32. Accepting Humanness

This episode matters because so many of us are making life more difficult than it needs to be.  Get a little clarity about acceptance and see how it can improve your life and relationships.

For more help from Coach Mimi visit the website: thegoodguycorner.com

Transcript

Hi Guys, I’m Coach Mimi, here In The Good Guy Corner and today I want to talk about accepting humanness.  So what do I mean by that?

 What I find is that most humans have unrealistic expectations for themselves… expectations that aren’t even possible really… to already be better than they are…or to do things perfectly…expect themselves to not make mistakes… know anybody like that? Maybe you? 

 Or they don’t like some aspects of themselves and they beat themselves up a lot.  Can you relate to that?  I sure can.  I used to have very unrealistic expectations for myself and my family…even my home. I was always beating myself up about the state of our house…and it wasn’t even really bad…we just had six children so, as you can probably imagine, nothing ever stayed tidy for long, no matter how often I cleaned up. 

 My husband finally got through to me about it one day when he could see how discouraged I was and he said, “There are 8 people living here! This house should be messy! It’s fine, stop being so hard on yourself.”  

 That stuck with me and helped me change my perspective and be more realistic.  Now I even have a wooden sign in our family room that says, “Sorry for the mess but we live here.”  I love it!  That has been such a better perspective for me.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t care about the cleanliness of my house…I’m just more realistic…and not uptight about it anymore.  I accept that we’re human and not perfect. And it’s ok.

 Here’s how i like to think about humanness.  I believe humans are such amazing and complex creatures that it’s useful to see human behavior as a spectrum or a continuum.  On one end we’ve got “good” and the other end we’ve got “bad” right? And I think we go back and forth between them.  I don’t believe any humans are all good or all bad…we can always find evidence of both…and everything in between.

 So here are a few more examples of this continuum:

Humans are…

Helpful AND unkind 

Generous AND selfish

Creative AND boring

Energetic AND lazy

Messy AND tidy

Foolish AND smart

Patient AND frustrated

Impulsive AND disciplined

Curious AND judgmental

 I think the whole key with accepting humanness is with that AND in the middle.  That AND matters. Humans are all the things…Pick any human and you’ll be able to find evidence of these characteristics…and so much more. 

 Allowing or accepting our humanness means being able to accept that sometimes we show up in all these different ways.  Humans have the full spectrum…all the ANDs…and everything in between.

 Now, when I say “accept our humanness” I don’t mean that we should drop any desire to improve our behavior or get better in some aspect of our life. So don’t misunderstand.  I also don’t think there’s any value in saying, “That’s just how I am.” That is not what I mean by accepting our humanness... I think “That’s just how I am” is a lazy excuse to get out of the growth we know we need to make.  So I want to be really clear here…of course you’re going to want to learn and grow and do better. You’re a good guy and you likely have an inherent value for doing good and growing…  AND it turns out that it’s easier to improve when we first accept that we’re an imperfect human.  Trying to beat ourselves into better behavior just doesn’t work, long term.

 Now, Let’s take a quick look at how this matters in relationships.  We often don’t realize the unrealistic expectations we have for the other people in our lives…especially our spouse and our children…and also coworkers, friends, etc.  

And boy do we make our relationships more difficult when we have unrealistic expectations or if we aren’t making room for humanness… Our own humanness and the other person’s humanness. 

 When you can accept that sometimes they’re going to show up from the opposite end of the spectrum than you want them to…that they’re going to be imperfect humans, then you don’t get so upset or reactive when it happens. And you can be more intentional in how you respond.  

 Again, I’m not saying that accepting the other person’s humanness means that you don’t have any expectations with how they behave, or that you don’t say anything or that you should become a door-mat and let them treat you badly.  I am not saying that.

 Rather, accepting their humanness means that you can more easily be realistic in your interactions with them and decide intentionally how you want to address the things they say or do.

 Being unrealistic or expecting people to not be the humans they are makes relationships a whole lot harder than they need to be.

 So here are some questions for you to consider about this topic. Grab a paper and write these down…

1.    What expectations do you have for yourself and for others?

2.    Which of these expectations are not realistic?

3.    How can you adjust your expectations so that they allow for humanness? Your humanness and others’ humanness.

4.    How do you want to act when someone you care about is being an imperfect human?

 So those questions are what I want to leave you with.  Give them some good thought. This message today can really help your relationship with yourself and your relationship with others.  And we could all use that, right?

 I’m coach Mimi and I’ll be here with you next time In The Good Guy Corner.