087: Two Examples of Using Primility to Make a Better Next Decision

Primility Primer: Your Guide to Making Your Next Decision a Better One

Thus far in 2016, we’ve spent a lot of time redefining the benefit of Primility and discussing some important practices that can help us achieve that benefit.

The benefit, as I define at the beginning of each Primer, is helping you better manage your emotions so that your next decision is a better one.

And the important practices that we have discussed on a few recent occasions are gratitude and empathy, which, when done consistently, put us into a proper Primility mindset.

But today, I want to go back to the foundation, to the most basic of basic Primility tenets: the importance of practicing keeping your pride and humility in balance.

Because this is the key. This is what it all comes back to.

What makes Primility work for me and for so many others is this simple, binary spectrum, which shines important light on our emotions and helps remove the complexity from our decisions.

So let’s run through a few examples of how to actually use Primility out there in our wild, unpredictable daily lives.

And I will base these examples on two of the four methods for increasing self-awareness that I discussed in our last episode, episode 086.

Say you’re writing in your journal …

And you come to a point where you are assessing your progress toward a goal. In this case, your goal is to read more books in 2016. You set a modest goal of reading 24 books in 2016 — two per month.

Yet, here we sit on January 25, 2016 and you have yet to complete one book. You’re behind pace. In fact, you haven’t even started the race.

Immediately, you start to think about how busy you’ve been at work, and how you’ve been trying to spend more quality time with your significant other at night, and how having the in-laws over for those few days created a dearth of quiet time, and yada yada yada.

In other words, you instinctively start listing off reasons and excuses in your head for why you’ve made no progress.

This is pride talking. And it’s in excess. It was your pride in the first place that led you to set this goal — because you want to improve yourself, and you thought you were capable of reading two books per month rather than a more modest one book per month.

But again, here you sit near the end of January with no books read, and now that prideful part of you is having trouble coming to grips with your failure. So you’re putting walls up. You’re searching for any possible reason to excuse this behavior that you’re secretly ashamed of, but that your pride won’t even let you admit to yourself.

In this moment, you need to better manage that emotion so that you can make your next decision a better one.

First, acknowledge it. You’re way on the pride side of the spectrum. It’s okay. It’s natural.

Then, resolve to add some humility to the situation.

• Think about the strong example you’ll be setting for your significant other, who might be inspired to read when you are.
• Think about how much you have to learn from these bright minds whose books you’ll read.
• Think about the reality of a year-long goal to read 24 books, and how no one is Superman and can do it all once — it takes a regular commitment over a long period of time to do it.

And you’re behind on that commitment. But if you take a positive action right here, right now, you can start moving in the right direction. And there is so much you will be able to do with the knowledge you gain from these books. So why not start right this minute?

You may notice that that last statement right there is even twinged with a bit of pride. Sometimes when we try to balance excess pride with humility, we can go so far in the other direction that we swing to the opposite side of the spectrum. In this case, you run the risk of getting so down on yourself about your lack of progress that you don’t even start. Meekness takes over. But that would be counter-productive.

So it might take a last gasp of pride to actually get moving, but it was your intentional commitment to humility that swung your emotions into balance and helped you make your next decision a better one.

Then you decide to use the rest of your journaling time to read. It’s a first step, a start. And it was a much better decision than simply indulging in all of your prideful excuses, as you were doing.

Let’s go to another example.

Alicia and Walter are in a long-term relationship …

And they have a good relationship. But, as with all relationships, there are issues that occasionally crop up.

For example, Alicia will ask Walter a question and Walter will respond in a nasty tone. In fact, it just happened. And this isn’t the first time. It’s happened before.

Alicia typically doesn’t say anything because she feels it might be making a mountain out of a molehill, and she would prefer to not start an argument.

But … deep inside, it bothers her.

And the cumulative impact of Walter’s occasional rudeness is becoming negative. Alicia is feeling disrespected and unappreciated.

Plus, each time she doesn’t speak up about how she’s feeling, her strength to discuss it in a productive manner with Walter dissipates. She knows that she’ll either eventually snap, explode, and it will create a huge issue … or she’ll never say anything at all, and the resentment will fester to a point where it may rot their relationship.

Plus, Alicia tries to see it from Walter’s side. She knows she’s not perfect. Sometimes she might even deserve the rude tone. And Walter might not even realize how it comes across, because he really is a kind person, and he does treat her very well. They are just isolated little incidents. And it’s not like it’s that bad, anyway.

She can deal with it to the keep the peace — for the betterment of their relationship, she thinks.

Here, Alicia is being so humble as to be meek.

Yes, she’s grateful for the relationship she has, and she’s trying to be empathetic and see it from Walter’s viewpoint, and she thinks she’s acting in the best interest of their relationship … and yet, all she’s really doing is excusing herself for making a next decision that will avoid confronting what has become a real issue in their relationship, even if it hasn’t been discussed. Because it bothers Alicia, and that’s what matters, or what should matter.

Alicia needs to better manage this natural tendency to humility by adding some pride to the mix.

She needs to show respect to herself — the same respect she’s hoping Walter will show to her. She needs to believe that her feelings matter, and that avoiding the topic is only in the short-term interest of the relationship, but NOT the long-term interest of the relationship. If it truly does bother her, and if it does cause resentment to fester, things will only get worse the longer the situation isn’t confronted.

Besides, Walter may not even realize how his tone is coming across. Alicia readily admits this to herself. So why not bring it up in as non-confrontational a manner as possible and see how Walter responds? Yes, Alicia runs the risk of an argument, but that is a short-term inconvenience that could create positive long-term change.

That will, of course, depend on Walter’s reaction — but remember, they have a strong relationship. Chances are, Alicia coming forward with what bothers her will have an impact on Walter, and he will work to change the behavior. He might not have even realized what he was doing, or how he came across.

In this example, Alicia’s pride is what will bring balance to the situation and allow her next decision to be a better and more productive one for confronting this issue.

First self-awareness, then self-determination

In each of these two examples, you can see how the first step is self-awareness. The next step is self-determination.

Primility is the linchpin between the two.

Primility reminds us to practice self-awareness, and to take that self-awareness a step further: we are able to view our emotions for what they are, and assess where they fall along a simple spectrum of pride and humility.

The next step is self-determination, which becomes much simpler once we see where are along this pride/humility spectrum.

If we’re too far left of center on the pride side, then our next decision and subsequent action needs to be one driven by humility.

If we’re too far right of center on the humility side, then our next decision and subsequent action needs to be one driven by pride.

And when we practice this simple thought process and formula over and over, using whatever reminder triggers work for us, like I use my red wristband, it start to become a natural part of our mindset and our practice of Primility becomes routine.

But it all starts with that first next better decision.

What better decision will you make today?

As always, I’d love to hear about it. Comment on the episode page, send me an email, or join our Primility Facebook group and become part of the discussion. We’d love to have you.