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Performance-Based Identities with Dr. Ben Walker · Grow the Good

• 0:00
  Ben Walker: If your ideal self is to be the best at whatever the thing is in the world, it's the bullseye on the target. You know, it's a really narrow thing to hit. The upside of that can be more motivation, sort of perpetual desire to be better, but the downside is you never really get any satisfaction of actually getting there.
• 0:31
  Sonya Looney: Hey everyone, welcome back to grow the good.
• 0:34
  Sonya Looney: Formerly, the Sonia Looney show, this podcast is your guide to continued personal growth, meaningful connections and a positive impact on the world, challenge the notion that you are broken or need fixing.
• 0:43
  Sonya Looney: Instead, discover how to cultivate the good that already exists within you and amplify strength and potential you may not realize you have grounded in the science of positive psychology and guided by the pillars of purpose, vitality, resilience, hope and connection.
• 1:00
  Sonya Looney: Each episode is packed with tools, stories and evidence backed insights to help you create a more authentic and flourishing life. I'm so excited about transitioning from the Sonia Looney show to grow the good. This has been a long time coming, and I did a solo episode you'll be hearing soon, giving you all the details about why we changed to grow the good. It feels like a new energy is here.
• 1:22
  Sonya Looney: Typically, people love the new year because of the fresh start, and there is actually science around how fresh starts can help people change their habits. But for me, the New Year is now symbolizing a different type of fresh start. I'm still racing at the professional level, but my focus is primarily on my business, on grow the good executive and mental performance coaching, on my keynote speaking, and on becoming an author, which is a little bit daunting, and I'm still racing and all those things, but my focus has shifted to really trying to rebrand who I am and what I do and that transition, I could record a podcast about that. That's tough. You know, I'm still a professional athlete. I still have sponsors that are supporting me that I also very much care about. I still care about racing. And on the outside, it probably won't look that different, but on the inside for me, it is very different, a shift in what I am trying to grow, and growing the good is about growing the good in yourself and others and in the world. And I feel like the work that I've been doing has been checking all those boxes, from finishing my Master of Applied positive psychology last year to the coaching work certifications and client work I've done over the last several years as well to the topics of my keynote speaking this, this name really helps signify and pull together everything that I've been working towards. I'm so grateful that you're on this journey with me, and I'd really appreciate it if you could share the show with your friends and to help us get this momentum going with our rebrand this week is very exciting. So today, I am heading back to Philadelphia, to the University of Pennsylvania, not as a student, but as a member of the instructor team for the Master of Applied positive psychology. It's so exciting. This is a dream come true. It was something I was thinking about even while I was a student, something that I deeply wanted to do, so that I could guide new students and be a tailwind to help encourage them and support them in their learning journey, to increase my learning journey, learning so much from the students in the program, getting to hear many new lectures and old lectures all over again, staying very close and engaged With the content of this master's program, which I think is just absolutely phenomenal, and to be part of a team, a lot of the work I do is by myself, not that I accomplish everything by myself. I have great team, just like I do here at Palm Tree pod, who helps this podcast grow. But oftentimes I'm working solo with people supporting me, and to be able to work on a team with other people in real time is just something that I'm so excited about. And I feel a new momentum. I feel a shift in myself, and I don't know exactly what that's going to look like, and I think that's something for a lot of us to remember as we are moving forward through change or through transitions, or even whenever we're just thinking about trying something new, is a lot of us want certainty, but you can't have certainty if you want to have adventure, if you want to have fulfillment, curiosity and uncertainty go hand in hand.
• 4:33
  Sonya Looney: Today's guest is one I'm very excited about, Dr Ben Walker. He is an expert in organizational behavior and has spent years exploring the psychological complexities of how we define ourselves through our accomplishments. So Ding, ding, ding, this is right on the money if you listen to any of my episodes from the fall, I talked about my my research that I did in my master's program that won an award. It was about how perfectionists can rethink a.
• 4:58
  Sonya Looney: Accomplishment and find a greater sense of accomplishment through thinking about their purpose in life and how the impact of their accomplishments is more than just an outcome. I think this applies to everybody, and I found Dr Ben Walker through my research in doing this work, and he has also been a mentor in moving forward in some of the work that I hope to do. So it's been really awesome to get to interview him on the podcast, and a performance based identity is something that we're going to talk about today.
• 5:30
  Sonya Looney: Whether it's in your career, in sports or in other areas of your life, it's so easy to get caught up in the pursuit of best and even in the pursuit of excellent those are not bad things, but it can become a problem at certain times, whenever it becomes integrated into your identity and generate a performance based identity. Now a performance based identity isn't always a bad thing, but it can become one, and we'll talk about that today. We'll talk about some of the serious downsides of having a performance based identity. A lot of us as athletes struggle with this as cyclists, whether you're a professional or not, we worry so much about what other people think about us, and we think that people only care about us because we are performing well. This is something that I really struggle with across multiple domains.
