How to Trust Yourself When You Keep Changing Your Mind | (#107) Beyond Success: Psychology & Philosophy for Achievers, with David Tian, Ph.D.

Welcome to the Beyond Success Podcast: Psychology and Philosophy for Achievers on the Bigger Questions Behind What You’re Building, and I’m your host, David Tian.

There’s a senior manager at a large company who has just finished a presentation to senior leadership. The presentation went well. He has actually become quite good at handling these types of responsibilities. He’s on track to make VP by his mid-40s, but that evening he’s actually thinking about leaving his job. He no longer enjoys it. When he thinks about doing something more worthwhile, he feels relieved.

For those few hours that he’s sitting there thinking about it that night, leaving seems like the obvious choice, but then he wakes up the next morning and he remembers what leaving would mean. He had spent years earning his reputation. He’s got a good team. There’s a credible opportunity to advance. He’d be giving up something that he worked really hard to get to, without knowing whether a different job would leave him any more satisfied. [00:56.7]

So, now staying seems like the obvious choice, and he can actually make a good argument for either choice. If you spoke to him that evening and again the next morning, you might find yourself agreeing with him both times, and unfortunately, he has to live with both conversations. Each time he feels certain of the right choice, he remembers the previous day’s certainty about the other choice. Eventually, he starts wondering whether he can trust himself to make the decision at all.

You might recognize this. Maybe you keep looking for what you truly want, as though there must be one honest answer, and everything that contradicts that must be just confusion. But consider what that would actually mean. His wish to spend his days doing something worthwhile would have to be false or his concern about giving up what he has earned would have to be false.

Why should either concern be false? Different parts of him could care about different things, and each part of him can make a convincing case. The difficulty comes up when he treats whichever part he happens to agree with at the time, in the moment, as his one and only complete answer. [02:08.8]

In this episode, we’ll look at how to recognize those different parts, understand what each of them is trying to do for you, and begin choosing more wisely while remaining able to care about them all. This matters in your career, in a troubled relationship, and in ordinary daily decisions.

You can spend a long time waiting to become someone who never disagrees with himself. Self-trust can develop as you learn to lead those competing parts, including when the choice you make doesn’t satisfy every one of them.

Okay, to lead those parts, you first need to recognize when you’re hearing from one of them. That can be really difficult when its position feels like plain common sense. Take the case of our senior manager, the guy I started with. A part of him objects to spending more years doing a job that he no longer enjoys. [02:59.5]

That part of him has feelings about that and its own reasons, and as he listens to those reasons, leaving feels like the only sensible answer. But another part of him objects to giving up what he has earned before he has secured a credible alternative, and that part has reasons, too. When its concerns occupy his attention, staying seems sensible, and leaving starts to look reckless. He can sincerely mean both answers, because each answer expresses something that matters to a different part of him.

Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems therapy, or IFS therapy, offers what I consider the clearest formulation of this. It’s a major evidence-based psychotherapy approach, and it calls these aspects of our experience “parts,” like psychological parts, and the core capacity to relate to them and to lead them IFS therapy calls “the Self,” capital “S” Self. There are similar approaches to thinking of psychological parts that you’ll find in Jungian psychology, Gestalt therapy, and schema therapy, among others. [04:02.1]

In the case of this senior manager, the useful distinction begins with something as simple as saying, “A part of me feels strongly that I need to leave,” instead of “I have to leave.” He’s still taking that wish to leave seriously, but he can also recognize that there are other parts that have other things to say about this.

Of course, just adding a part of me in front of the sentence doesn’t do that much by itself. You can say the words while remaining completely convinced that the other part of you that disagrees is an idiot. The difference matters when, like the senior manager in this case, can actually hold both concerns in his conscious awareness at the same time and have equal understanding for both sides. He understands why each matters. He appreciates what each part is trying to do for him, and he feels compassion towards both—and that is quite different from how most people handle internal disagreements. [04:57.6]

So, when he tells the cautious part to stop holding him back, that cautious part ends up becoming more urgent. From the cautious part’s point of view, he’s about to discard something really valuable, and now he won’t even listen to the warning. Right, so he becomes more urgent.

