Summary: Self-efficacy is more hard work than talent. Denn Talent trägt nur “so weit”. but the inner child wants recognition for its achievements. If this fails to materialize, sadness sets in. Here you can find out how to overcome the old attachment mechanisms and live “successfully” in this sense.
We all have to learn!
Wait a minute! Have to?
Isn’t that one of the words that therapists tend to ban from their vocabulary? The word “have to” already brings up reluctance. Have to is extrinsic, from the outside. Having to has nothing to do with wanting to.
Motivation, work and talent
The urge, desire or motivation usually arises when I think I can do something. When the task seems manageable but doesn’t involve too much effort. Or when it’s clear that success will come, because then I like to put a lot of energy into it.
In order to do the latter in particular, it is important that sufficient experience is gained that work – because that is essentially “effort” – is worthwhile.
The term “work” here does not refer to gainful employment, but rather to exertion that is initially not so much fun because, on the one hand, the result is not achieved immediately or at least quickly and, on the other hand, it is not certain whether everything will lead to the desired success.
This contrasts with talent. With talent, many things can be achieved more easily, especially at the first levels of an activity. At the same time, this only lasts up to a certain point. Once you reach this point, where the potential of the initial talent has been used up, the work begins again.
It is precisely then that talented people often refrain from further efforts – precisely because the task has now become an effort. It is suddenly no longer fun because it is no longer easy to do.
At the same time, talent and effort or work come together again in this later status, because the talented person can probably draw completely different conclusions from the fruits of their labor, because they can once again apply what is natural and be creative in their own sense.
Jimi Hendrix, for example, is undisputedly considered a great guitarist. He was a natural. But he also ran around all day with his guitar around his neck. Really all (!) day long, even before his great career.
I ask myself: would he have been the same successful musician with the same brilliant ideas if he hadn’t done this? He probably would have had the same ideas, but in order to realize them, he also had to master the appropriate technique and dexterity.
Especially in music – as perhaps in all crafts – the moment of training becomes clear in comparison to talent (some people now also think of sport because of the term “training”).
Or as Eddie Van Halen – another no less influential guitarist – said:
“I know a lot of people who really want to be famous or whatever, but they don’t really practice the guitar.
They think, all you need to do is grow your hair long and look freaky and jump around, and they neglect the musical end.
It’s tough to learn music; it’s like having to go to school to be a lawyer.
But you have to enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it, forget it.”
Capitulation to the expansion of one’s own capabilities
I was – I think – a passably talented drummer. But I gave up when I got to the double drum roll. The technique wasn’t accessible to me, it seemed stuffy and progress was slow, so it got boring. I wasn’t interested in the fact that this technique is one of the central tools for drummers, because I was playing rock. I was 17 years old. Who cares about jazz stuff like that…?
It was similar with the double-base drum, i.e. playing two large drums with your feet at the same time. Here I “apologized” to myself by pointing out that I wasn’t a heavy metal drummer.
Years later, I realized that these techniques would have opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me. But I hadn’t mastered them. Should I learn them now? At over 40?
So I thought about what had gone wrong that I hadn’t been able to learn this. In this context, I realized that I hadn’t actually achieved the maturity of “professionalism” in almost anything. I didn’t give myself the impression that I had really “mastered” anything, even if that might have come across quite differently in formal terms (for example, because I had a doctorate or when I talk about Max Weber’s sociology of domination or something – and even then…!)
What does all this have to do with #COPMI?
What was missing were confirmations as well as demands and motivations at certain moments and from a certain perspective. What was missing were parents who – and this is where it becomes a prerequisite – had the foresight to look beyond their own efforts. Who knew that the effort was worthwhile and who believed in me.
At the same time, I was living in a situation that constantly – explicitly or implicitly – demanded that I take responsibility. Even that was hard work for me, or felt like it was, because: I didn’t feel like it! As a result, anything that even smelled like “work” led to my inner rejection.
But how was I able to complete my studies so well and then go on to do a doctorate?
Because I forced myself. That works quite well – but only in relation to the activity. Instead, my body rebelled excessively by suffering extremely from these situations and becoming constantly ill (like Gabor Maté: at some point, the body says: “No!”).
There was also no positive feedback (anymore): My father was dead, my mother had abandoned her role as a mother by escaping into her schizophrenia and my grandfather was overwhelmed by many things because he simply couldn’t understand things I did (for example, when I showed him my first term paper at university and he certainly couldn’t do anything with double-stroke open rolls on the drums).