• 6:12
  Sonya Looney: Performance based, identity is formed for different reasons, which you'll hear about today, but we'll be peeling back the layers and the complexities of this of what it means to be a high performer. Dr Ben Walker will share his insights on the pitfalls of performance based identities and how we can navigate them. We'll delve into the thin line between striving for success and being consumed by it man that is hard, and I think that this is such an important topic for people who are concerning themselves with performance and with striving, we'll talk about the nuances of performance based identity, how they develop the potential harms they can cause, and strategies for managing them in healthier ways. Dr Walker challenges the common assumption that obsessing over success is necessary for achievement whether you identify as a high performer yourself, or you know someone who is driven by a need to constantly Excel, this episode offers a fresh perspective. Dr Ben Walker's insights will encourage us all to reflect on how we define our sense of self and discover more balance and meaning in our lives beyond just the pursuit of performance. This topic is a primary topic in my coaching business. This is what executives and high performers and athletes come to me to work on. So if you know anybody who is who is managing their performance based identity needs some help, some support. I'm here. I'm here to help them be more resilient. I'm here to help them have more purpose in their goals and in their life moving forward. So don't keep me a secret if you think that somebody would benefit from my help as a coach. All right, so let's get ready to redefine what being your best self truly means with Dr Ben Walker, hey.
• 8:02
  Sonya Looney: Ben Welcome to the show.
• 8:04
  Ben Walker: Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for the invitation. It's so
• 8:08
  Sonya Looney: much fun to kind of come full circle, because I read a lot of your work from my research capstone for my Masters, and then we got to chat about it. So that was pretty cool. You call yourself a work nerd. Can you tell me more about what that is, because, I mean, I identify it as a nerd, so that's working. Yeah,
• 8:25
  Ben Walker: yeah, it's a term. I only just started using that term recently because I found it really difficult and quite painful to say to people when they ask me what I do, I usually, in the past, I would just give them my job title, which is Senior Lecturer in organizational behavior, and when you say that to most normal people, their eyes just glaze over and they go, the hell what do you actually do? Like just creates more confusion than clarity. So I found the term work nerd really helpful to just give people an immediate sense of what I do. Basically, I'm an academic at a university in New Zealand, Victoria University of Wellington, and I study the human side of work. And so all of that kind of falls under this umbrella of the field of organizational behavior. And so we have psychologists and sociologists and anthropologists people from looking at these sort of human aspects of work using all of these different lenses and theories and research approaches. And that's basically the field that I work in and research. And hence the title work nerd. So yeah, for me, my interests are very much on the psychological side. I'm really interested in issues of identity, and sort of the intersection between our work lives and our identities and sense of selves. I'm sure we'll talk about that a bit in this conversation and in other projects, sort of research programs I have, one is related to psychology, of engaging.
• 10:00
  Ben Walker: Experts and expertise, and how can we sort of promote higher quality interactions with experts and organizations, but also by experts in organizations. And a sort of another research program is about looking at sort of counter perspectives on motivation and high performance. So doing research and studies that make us think differently and think beyond or maybe even rethink the conventional wisdom that's out there about what leads makes people perform at high levels in their profession or occupation, and also what it's like to sort of to exist as a high performer in whatever your chosen occupation is. So, yeah, it's a bit about me and my research, and hopefully helps clarify that work nerd too.
• 10:51
  Sonya Looney: So performance is this buzzword that everybody wants. I want performance. I want to optimize my performance.
• 10:58
  Sonya Looney: What are some of the dark sides to that, to always obsessing over performance.
• 11:05
  Ben Walker: I think you can think about it. And I mean, the tricky thing that I always think of with performance and making it a really central part of your life is that it's so I mean, it's always moving, you know?
• 11:18
  Ben Walker: It's a moving target, if you do happen to be the best at something at a given point in time, there's always the possibility that you might be shifted to a new pond where you're in with bigger fish, you know. So if you become the best at something in your organization or in your region, even your country, right, there's always a possibility that the pond that you're performing in can be expanded so that you're then competing with people who are probably better than you. So there's that element of uncertainty, but then there's also the possibility, I think, and this is especially true. I mean, it's probably less true in domains like sport, but it's definitely true, I think, when we think about a lot of modern occupations, which are these sort of knowledge based jobs, where we tend to be working with ideas instead of things, and one of the points I hear repeatedly from people working in these kind of jobs about performance is that they don't really know what performance means or looks like.
• 12:16
  Ben Walker: You know, people have some idea about what the standards might be to call yourself a world class consultant or something like that, but at the end of the day, it's all very kind of amorphous and ambiguous and really hard to pin down. So again, I think that in addition to that shifting cons thing, the amorphous nature of performance in so many different occupations and industries can mean that you're sort of, you know, valuing something that's actually really difficult to put your finger on. And even if you do manage to put your finger on it, it might slip away from you very quickly because of all of that variation and kind of chaos around performance.
