I’ve mentioned before that I’m a bit of a contrarian. Not a rebel or eccentric or anything. In fact I’m pretty boring in a lot of ways – I dress pretty conventionally and I live quite a quiet, simple, drama-free life. What I mean is that I’ve always highly valued freedom and independence, had a bit of a stubborn streak, resisted being told what to think, and been fascinated by counter-examples to widely accepted ideas and “rules” about life. I don’t know where I got this from, because I come from quite a quiet, polite, conservative family, but my first word as a baby was “no,” and later in life, when told I couldn’t do something, I would usually respond with, “Says who?!” My dad always used to say I would be a lawyer one day because arguing with me was so exhausting (sorry, dad!)

This used to be a problem for me as a child, because I’d always see stuff differently from other people – and that’s not exactly polite, especially when you’re relating to an adult! I learned to keep quiet or feel guilty or lonely, and most of the time keeping quiet felt better. I started to censor and ignore some of my thoughts so that I didn’t feel different, “bad” or alone, and so that I could fit in with my tribe. So, as an adult, when I read Martha Beck’s book, “Finding Your Own North Star”, when she explained the way that our Social Selves can start to rule our lives and disconnect us from our Essential Selves, I felt like she’d written the book especially for me. (I still think she wrote it especially for me, except I’ve come to realize that she wrote it especially for other people too…)

What these two parts want for you

I’m going to be getting into this stuff in greater depth for you in next month’s Bottom-line on Martha Beck’s “Finding Your Own North Star,” but here’s a brief explanation of Martha’s model:

You see, our Essential Self is concerned with our happiness, above everything else, and it knows that sometimes we need to depart from the tribal rules and ideologies, or even find a new tribe, in order to be happy and live our fullest life. Our Social Self, on the other hand, is the part of ourselves that’s concerned with keeping us in the tribe by following the tribe’s rules, because it thinks that’s the best way to stay safe – safety in numbers. Ideally, you can have both safety and happiness, and you can follow what your Essential Self really wants and get there in a socially acceptable manner by also listening to your Social Self. Your Social Self isn’t “bad” – it’s just not meant to rule your life. The problem is that, as soon as we hit an obstacle in life, we start to feel stressed, and when we’re stressed, if we’re presented with a choice between safety and happiness, we’ll almost always choose safety over happiness. And this means that we can get into the habit of choosing to listen to our Social Self’s concerns and shutting off our Essential Self’s desires.

The reason I say that I realize that Martha wrote “Finding Your Own North Star” especially for other people too is that I’ve come to see that the challenge of getting our Essential Self and Social Self to work together is a universal challenge. I recently did a survey of people’s fears on the blog, and the struggles that people were having with their Social Selves and worrying about what people think came up there, it came up again in the results of the location independent living survey too, and I see it in almost every client I do Resource Mining Sessions with.

How to stop your Social Self from ruling your life

Your Social Self loves rules, and it’s on the look out for new tribal rules and weaves these rules into your stories that you tell yourself about the way things are in life. One of the most effective ways to manage your Social Self is by watching and listening to the stories you’re telling yourself and finding the limiting rules in those stories and then being totally contrarian and questioning all the rules. This is the real secret to Tim Ferriss’ success – all that other stuff about automating your processes, creating systems, testing the market, etc are all great tactics, but the real genius is in his ability to question the rules. When you question the rules, you can dissolve the old limiting rules and create liberating rules that’ll support you to be the person you want to be and live the life you want to live – and create all the systems and scaffolding to make those changes real and sustainable.

So here’s how to develop your inner contrarian and coach yourself to freedom:

• Think about something you’ve been wanting to do or be more of in your life, but have been holding back on, because you’re worrying about what other people will think. Now complete the sentence:I can’t/ shouldn’t…..(insert the thing you want to do or be)….. because people will think/ say…..(insert what you’re telling yourself/ worrying they’ll think or say).You might want to do it a few times because perhaps there are a few different things you’re worrying people will think or say if you went ahead with that thing you’re wanting to do or be.
• Once you’ve done that, ask yourself, “Says who?!” (TM Cath Duncan, 1985) Don’t let yourself be all vague and say, “people I work with” – you must provide specific names.
• Once you’ve made your list, notice:
  a.) How short the list is (it’s not everyone who’ll think/ say that)
  b.) Who’s on the list. My guess is it’s parents and people you don’t even like that much. Parents obviously have a big impact on shaping our tribal rules, and while they might even be doing so out of love, their love (and need to keep you safe) can generate limiting rules. Parents don’t always know best, and their advice often comes from the success strategies that were relevant in their era which might not be so relevant in this era or in your life. When it comes to the people who you don’t like much, do you really want those people deciding how you live your life?!
• Now have a look at the rules “I can’t/ shouldn’t…” and write a list of at least 10 reasons why that’s nonsense.
• Finally, list all the people who would agree that those rules that you can’t or shouldn’t do that thing are total nonsense. You see, those people are there and they’ve been there all the time. You just didn’t notice them because you were so busy paying attention to the small group of people you’d previously learned those limiting rules from.

So breathe in a big breath and as you release it, let go of those old limiting rules and know that you can deeply integrate new, liberating rules of your own, and create more of the live you want.

Learn more through the Bottom-line Bookclub

Join the Bottom-line Bookclub to learn more about this powerful model and how you can apply it to manage your Social Self so that it doesn’t rule your life and to create the life that your Essential Self desires. The Bottom-line On Finding Your Own North Star will be released and available from 1 August. Remember that the daily email coaching tips are sent to you from the day you join, so sign up on or before 1 August if you want to be sure to get all of the email coaching tips for the Bottom-line on Martha Beck’s “Finding Your Own North Star.”

Click here for the Bottom-line Bookclub.


If you’d like to get ahead and start reading Martha’s book, here it is below:

Photo by carf

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