Before we dive in: A few weeks ago on Office Hours, I shared my morning protocols—and in response, people asked the inevitable question: “Okay, but when does this guy actually sleep?” Today, we settle that once and for all—check out my evening protocols here.
And if you would like to put these ideas into practice, I put together a helpful guide with all my Nine Evening Protocols. You can download it here:
[BUTTON TO GATED GUIDE]
Poor evening habits are troublesome enough, but what about (maladapted) habits that we’ve inherited from our ancestors? I’ve been thinking about one in particular, as of late: The urge to puff ourselves up, which mostly amounts to trying to look better than we really are. In ancient times, this would help your ancestors rise in the social hierarchy of their small bands of 30-50, and they passed this tendency on to you, which is why you always want to hide your imperfections and play up—even exaggerate—your strengths.
It’s natural, but it is incredibly hard on your happiness.
What the science says
We humans have a natural tendency toward “self-enhancement bias,” and it gives rise to all sorts of distortions in perception. Famously, back in the 1980s, a team of researchers from New Zealand showed that up to 80 percent of motorists considered themselves to have above-average driving skills. If you’re a regular driver, you have to know deep down that this cannot be true—even if you persist in believing it about yourself.
What I think
Although self-enhancement feels good in the short term, it is not a long-term solution to life’s problems. Sooner or later, you’re bound to be confronted with a painful adjustment to the truth. For instance, a 2001 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that when college students held an inflated view of their own academic ability, it enhanced their mood and positive affect—that is, they enjoyed happier feelings. But the illusion of superiority did not translate into better academic performance. In fact, the students tended to fail at their academic expectations, and that in part led to lower self-esteem over the long term.
What you can do
Here are four things to tell ourselves and others that are healthier and more accurate than constant self-enhancement.
- You’re not perfect, but you’re normal. Rather than trying to extinguish negative emotions, start by emphasizing to yourself and others that you and they are normal in imperfection.
- Accept Yourself. Accepting your imperfections is healthier than trying to convince yourself that they don’t exist. In fact, treating yourself with this kind of compassion—instead of condemnation or dishonesty—makes you more compassionate toward others.
- Work to improve. To acknowledge that “I am flawed in this way right now” is not to say “I will always have this flaw.” On the contrary, self-acceptance can and should facilitate improvement. You should also resist self-enhancement: You won’t make progress learning a language if you pretend you can already speak fluently.
- Resist blaming others. People with a weak capacity for emotional self-regulation tend to blame others for their poor choices. This form of delusion can dispel bad feelings about oneself in the short term, but scholars recommend that owning one’s decisions is a better long-term strategy to manage negative emotions.
One last suggestion: Reframe your imperfections, and others’, not as failings but as interesting puzzles to solve. At every skill level, a golden mean exists between too easy and too hard. The zone of enjoyment moves up as you increase in skill and can tackle more difficulty. You don’t need to make any improvements, because you’re perfect already? How boring!
Arthur
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