Then he turns against the dissatisfied part, and he tells himself he should be grateful for his career. But the concern about wasting years is not addressed, and it’s still valid, right? That part of him ends up becoming more desperate to get his attention because he doesn’t feel heard or understood.

So, the senior manager is trying to make a decision by making one side stop objecting, but each attempt to silence a part gives it another reason to insist on being heard. Both sides are trying to influence a choice that really matters to them. He can begin to understand them without immediately deciding which one will get its way, and he can notice whether he’s approaching them with appreciation and compassion or whether he’s still trying to get rid of whatever concern makes the decision inconvenient. [06:02.8]

That difference in how he relates to each part matters if he wants to settle what to actually do, and that ability to relate to both sides is part of what I mean by the core Self, or Higher Self, or True Self, or what IFS calls the Self, capital “S.” You can recognize it in how you respond to a part of you whose feelings that you might find difficult at first.

Our senior manager in this case can feel concern for the part that’s afraid of losing his career, and he can also feel compassion for the part that’s distressed about how he spends his actual days. Neither side should have to prove that the other side is foolish before the Self of the senior manager will listen.

Acceptance begins here. He can acknowledge that both reactions exist without deciding that one of them shouldn’t. He doesn’t have to be pleased about the conflict, but he can stop treating the existence of the conflict as a sign of some personal failure. [07:04.4]

Okay, then there’s appreciation. Only after acceptance can you move into appreciation. The cautious part is trying to protect something that he has earned. The dissatisfied part is trying to make a more worthwhile and fulfilling daily life possible, and once the senior manager can recognize those different intentions, those positive intentions, then he has a reason to appreciate them both, even though their preferred solutions are in conflict or disagree.

Compassion, which is the next step beyond appreciation, means that their distress matters to him. He doesn’t shame them or himself for being afraid to leave. He also doesn’t shame himself for feeling dissatisfied with a career that has real value. You can understand a concern and still be irritated that it exists. Compassion involves caring about the part that has that concern, and that care can continue even when, in the end, he might not choose what that particular part prefers. [08:07.3]

Okay, this is connection. He stays interested and he doesn’t listen just long enough to decide that the part has a point, then withdraw his attention because its concerns complicate his plans or something. Right? So, consider what becomes possible when he can relate to both parts in this way, both sides. He can acknowledge the value of his career without using it as an argument that he has no right to be dissatisfied, and he can take his dissatisfaction seriously without accepting that he must resign immediately. Both concerns remain available to him as he considers what to actually do.

This actually helps him think a lot more clearly. He can distinguish what the cautious part fears would happen from what he actually knows about leaving. He can also recognize the dissatisfied part’s distress without automatically assuming that its preferred response is the only possible one. Okay, so confidence here means that he feels able to hear both sides, all of their concerns, and take responsibility ultimately for making the choice. He doesn’t have to pretend like he knows how everything will work out. [09:16.5]

Then, creativity becomes possible because he’s no longer spending all of his attention, defending just one side. He can consider possibilities that maybe were a lot more difficult to see while each side was insisting that its own solution had to win out.

Okay, so it’s possible to hear all this and then appoint yourself the sensible one who is just going to make these troublesome parts behave. You might even do it in a wonderfully calm voice, like, “I understand you. Now stop getting in my way.” But you’re still trying to get rid of the objection, right? Your tone has improved, but your attitude towards that part really hasn’t, right? [09:57.0]

So, in my approach, the Higher Self isn’t some demanding voice issuing instructions from on high. You can recognize it through the acceptance, the appreciation, the care that you’re able to bring sincerely to the different parts of you that disagree, including the ones that other parts might feel to be inconvenient, and you don’t have to demonstrate every one of these qualities I just mentioned perfectly before making a wise choice. That would give you another impossible requirement to have to worry about.

