I simply produced the work they paid for.
In recognizing my own fixed mindset, I saw that my need for external validation was unsustainable, especially if I wanted to work for myself. No one had the obligation to give me validation. The only thing I had control over were my actions.
Instead of expecting someone else to give me validation, I had to learn to give it to myself.
Commitment to the Path and to Not Knowing
One of the hardest parts of returning to writing has been learning to be motivated by growth rather than by rewards and external validation. I wanted my life to have more meaning, and meaning by default comes from interactions with other people. I went into it with beautiful visions of helping others with my writing and creating community. Yet as soon as I started, I saw the daunting distance between where I was and where I wanted to go. I looked at my mediocre writing attempts and knew that I wasn't there yet, and who knew when I could get there.
To truly embrace the growth mindset means embracing the process. Learning in real life, as opposed to academics and well-trodden career paths, comes from trial and error. Trying things, learning from the results, then building on what we’ve learned. What we call "failure" is often information that can help us improve our work and relationships if we were humble enough to listen. Real life learning takes meandering paths and leads us in directions we often couldn’t have imagined. There is no predetermined curriculum of life, no grading scale that tells how much we've achieved.
To embrace the process means to stop pretending we know exactly where life will take us.
Next time, I will discuss the practice that helped me learn to rely on validation from within.
Continue the series here: Part 5: The Practice That Changed Everything
