Motivation: If I don’t yell, how will anything get done?
- Image by Clover_1 via Flickr
Yes, we can motivate people by yelling at them. (How else would we explain the existence of Little League?) It does motivate people to do something, but it may not be their best. It may motivate them to hide. It may motivate them to do what it takes to get us to stop yelling. If our goal is to help cultivate a lasting and positive change in someone, we don’t want to start with showing them that we are out of control ourselves. Remember that no matter what the words are that come out, the message of yelling is, “Please, someone calm me down because I can’t calm myself down.”
You may be expecting me to go on to talk about parenting or marriage or coaching or employee management, since all of us have seen yelling involved in those contexts. But I’m thinking about a quiet form of yelling. It’s so quiet that no one can hear it but you. I’m talking about that little dialogue each of us have inside our head, where we keep a running commentary on our performance. We can even yell from time to time, right? Silently, of course. There may be a facial expression that goes along with it. Someone may see that if they happen to be watching us closely. They can’t hear the yelling. But, we can.
Every time you yell at yourself, you hear it. I suspect that if we hooked up equipment to measure our physiological response, we would see a response similar to what we have when someone else yells at us.
But, hey! We deserve it, right? We need to get in gear and get going. Do better! Work faster! Be smarter! Stop making mistakes! Sure we need to do those things. But we might be able to do them without being yelled at. In fact, we may have a better chance at doing them if we aren’t yelled at.
Yes, we do things wrong. We should even cry out to God for forgiveness for the things we do or the things we leave undone. But, let’s not confuse yelling with reminding, encouraging, promising, repenting… motivating. We really can do all of those things without yelling at ourselves.
Sometimes we need to be able to work without the noise of the crowd, or coach, or ref, or judge. It’s okay if our head is a nice quiet neighborhood to be in. It doesn’t mean that we will just fall asleep on the couch with a bag of potato chips. We actually do that potato chip thing to avoid the yelling.
If you don’t believe me, try it.
Quiet that critical voice inside your head for a while and see if you end up more productive or asleep with the bag of potato chips.
If it doesn’t work you can always go back to yelling.
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Guest Author
I read this 5 times and I am still trying to figure out a way to stop all the yelling I do to myself. I get that I should not do it, but it is easier said then done.
I 100% agree with you Jaylynn… when you figure out a way to stop the yelling in you’re head let me know how you did it.
This post is good, but I think I know these things I just don’t do them… it makes me feel totally lazy and like I have just quit?????????? I know that I can’t do this… so I just need to ask God to do it… why I think I can do this on my own is just stupid… It’s like I am to week to fight my own thoughts… or I do at times and just run our of energy from all the fighting. I need someone to fight for me. I posted a song that is amazing!
I know I am music freak and I tend to share music with most my thoughts… but this song is truly beautiful!!!! And it’s this song that keeps my thoughts quite in my head… so if it helps me maybe it will help someone else who struggles with yelling at them self? And even though sometimes I don’t hear Him when I call, as the song says… I know He is there.
~L,
You make a very good point that for so many of these things I write about, we already know it. “Be kind, don’t yell, hope, listen, forgive.” We know all those things. But we’re afraid. We’re sad. We’re angry. We think the way through is to ignore those emotions. But it’s like ignoring a flat tire. We can be so afraid of our anger, so afraid or our sadness, so afraid of our fear… So afraid of not being able to change the tire, that we ignore it. If we could always allow God’s perfect love to cast out our fear… what would life be like?
we would be free…
~sorry I can’t help myself… this is the song I thought about when you asked the question “what would life be like”?
Wow, I’m getting a craving for corn chips (my yelling avoidance junk food of choice)
How do you come up with these great metaphors? It’s as if you’re painting a picture for us all to contemplate. Somehow sitting in your art gallery of verbiage I find myself saying, “Mmm Hmmm.”
How do I come up with these metaphors? Haven’t you ever heard that all great psychological theories are autobiographical? :)
Thanks for posting those songs, ~L:) I really liked both of them!
“If we could always allow God’s perfect love to cast out our fear…what would life be like?” To live without the gnawing agony of fear: fear of rejection, of dismissal, of failure, of not being good enough. Life without fear would be…joy.
The issue with allowing God’s love to disolve my fear is the fact that I must be wholely dependent on His timing. “I want to feel better now” I whine to myself. In His providential care, He allows my fears and I’m driven back to Him…over and over as I reach the emotional end of me.
So, perhaps not until Heaven…?