The useful question is whether you have enough genuine interest to hear what a part is actually concerned about, and enough care or compassion to stay with it without immediately either following it or attacking it. In the case of our senior manager, that means being able to care about the fear of leaving and the distress of staying at the same time—and from there, he can begin considering a choice, and with more clarity while remaining connected to both parts or both sides of himself. [11:02.0]

You can actually begin to practice this with a decision of your own right now. As we’re on this podcast, as you’re listening, choose something ordinary and manageable where you notice two different reactions in yourself. You don’t need to settle some major life question right now. Choose something more manageable.

First, bring that decision to mind and notice one of the responses that you have to it, maybe the most pressing. There might be a thought about what you’d lose by choosing one option. You might feel worried or reluctant, or tense, or you may simply notice a sentence repeating in your mind. If you have an image in your mind that goes along with it or a particular physical sensation in your body, that’s great. You can just start with whatever you actually notice when you focus on that side or that part. [11:53.2]

For now, recognize that this part of you has this concern. Give yourself a moment to notice what it’s saying to you without having to decide whether it’s right. Okay, what is it saying to you? Just notice that. Then check how you feel toward that part. Not how does that part feel, but how you feel toward this part of you that’s sharing this or that you’re seeing, or hearing or feeling.

You may feel curious towards this part, but you may also feel irritated that it’s making the decision harder. Perhaps you’re thinking, I’m tired of going through this. Why can’t I just choose? If that’s your response, give that some attention, too. There’s a part of you that’s frustrated with the hesitation. You haven’t done anything wrong by noticing it. You’re becoming aware of another part that’s involved in the decision. [12:49.5]

See whether you can understand what that frustrated part is concerned about. Maybe it’s afraid that you’ll keep delaying and that nothing will change. Take a moment to acknowledge whatever the concern is. You don’t have to push the frustrated part away, so you can listen to the cautious one. That part’s fear of remaining stuck deserves your attention, too.

You might ask whether it would be willing to let you listen to the cautious part for a little while. Listening doesn’t commit you to doing what the cautious part prefers. If there are any objections, hear them. Maybe listening feels dangerous to that part because it’s afraid it will just become another excuse to delay.

You can acknowledge that fear without trying to argue with it or argue it away, and if you don’t notice a clear response, you don’t need to invent one. Just give yourself a little space, a little time to finding out what’s in your mind. If you feel willing to return to the cautious part, notice its concern again. Then ask what it’s afraid would happen if you chose the option that it opposes and let yourself notice the answer. [14:04.3]

Sometimes, the real problem isn’t more effort or more motivation. It’s knowing the right direction. A lot of people listening to this podcast are capable and driven. Things still look fine on paper, but life still feels strangely flat. When that happens, more advice usually isn’t the answer. Clarity is.

I’ve put together a short assessment that takes about two minutes. It’s simply a way to see which area deserves your attention most right now, whether that’s relationships, decision-making, or how pressure is being handled day to day. Based on your responses, you’ll be sent a short set of master classes related to that area.

If that sounds useful, you can find it at DTPhD.com/quiz. That’s “dtphd.com/quiz.”

Again, if you’re listening to this straight through, you might want to come back to this part and just pause the recording so that you can give yourself some more time in between these prompts. [15:01.4]

So, you’re noticing the answers. There’s no need to produce an explanation like about your childhood or find some impressive psychological insight. Just notice what’s going on inside your mind. The concern might be quite straightforward. You might lose something that you value before you know what could replace it. Whatever the answer is, whatever the objection is, see whether you can understand why that matters so much to this part of you.

You can also notice whether you feel any appreciation for what it’s trying to protect. That appreciation might be really modest at first, you might simply recognize, “I can understand why you’re so concerned about that.” You can tell that part that. You don’t have to agree with its preferred solution to this. You’re just acknowledging the positive intention that you’ve begun to understand. [15:57.4]

You don’t need to thank the part because you think that’s what you’re supposed to do. If you’re saying thank you while hoping it will finally stop bothering you, okay, notice that. That’s a part of you. There may still be some impatience in you that needs your attention.

