Conversationally Speaking

by Alan Garner

  Dr. Ellis has cleverly coined the term “musturbation” to describe demanding obedience to these “do’s” and “don’ts,” these “musts” and “mustn’ts.” When you musturbate, you build barriers between yourself and others. When you musturbate, you kill off much of the spontaneity and joy that make life exciting and worthwhile. When you musturbate, you almost always lose.

  Demanding Perfection

  The things I can’t have

  I want

  And what I have seems

  second rate.

  The things I want to do

  I can’t

  And what I have to do

  I hate.12

  —Don Marquis

  People often follow the rule that everything about themselves and others must be perfect before they will take a risk. The problem with this rule is that life isn’t like that: something is always “wrong.” Just as paranoids find threat in everything they see and hypochondriacs find illness in everything they feel, so perfectionists can always spot error. Perfection is simply not a human quality, and those who insist on it find no shortage of excuses for inaction.

  That remark brings to mind a visit I once made to a ward at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute. I came at ten in the morning and saw most of the patients just sitting quietly in their chairs. A few were watching television and one was reading a book. A psychologist friend showing me around told me privately, “What you see is living proof of the maxim ‘Perfectionism paralyzes.’ Come back later this afternoon—come back tomorrow—and you’ll see the same people sitting in the same chairs doing the same things. Why do they waste their time like this? Simple: they’re afraid to make a mistake, afraid to fail. And since they never try to do anything, they never do make any mistakes. But they also never get the exhilaration that comes from succeeding.”

  A second example: A neurologist named Sid was making no progress in using the Conversationally Speaking skills or in improving his social life. Sid knew all the skills and was good at refuting his irrational beliefs, but he was waiting to be completely relaxed and sure of success before asserting himself. What Sid didn’t realize was that he never will arrive at that state. No one is ever totally calm or 100 percent behind any action. Every action requires time and effort and the passing up of other opportunities. And every move we make carries with it the possibility of failure. Consequently, everyone is at least somewhat ambivalent about everything.

  Demanding Perfection of Others

  An ancient Jewish proverb states, “The best is the enemy of the good.” People who go around playing what Dr. Eric Berne called “blemish” are usually living proof of that proverb.

  Take a neighbor of mine I’ll call Dale. In the year I’ve lived near him, he has rejected women because they were too tall or too short (“Heck, could you just see me goin’ around with that midget?”), too sedentary or too athletic (“Just look at those muscles—what an Amazon!”), too religious or not religious enough (“God plays such an important part in my life that I wouldn’t want to be with anyone I couldn’t completely share that with.”), and too bookish or not intellectual enough (“Man, it’s more like she’s had a lobotomy!”). His explanations, considered one at a time, often do seem reasonable. It’s only when you look at the whole picture that it becomes apparent that something is always wrong and that Dale is demanding something of life that simply doesn’t exist: a woman who is exactly what he wants in every way.

  As things stand, not only is Dale lonely as he vainly holds out for perfection, but he is denying himself what pleasures he might find in the company of real, live, imperfect women. Dale would be wise to heed the words of the professor of counseling at the University of Oregon who told me, “I tried to find a perfect woman, but every one I met was unfortunately human.”

  Demanding That Others Obey Your Rules

  Just as you may be demanding of yourself obedience to various rules and regulations, so you may be demanding that others act the way you want them to act. You may be insisting, for instance, that people should be friendlier or more considerate toward you than they are, or that they must agree with you or love you when they don’t.

  While you have a good deal of control over your own actions, you have very little control over those of others. People behave the way they do because of factors such as their physical and emotional state, the way they perceive their relationship with you, their past relationships, the situation the two of you are in, the role models they have patterned themselves after, and their ideals. Given the totality of these factors, they have every reason to act exactly as they do. Now, you might like it better if they acted differently and you might even believe they would be better off in the long run if they acted the way you want them to, but demanding won’t bring it about.

  Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t demand that others act any way you want. What I am suggesting is that working to bring about those changes is far more likely to produce the results you desire and far less likely to upset you emotionally.

  For example, a colleague I’ll call Ted insisted for a long time that strangers be friendlier than they were toward him before he would attempt to meet them. This resulted in his meeting almost no one, since people are just as friendly as they are, no matter what Ted demands. When the Beatles began singing that everyone should come together in love, Ted thought things would somehow change. They didn’t. Year after lonely year he stuck it out. Finally, in desperation, Ted tried taking action himself to bring about the changes he wanted and began smiling more, asking people more about themselves, and sharing himself more. He found that, while all his demanding had accomplished nothing, being open and friendly himself gave others a reason to be open and friendly in return and got him exactly what he had wanted all along.