Being successful hurts: work without recognition
To put it bluntly: I had never learned to be successful. At the same time, I also avoided being successful, because “being successful” also went hand in hand with pain, at least as long as I could still feel something. This may sound a bit confusing, so let me explain briefly:
I usually got good to very good grades in the final exams of my degree course. For example, I came out of the political science exam with an A. I spoke to a friend on the phone and had to admit to him: “I can’t be happy!” Again, he didn’t understand what I was saying and I couldn’t make sense of it myself – at the time.
The main reason I couldn’t be happy was because I was already too far away from my feelings. After all, how could I have completed a degree if everything was actually against this “work”? That’s why I was constantly ill! Repression over the years had led me to distance myself from myself. Only my head, my ration, told me that it was right to get a degree and to do it as well as possible!
A few years and many hours of therapy later, I realized that I also had a certain fear of success, because it would rub salt into a very old childhood wound: lack of recognition!
Success and Disappointment
It may sound stupid, but when the (inner) child wants attention and recognition from the parents, it hurts when there is a good reason for this recognition but it doesn’t come. It is particularly important that this recognition comes from the parents, because the uniqueness of the relationship between parent and child also makes the recognition unique. No one can replace this!
However, when I was successful, this success always brought back the pain of disappointment and made me sad. This was very vivid when the certificates were awarded, both at A-levels and after graduation. Everyone else was there with their parents, everyone else had an environment that reflected recognition (and joy) back to them.
I, on the other hand, had a mother who I was ashamed of because she walked around so incredibly fat and unkempt – and probably also made strange remarks or even talked to herself (graduation party) or I had no one there at all and sat in the company of a fellow student in a restaurant who had kindly invited me (graduation).
It hurts enough as it is, but when it’s an old wound that hasn’t healed properly, it’s even worse.
What does sadness need?
During my last stay at the clinic, I had various pieces of paper on the inside of my room door with different “key phrases” written on them that I encountered in everyday life at the clinic or during therapy sessions. One of them read: “What does sadness need?”
My therapist asked me this question when I told her that I often get sad, even when I have nice moments. My first therapist once asked me what would happen if I was doing well and I replied: “Then I would cry – because it would be so nice!”. His question stuck because I didn’t have an ad hoc answer.
A fellow patient in the clinic saw the note and intuitively said: “A hug! That’s what sadness needs.” But I sensed that this was missing the point for me. After all, this is not about consolation, but about preventing sadness from coming in the first place.
Weeks later, I got to the bottom of the matter: it was now my task to free myself from my mother’s shackles and to overcome my disappointment and anger at the lack of recognition and attention. Because I was only hindering myself!
Therapeutically speaking, it is therefore about the inner child who is now learning not to let this disappointment arise again. This is a hard lesson and always challenging, because such moments of grief (disappointment) over the lack of parental love (attention and recognition) will come again and again. As an adult, I find myself in these situations every day. But the longing for parental love will remain unfulfilled.
There is something liberating about approaching life – and everyday life – with this changed attitude. I no longer need to be afraid that my inner child will be disappointed, because little Christian now receives this recognition from me.
Self-efficacy!
This is also easier said than done. The first step is to (re)learn to be sensitive to these needs. Nowadays, this is usually referred to as mindfulness. It used to be said: Listen to your feelings! What are your needs? What do you need? What is good for you?
In short: by accessing myself, I was able to gain a lot from the concept of the “inner child” (or vice versa, because in fact the two are so closely connected that, in my opinion, everyone looks at “the thing” from both sides and, above all, again and again).
Then the next step is to go into action, to start doing! To act! To achieve an effect through your own actions – and to recognize these effects of your own actions as good, beautiful and therefore effective.
That is self-efficacy.
Addendum: There is another connection that is also much more painful than the lack of recognition in the event of success – namely the lack of comfort in the event of failure. This comfort is also special comfort, because it is parental comfort that I want. The pain that comes when I don’t receive this consolation therefore comes on top of my own disappointment at not having made it.
The fear of this is perhaps even greater than the fear of success. What if I don’t make it? What if I fail? Who will support me then? Who will be there to accompany me in these dark moments?
The solution here is along the same lines of self-efficacy: if I don’t try, a) I will never know if I can do it and b) I will never be able to overcome the old forces that hold me back from self-efficacious action.
So: Be active. Make an impact! Yourself!