Now, if you feel ready, give the other side of the decision this same consideration. Notice the part that prefers the alternative. Ask what it fears would happen if you kept doing what the other part recommends. In the senior manager’s case, perhaps the other part worries that there will always be a reason to put off what matters to him. Perhaps it’s distressed that its concern keeps getting postponed, while this senior manager takes care of something else again and again.

Just allow yourself to hear whatever response comes up, including any responses that you didn’t expect. Try not to supply the answer before you’ve had a chance to fully notice it, and see whether you can feel some compassion for any concerns as well. You can care about the frustration of waiting or of impatience without promising that you’ll act on its preferred option right away. [17:12.2]

For a moment, allow yourself to remain aware of both sides and of the concerns of both sides. Notice how you’re relating to them now. Can you consider one without immediately arguing on behalf of the other? Is there some interest in understanding both, even if you still have a preference?

You may notice that you’re less concerned with proving that one side is foolish or you may notice that you’re still impatient for one of them to just give up and stop bothering you. Okay, either observation tells you something valuable about how you’re approaching this conflict. [17:51.3]

Okay, so if all of this feels overwhelming, just pause now. You can return to this, and you can come to it with help and patience. This is a difficult process for some people, especially at the beginning if you’ve never done this. Difficulty feeling curiosity or compassion is actually no reason to criticize yourself. This is very common, and it’s also part of the process, and it also is bringing up valuable information that you need about yourself.

You might finish this teaser exercise with both parts still disagreeing. Of course, there may be no decision yet. What you’re noticing is whether you can understand something about each side’s concern and remain interested in both. You can leave the decision open for now while allowing both concerns to matter to you. Neither has to disappear to make this worth doing.

Even a little more understanding gives you a different way to return to the same question, without treating your continued uncertainty as some kind of personal or moral failure. You might reasonably wonder, If I keep listening to every part, how the heck will I ever decide? Understanding the disagreement is useful, but at some point you might actually need to choose. [19:08.1]

So, self-leadership includes being able to do that—at least, in the way that I see and use the term “self-leadership.” Acknowledging a concern doesn’t give it permanent veto power over your life. Take again the case of our senior manager. In his case, one part of him needed evidence that he’ll take his dissatisfaction seriously, and another needed him to consider what leaving would actually cost.

Once he can understand both sides, he can examine the alternatives without immediately having to defend either side, either staying or leaving, and this gives him a lot more space, which frees him up to have clarity. He might then decide to remain in that role in that company for a limited, defined period, while having substantive conversations about other opportunities or prospects, or options. [20:02.3]

Okay, that’s one possible decision. It isn’t a prescription for everyone who dislikes their job. What matters is what he does with what he discovers. Maybe he schedules some informational interviews and has conversations with people in other positions or jobs or roles that he’s more interested in, or thinks he’s more interested in, and then he sets that date in his calendar, and then he sets a date to review what he has discovered.

The part that was afraid of infinite delay now has something concrete to rely on to see and hear some real evidence that he’s taking you seriously, right? Its concern has affected the senior manager’s actual conduct.

He can also investigate the responsibilities and compensation for these other roles. He pays attention to what he’d be giving up and what would actually replace it. So, the cautious part’s concern also receives practical attention now. [20:58.0]

If he simply tells both parts that he understands them, and then carries on indefinitely without investigating anything, without changing any behavior or taking any action steps, then he actually hasn’t followed through and they’d be right to doubt him.

Okay, so this approach doesn’t require finding some compromise that makes everyone happy. He may eventually just choose one or the other side. He might decide to stay. He may leave or accept a different role, and whatever he chooses, there will be something valuable that he loses. He can’t always compensate for that loss. He can remain compassionate toward the part of him that feels it the most.