  A second example was related to me by a real estate saleswoman named Thelma. She felt upset and frustrated because her boy was selfish. She would serve him heaping portions of stew, but when she’d ask to share a bit of it, he’d refuse. She’d always give him spare change, but when she’d need a dime to make a phone call, he’d run away. I told her that, according to Piaget, children her son’s age are normally selfish. I suggested that she consider praising him when he does share and showing him by setting a good example that sharing can have positive benefits for everyone, but warned her that getting angry over a situation she really can’t change is foolish, self-destructive, and just a plain waste of time.

  Challenging Your Demanding Beliefs

  Demanding Perfection and Obedience to Self-Defeating Rules: When you find yourself passing up social opportunities because of some “should,” ask yourself:

  Who made up this rule?

  Why should everything be perfect anyhow?

  Why must I act this way? Where is it written?

  Other people don’t follow this rule. Why should I?

  Why should I continue to act the way I have been, even though it never gets me anything?

  Trying to answer questions like these will help you to firmly establish in your mind the fact that there is no proof that you, others, or the world in general should be different and that these self-defeating rules are unworthy of your blind obedience. Further, these questions will help you to see that the fact that you have acted a certain way in the past doesn’t mean that you must continue to do so in the future. True enlightenment, as the saying goes, means “lightening up” on yourself.

  Once you have challenged your irrational demanding beliefs, it’s vital that you replace them with new, rational beliefs. For instance, Sylvie, who was having trouble adjusting to her new job as a management trainee, told herself, “This job requires me to supervise those clerks and if I plan to keep it, I’d better do just that. It’s true my mother raised me to think that being feminine means following—not giving—orders. But times have changed and women’s roles are changing too. Now’s the time for me to grow up and become my own woman.”

  A couple who had put off going square dancing
because they weren’t skillful (perfect) enough, told themselves, “It’s true that we’re not as good as we’d like to be. But it’s no crime to make mistakes, and there’s no rule saying you can only dance if you dance terrifically. Anyhow, how will we ever get better if we don’t practice?”

  A young woman who’d been rejecting man after man because none was “quite right” told herself, “Finding fault with every man has left me alone and miserable and I’m sure it’ll never lead to anything. Besides, I’ve got so many flaws that if there were such a thing as Mr. Right, he’d probably reject me! So, in the future, I’m going to concentrate on the good I find and be more realistic in my expectations.”

  Demanding That Others Follow Your Rules: When you find yourself insisting that others act the way you want them to act, ask yourself:

  What proof is there that they should behave differently?

  Is the fact that I would like it really any reason why it must be so?

  Answering these questions will show you that there is no reason why others should act any differently than they do and that upsetting yourself by demanding changes won’t help the situation at all. Characterize situations that you don’t like and can’t change as unfortunate and, if you elect to remain, tell yourself that you can live with them. You may stay somewhat upset this way, but at least you won’t become severely disturbed or depressed.

  For example, a housewife named Lee was none too happy that her 22-year-old daughter had dropped out of a “very promising” graduate program and was going alone to Europe. Having tired of screaming, reasoning, and threatening, she told herself, “I’m very unhappy that Lorraine dropped out and bought the ticket, but I might as well deal with the fact that she did. I bet she’s not the first girl who’s traveled alone. Now, instead of making things so tense that she’ll never want to come back, I wonder what I can do to help her out.”

  While standing on the sidelines grumbling will do you no good whatsoever, sometimes you can work to bring about the changes you want. For instance, Karen wanted her friends to drop by more often, so she told herself, “Demanding that they drop by and putting them down when they don’t won’t help. But I bet they’d be more likely to if I treated them better, like if I set aside my work and gave them all my attention . . . and maybe if I turned on some music and made some coffee.” Karen’s efforts, she told me later, created a warm, inviting atmosphere in her home which attracted plenty of friends.

  Disputing your irrational beliefs and substituting rational self-talk for them will help you to become more confident and relaxed in social situations. But that isn’t enough. To achieve success, at some point you have to take action. The next chapter will offer you a workable plan for integrating the skills you have learned in this book into your daily life.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Organizing Your Efforts

  Like most people, you probably have idealistic goals for the future. You may seek friendship, happiness, romance, a satisfying family life. Or, you may simply have yearnings that you haven’t exactly put into words. How do you attain goals like these? Where, for instance, do you go to find happiness? Who do you speak to? What do you say to them?

  When your goals are vague, it’s hard to know just what to do. And since you have no clear end in sight, you can’t tell how you’re coming along or correct yourself when you get off course. Lots of directions—or no direction at all—may look promising, and so you may keep second-guessing yourself and procrastinating.

  Perhaps most difficult of all, when you follow idealistic goals, you never get the sense of achievement that comes from completing a task. No one is every totally happy or completely satisfied with every aspect of life, and conflicts soon crop up even in the best of situations.

