How to Overcome Self Defeating Inhibitions

I recently outlined some of the features of self defeating inhibitions and how they impair our personal performances in everyday life. The internal oppression that results is typically because of fears of: embarrassment, humiliation, rejection, failure, disapproval, or futility.  All there fears are ones that people IMAGINE might happen, but often don’t know for sure.  These often erroneous beliefs about worry tend to restrict options and narrow life experiences. To be stuck on the ‘back side of your illusions’ nicely captures this predicament.

     When I was counseling cold callers above overcoming their fears, I often advised they test the waters by making lots of calls to disprove to themselves that they would be treated rudely or, if they were, they could handle it.  Those who took this advice found, often, though not always, that their fears of rejection and humiliation were unfounded. Experience is a great teacher, after all, especially when it comes to testing hypotheses about likely outcomes. However, when one is blocked by unconscious factors, how do you get the experience that might prove corrective?

    Sometimes the ‘as if’ perspective may facilitate acting on your intentions. The ‘as if’ perspective was invented by H.  Vaihinger, The Philosophy of ‘As if’. In this book (1924), Vaihinger argues that it doesn't matter if something is true or not; if you act as if it was true, and good effects come about, then this will  justify acting on the belief.

    This is saying in effect that searching for causes in one’s behavior is often a fruitless enterprise. However, if you find a solution that works, a way of moving forward on your chosen path, then the cause of your paralysis doesn’t matter.

      Hence, in the cold calling instance, if one acted as if it you had the identity of a champion caller for whom the prospect of  rudeness and humiliation held no threat, then this conviction would permit you to make the calls and thereby gain the rewards of appointments and sales.

      Similarly, in the diet exercise arena, if one acts as if he is a thin person, the restraint and wise dietary choices will bring about desires results. Or in the case of abstinence from alcohol, if one act as if he or she was a sober person, then replacing alcohol with non alcoholic drinks would seem to be the right choice.

     Of course, these regimens don’t work every times, as doubt and inhibitions enter the picture; but the notion of faking  it until you make it has some merit in getting you to  at least perform the requisite acts necessary to bring to about the desire goal.  And to bring about the realization that feared outcomes only happen rarely, and, if they do, you can handle them.