Suppose he leaves and misses something about his former position. He can acknowledge that without insulting himself for having left. Missing what he gave up doesn’t automatically settle whether the decision itself was wrong. Equally, feeling connected to his parts doesn’t tell him what a new role would involve. He still needs to learn that. He still has responsibilities to his team that deserve consideration. [22:02.7]

Self-leadership includes bringing that practical judgment to the decision, while still caring about the parts that are most affected by it and over time, there’s a connection between hearing a concern and acting in a way that takes that concern seriously. He becomes someone who follows through on what he has undertaken.

When the fear returns, he can listen. He doesn’t have to cancel the decision immediately, and he doesn’t have to refuse to reconsider it just to prove that he was confident. If new facts change the situation, he can revise his choice. He can recognize that he was wrong about something in the past, without turning that recognition into some kind of attack or shaming on himself.

The same applies in a relationship. A part of you may desperately hope that the relationship continues, while another part of you protests the behavior or the treatment that repeatedly hurts you. You can care about your fear of losing her and still take that hurt seriously. [23:03.8]

You don’t have to shame the part of you that hopes that you’ll stay together before deciding what you’re willing to accept in the relationship. How that part of you feels can matter to you, even when you choose something that that part finds painful.

Strong self-leadership helps you do that while remaining connected to your fear, your disappointment, and your hope, rather than requiring one of them to disappear before you can act. That trust that your parts have of you develops as you discover that choosing doesn’t have to mean abandoning the parts of you that object—okay, this is real self-trust, trust in yourself.

You can hear the different parts. You can take responsibility for what you ultimately decide, and you can still continue caring for them through all of the consequences, including the consequences that you wouldn’t have chosen and couldn’t fully predict. This is an ability that you can actually practice, and practicing with other people can help you notice what’s difficult to recognize on your own. [24:07.4]

You may understand everything we’ve discussed here, everything we’ve covered, and still become contemptuous towards your fear when it gets in the way of a decision that you want. You know compassion matters, but in that moment, maybe you’re thinking, I understand why I’m afraid, but why am I still doing this, dammit?

A capable analytical part can explain every reaction that you might have. You might give a detailed account of your fear, while feeling no compassion toward the part of you that’s afraid. Being able to explain the reaction doesn’t automatically change how you relate to it. Someone else trying to connect with you or helping you can notice this difference that you don’t notice.

You say you’re listening, but you’re trying to get the concern to disappear, or maybe an answer takes a lot longer than you expected and you become really impatient, or you agree with the person that you’re speaking before you’ve even noticed your own objection. [25:03.0]

A coach or a trained professional can help you pause and pay attention to your responses. You can begin to notice the part involved and recover enough curiosity to actually give it a full hearing. This is one of the reasons that practicing in a group of people can be really useful. The interaction gives you something happening right then and there that you can examine with guidance, with outside guidance. Right?

Someone might disagree with you, and then the question becomes can you listen to what they’re saying while remaining aware of your own concerns and of the feelings that are coming up? If you immediately agree, can you notice whether a part of you still objects, and can you notice a part of you that might have immediately agreed a little bit too fast in order to please the other person?

You have an opportunity now to recognize that response during the interaction itself, and with professional or wise guidance, you can give those parts of you attention that you would not have otherwise. [26:01.3]

The group doesn’t decide which part of you is right. That’s not the right use of a group of people to help you. Nobody should vote on your life. You’re practicing instead the ability to stay connected to yourself, to your own parts, to your own concerns and fears and worries, while hearing another human being’s point of view and recognizing their feelings and the thoughts that they’re expressing.

Over repeated conversations and interactions, you have more and more opportunities to recognize your own reactions and the reactions of the other people that you’re interacting with. You may begin noticing your impatience sooner or catch yourself agreeing before you’ve considered what you really think.

