Latest / Wanzology / Self Acknowledgement
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- Self Acknowledgement Somebody buy me a turkey!! Turkey is what I want for dinner!! The strangest things come to mind when I'm left up to my own devices. Hello, welcome to another episode of WANZOLOGY!! I am your host, The Wanz. Feeling pretty saucy right now, coming at you live from the upper left-hand corner. Set the clocks back an hour. People, of course, are freaking out because they don't understand why it's so dark when they wake up. I'm wondering, what were you doing in elementary school when we first encountered this? I don't know. It's crazy, it's crazy, it's crazy! People are still the best free entertainment going, if you know what to look for! Yeah!! Well, today I wanted to talk about something that we humans aren't very good at. We humans are not very good at acknowledgement, especially personal acknowledgements. When I say acknowledgements, what do I mean? I mean that we don't give ourselves enough credit for the simple things that we accomplish. And you might think, "Well, who wants to be complimented for doing things that they were supposed to do in the first place?" And I'm like, “Anybody. Just to be noticed, just to be singled out for even the most mundane thing seems like it would be kinda cool.” How much harm could it do? So what I mean is there are those of us who live to work out. It is a chore for others, but for some it's like, "Oh, I can't wait to work out. I can't wait to work out." And then later, when they go shopping for new clothes and all of a sudden they're a size smaller, they say, "Good job." They give themselves an acknowledgement. They acknowledge the effort that was put in. Now conversely, those of us who don't go regularly don't get to experience the joy of a reduced size when shopping for clothes. Therefore, we do the opposite of an acknowledgement sometimes. Most times, we recommit, and then the next day comes and we still have no gumption or motivation, even though we wanted to recommit and make ourselves healthier and reduce our size. I'm not sure if we learn this in our school environments when we're in middle school and high school, but somewhere along the way, a lot of humans learn how not to compliment themselves, how not to acknowledge the effort that they put into whatever they failed at. And what I mean by that is, when's the last time that you couldn't do something or didn't do something and you said to yourself, "That's okay, I'll get it next time," or, "I'll do it again and I'll do a better job"? You're probably like me sitting around going, "Doggone it, why didn't I do that? Why did I do what I did? It, it didn't work." Beating yourself up, which can lead to thinking less of yourself and dragging down your self-esteem, my specialty. Acknowledgments, especially self-acknowledgments, are necessary. They're necessary and encouraged. Who encourages such a thing? Me. I can think of many a situation, both as a child, a young adult, and as an adult, and now as a senior citizen, when having the recognition of having participated or given some kind of effort to something would have been constructive, especially when it came from my own head. My head is pitted against me, I think. Somehow I think I am my own worst enemy, and I have lots of examples that I'm not gonna bore you with. I wanna get to the meat of the matter, and the meat of the matter is all of us put forth effort to get things done, to achieve. Yet we don't always remember to give ourselves the acknowledgment if we don't achieve. Of course, if we achieve, "Nice job. You did a great job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I knew it was gonna happen." No, you didn't. You were hopeful. You prepared as best as you could. You still could have failed. When's the last time you bowled a 300 game, and why don't you do it every time? When's the last time you hit a hole in one, and why don't you do it every time? Sometimes it's enough to tell yourself, "Nice job. Could have been worse, but you did well. You did better than you did last time. Some things to work on, but man, nice work. Good job." I had a therapist tell me once, "Spend a day thanking yourself for the little things that you usually don't notice." Like you were able to tie both your shoes without breaking a shoelace, or you put away all the clothes after folding them before you went somewhere instead of leaving them in the basket for later. Little things, especially the mundane things, dishes, garbage, cat box, when we do those things, we're still accomplishing. Why don't we recognize our accomplishments more? Aren't we worth it? Aren't you worth it? I think you are. I'm working on me. This is a whole new concept for me. I had a rehearsal here at my place, and I walked the person to their car and got the mail coming back in. As I was walking up the stairs, I thought, "Good, you got the mail. Nice work." That's it. I just recognized that I didn't get it earlier, and now I was outside, I could get it now, and I did. Nice job. Simple. To some, maybe it's silly. I don't think so. I don't think positive self-talk in any form is silly. Lord knows there's enough negativity out there for you, me, and all your aunts and uncles, so you might as well get high on your own supply since you're the one who makes it. This is the one thing that I think all of us really need to practice, getting high on our own positive acknowledgement supply. Even when we fail, we still put forth effort, and that effort is worth something, don't you think? I do. I, being a performer, have the bad habit of comparing myself to other performers. I'm not gonna be a Lou Rawls or a Bill Withers or a Joe Williams. No one's gonna be Prince or Michael Jackson. So when I'm in my studio working on music and I don't sound fantastic, why is that? Why do I feel like I don't sound fantastic? Well, it's because I know I'm not the end-all be-all of recording artists. I'm just me. Therein is the clue. When you acknowledge that it is you, that's the perfect place for an acknowledgement. Giving yourself props for the simplest thing, once it becomes a habit, I don't think it becomes anywhere near a bad thing because you stop looking outside for acknowledgement, you give it to yourself from the inside. You control that. Outside, you don't control much. Everything on the outside of your skin is out of your control, so why not take charge of the stuff, or at least more of the stuff, that's inside? I don't have a good answer other than, "Yeah, why not? Couldn't hurt. Who knows? It might do you some good. So from now, going into the holiday season, I'm gonna try to notice when I accomplish something, no matter how small. Putting on my socks, finishing my breakfast, and I'm just gonna say, "Nice job, man. You tried. You succeeded. On to the next. Good work." You're not as sad as you thought you were. You're actually kinda cool. Little things. Little things. The little things that make up the big things, right? Why not? What have you got to lose? Oh, that's right. You have an ego. Well, you can lose that. Most egos are... They're like a hose that doesn't have a nozzle on it, and they just spew everywhere. But if you can get the right kind of nozzle on it and direct the flow of your ego, well, then it can be a very constructive tool. It can be a very necessary tool to give you acknowledgement because you're worth it. Don't think so? Why do you brush your teeth? Keep your teeth healthy, of course. And what happens if you don't keep your teeth healthy? Well, they're either gonna be pulled or they're gonna fall out. If you don't take care of you, who's going to? Are you prepared to take care of your inner self with as much commitment and strength as you do your outer self? I mean, if you go to the gym to work out, then certainly you can meditate for like three to five minutes, get yourself centered, remember who you are and what you're here for and what you're doing, grateful that you get another day or hour or whatever. Why not? Why not? My current shrink calls it positive reinforcement, and I'm like, "There's nothing more challenging than having a depressed person try to compliment something." It's just hard. It's just hard, but I'm working on it, and I hope you do too. You are worth it. I know you are. How do I know, you ask? I don't think that you're much different from me, and I know I'm worth it. I didn't make it this far in this world just by accident, and neither did you. So kudos to you for listening to this episode of the podcast, I hope that if you take anything with you, you take this, you started listening, you listened all the way through, and now you're at the end. One more thing in your day that you completed, you didn't have to put off until tomorrow. Nice job! Nice, nice job! Now, go forth and compliment that person in the mirror that you love to look at every bloody day. Do it once or twice. See what happens. I'll talk to you next week. Peace and hair grease!!!