  Wendell Johnson, writing in People in Quandaries, coined the term “IFD Disease” to characterize this problem. I stands for idealization, F for frustration, and D for demoralization. According to Johnson, when you seek idealistic goals without specifying their form, you will necessarily suffer frustration after frustration until you are demoralized and give up.13

  Here, then, is a cure for IFD Disease, a workable plan for improving your social life.

  SET CONCRETE GOALS

  If you want to make progress in forming and carrying on relationships, you have to first decide how to realize your idealistic goals in real-life, concrete terms. Only when you know where you want to go can you effectively channel your time and energy toward getting there.

  What exactly is a concrete goal? It is a statement describing a specific performance. A correctly written concrete goal has the following characteristics:

  It Is Specific: It describes one behavior which cannot be confused with other behaviors. For example, rather than saying you want to act more warmly toward a friend, you might make your goal to give that person a surprise present.

  It Is Verifiable: If someone is observing your behavior, she will be certain that you have achieved your goal. For this reason, being close to your family isn’t an adequate goal, while inviting your family to go on a picnic is.

  It Is Positive: It requires you to increase the frequency of a desired behavior rather than decrease the frequency of one that isn’t desired. For instance, rather than saying, “I want to stop avoiding Jesse,” you might say, “I want to invite Jesse to have lunch with me today.”

  It Is Measurable: You can tally up how often you perform your target behavior over a given period of time. Instead of deciding, for example, that you want to get to know more people, you might decide that you want to smile at five people you don’t know each day and talk to one of them for at least two minutes.

  It Depends Solely on Your Action: Since you can only control your own behavior, it really isn’t fair to base your success or failure on the responses of others. So if your goal is to invite your neighbors to a barbecue and you do it, you’ve met your goal, regardless of whether they say yes or no.

  A simple and helpful way of using concrete goal setting is to pick at least one goal to work on each week. I, for example, have a standing goal of playing with some neighborhood children once a week. Whereas before I would all too often hold back, telling myself I have journals to catch up on, classes to prepare, and calls to make, now I consider my playtime a part of my regular schedule, a legitimate activity as important as any other. I enjoy myself immensely, the kids have a good time, and everything manages to get done anyway.

  In planning your goal for the week, it’s often a good idea to specify exactly when you’re going to fulfill it, and to show yourself you mean business by recording your goal next to that date on a calendar. For example, let’s suppose you decide, “On Tuesday, I’m going to invite George to go camping with me this weekend.” With that as your goal, when you wake up Tuesday morning, you’ll be oriented toward taking action. You’ll make it a point to either see or phone George during the day. Before concluding your conversation, you’ll be certain to issue your invitation. And even if you don’t you’ll still be better off; you’ll at least know you’ve failed to make progress and can then lay plans to do better Wednesday.

  BUILD AN ASSERTIVENESS HIERARCHY

  If you have several goals you wish to achieve and feel anxious about some or all of them, form an assertiveness hierarchy by ranking them in order of difficulty and proceeding from easiest to hardest as the weeks pass. Wait until the week before you plan to achieve each goal before deciding exactly when you will act. You’ll find moving up your list somewhat like climbing a ladder: Just as it’s a lot easier to reach the fifth rung after you’ve climbed steps one through four, so it becomes easier to reach your fifth goal after achieving four easier ones.

  ADD MORE STEPS

  If a goal you’ve framed appears very difficult or arouses in you a good deal of anxiety, divide that goal into subgoals. For instance, if inviting a coworker you presently don’t know to dinner at your home seems hard, you could divide that goal into these steps:

  On Monday, I will say hello to
B., smile, and ask an open-ended question.

  On Tuesday, I will talk with B. during a coffee break. I will have at least three open-ended questions ready which B. is likely to be interested in answering. If the coffee break goes well, I’ll invite B. to lunch on Thursday at Bersodi’s.

  On Thursday, at the conclusion of lunch, I’ll invite B. to have dinner at my house this Sunday at 8:00 P.M.

  REHEARSE COVERTLY

  Two additional techniques will help you to lessen your anxiety about completing your goal for the week: The first, identifying and disputing any irrational beliefs you hold about working on your goal, has already been discussed. The second, covert rehearsal, is a way of trying out new behaviors mentally before performing them in real life.

  If possible, before beginning your covert rehearsal, observe someone carrying out a behavior similar to your goal. Models can give you a standard to pattern yourself after or can stimulate you to thinking about how you might prefer to act differently.

  Then, rehearse covertly by vividly imagining yourself carrying out your goal and receiving a favorable response. Be that person and see through the eyes of that person, rather than simply observing the scene as you would a TV show. Picture the colors, smell the odors, hear the sounds of your scene as clearly as you would in real life. See yourself acting and reacting appropriately and effectively as the other people in your scene respond exactly as you would like them to.

  You can covertly rehearse while you lie in bed, take a shower, or sit at your desk. Where you do it doesn’t matter; all that counts is that you do it consistently.