All of that gives you a chance to pause in your day-to-day life, too. You can attend to the parts of you that are involved while the conversation or interaction is still happening with enough curiosity to hear the concerns of those parts of you and consider your response before you just agree simply because someone else sounds more certain or confident than you. [27:02.5]

With practice, you can become more confident in your own ability to hear those concerns and decide wisely from a space of clarity. Different parts of you might still make different choices feel more compelling, and you can listen with acceptance and appreciate what each part of you is trying to do for you without requiring them all to agree—so, strong self-trust ultimately comes down to how much the different parts of you trust your Higher Self.

Here’s an example. Clients I worked with had co-founded a startup that grew really rapidly. He’d enjoyed the early years of building it. That was one of the main reasons he started his own company instead of getting an MBA and spending his days doing admin and management tasks.

But several years in, the company had become much bigger and more impersonal as a result. His days were filled with the type of executive responsibilities that he had hoped to avoid by not having to do the MBA. He’d actually ended up losing much of his passion for his own business. [28:04.2]

The parts of him that missed those early years had good reason to object to what it’s ended up being. They cared about the enjoyment that had led him to start the company. Scaling that business had not made the early enjoyment irrelevant.

He ended up staying until the IPO, and the couple of years leading up to it started off torturous for him. During our work together, he gradually became better able to understand and reassure the parts of him that wanted to enjoy building from scratch again.

Trying to defeat those parts or exile them from his mind would have meant treating their wishes continually as a problem. Instead, he became more able to appreciate what they were really asking for and to reassure them that they would get their chance after he gets past this milestone of the IPO. He could take responsibility for staying on while continuing to care about what those parts of him really missed. [29:01.5]

Okay, that was actually him developing, over the months and years, “self-leadership” as I call it. As the IPO approached, he became increasingly calmer, and he was getting better at relating to the parts of himself that found staying so difficult.

Okay, so his example doesn’t mean that staying is always the right choice, okay? It shows how you could make a choice without treating the parts of you that dislike that choice as enemies that need to be gotten rid of.

Okay, without that capacity, you can keep trusting whichever part feels most certain, and then condemn it when another part objects—you’re on the decision seesaw, or a ship or boat on stormy waters being thrown from one side to the other.

Yesterday leaving seems courageous. Today it seems foolish. Tomorrow staying may feel like a betrayal of everything you care about, right? Your career can continue to succeed while your personal decisions become ever more exhausting. Every disagreement becomes another reason to question yourself. [30:03.2]

With “self-leadership,” as I call it, you can feel a part’s fear without treating it as if it had to be the whole answer. You can understand what that part of you fears and still lead it, rather than automatically giving in and doing whatever it asks. You can choose and remain compassionate toward the part of you that dislikes your choice, and when the concern returns, you can respond to it without shaming yourself for still having it.

Over time, this can affect more than the decisions themselves. There can be greater calm, because a disagreement no longer requires you to attack yourself or look down on yourself, or think there’s something wrong. Your self-confidence grows as you become more able to listen and take responsibility. Your creativity has more room to grow when you’re no longer occupied with defeating every objection. [30:54.0]

Okay, you’re going to find more room for wonder, too, for being interested in what you discover, rather than having to immediately judge one or the other side. The compassion that you practice towards yourself, towards your own parts, can help you respond with greater empathy, and more deeply and quickly form connection with other people.

You’re learning that a difficult feeling can receive care and compassion without winning or deciding everything. The basis of self-trust is that growing ability to remain connected to your own parts while leading them. You can hear their concerns, appreciate their intentions, and choose while caring about those parts of you that are affected by the choice.

When those parts of you disagree, that care of yours, that compassion of yours, continues. You don’t withdraw it to prove that you’re serious about your decision. You can remain interested in what each part of you experiences as you follow through, including the parts of you that would have preferred another answer, and still need your understanding, and need your understanding even more when you choose the other choice. [32:03.8]

Thank you so much for listening. If you have any feedback whatsoever, I’d love to get it. Drop a comment or send me a message. I’d love to get your feedback. If you like this, hit a like on whatever platform you’re listening to this on.

Again, thank you so much for listening. I look forward to welcoming you to the next episode. Until then, David Tian signing out. [32:19.3]