• 13:03
  Sonya Looney: It's like performance as an outcome is something that shifts and is uncontrollable. But like, if you view yourself as a performer, a performer, somebody who performs, can you differentiate that a bit more? Because I think you were talking about both of those a little bit. Yeah,
• 13:20
  Ben Walker: they're different things, right? So I think at a base level, I mean, there's all sorts of big, sort of psychological theories that say that a funded humans have a fundamental need for competence.
• 13:31
  Ben Walker: You know, we want to be at some level. We want to be good at things. We want to feel like that we have mastery over our lives and our environments. So I think that that kind of goes without saying, that that basic need for competence is there.
• 13:45
  Ben Walker: But yeah, there is a distinction, I think, and that's something I've kind of looked at in my research on performance based identities, where people sort of shift from, yes, I have the sort of need for competence to making it an identity and anchoring the sense of self to it, that it's kind of a different a different kind of relationship with performance. I suppose it's not necessarily just a box to check to say, Yes, I have some degree of competence in my life. It's saying this is a really central part of my life. It's a central part of how I see and understand myself and my purpose in the world. So, yeah, they are quite they're quite different relationships with performance. I think one is sort of, you know, if you're just relating to performance, in that first sense, it's more sort of instrumental. You might want to, you know, do a do a decent job at work, to get paid more, or to be able to meet your family's needs or whatever it is, really the other one is very much a sort of more existential relationship with performance, and, like you said, really making it the center of who you are, in the center of your your world and your life. I suppose those are obviously too extreme.
• 15:00
  Ben Walker: And I think different people will be at different places on the spectrum between those things. But, yeah, it's a helpful way to sort of, I guess, start that conversation and think about, what are the sort of two, those two different ways of relating to performance. This
• 15:15
  Sonya Looney: is something you and I were talking about a little bit off the mic last time was athletes and, you know, coming from my world of athletes, and there's probably lots of people listening saying, Wow, I might, you know, be forming a performance based identity, or I might have one even, even if I'm not a professional, even if it's not what I do for work, like that thing that I put all my time and energy into. Can you further define a performance based identity? So people can start kind of thinking, Well, is this something that I'm wrestling with?
• 15:43
  Ben Walker: Yeah, so I kind of think of it as, I mean, there's a there's a technical definition, and then there's the sort of like, what you're talking about is how, what would be a sign that you kind of have one. So the technical way, I kind of think about a performance based identity, or have come to think about it after, after studying it in different ways is really having two parts to it. So there's this sort of performance self knowledge, which is kind of the label that people give themselves and and that label could be, you know, there's loads of different labels people could get themselves. They could think of themselves as a top performer, as a good performer, maybe as someone who's a lot better than they used to be. If you want to sort of be, you know, take a self focused perspective. So there's a sort of self knowledge as the label part, and then the second part of it is what I sort of call personal meanings. And these the reasons why that label matters to someone. And with the personal meanings. I mean, I think here too, it's important to emphasize it's not just about the sort of instrumental reasons I was talking about earlier, why anyone cares about doing a good job at something. You know, it's it's to get paid more, it's to keep my job. It's to keep my boss happy and off my back, or whatever it is, those sort of like surface level reasons with these meanings, they're much more existential and kind of deeply rooted. So it might be something like, you know, I being that kind of performer is important to me, because it's something I've invested so much of my life into, and I see it as kind of my calling, or as my my purpose in life, to sort of be really good at whatever your thing is, sports, hobbies, whatever. So, yeah, I think that's an important distinction.
• 17:34
  Ben Walker: It's, I don't think you get to a performance based identity just by caring about doing a good job. There's some extra, sort of deeper, more existential meanings that have to be. They have to sort of be attached to that label. And that, ultimately, is what kind of makes the thing self defining.
• 17:53
  Ben Walker: And so this idea of self definition, I think, is where we get to the part of, well, how do you kind of know if you have one? And the test I always sort of use Well, you know, and it's a blunt shortcut, admittedly, but I think it's helpful to think for people to think if, if you took that identity away, would you still be you? Would you still have other identities and other things in life and other ways of understanding yourself that would still, you know, you'd still be reasonably intact if that identity was lost or erased for whatever reason.
• 18:33
  Ben Walker: And that's not always an easy question to answer, but I think it's a helpful one to think about to start along that path of, sort of, you know, critically reflecting and considering if this is an identity that's sort of relevant to to you as a person.
• 18:52
  Sonya Looney: Can you have multiple performance based identities, like, say, I have a performance based identity as an athlete or as, like, whatever else I might be doing.
• 19:01
  Ben Walker: I think, I mean, I totally think so in theory. And I also think it's possible, though, that these sometimes converge into something more global. So I think, as part of my PhD research was all on this performance based identity stuff. I interviewed a bunch of elite rugby players in Australia, about 30 players, men and women. And I remember there was one interviewee who sort of just seemed to take a lot of pride in the fact he was good at kind of everything, and that, you know, I'm sitting there work nerd, kind of being like, Oh, damn you so talented and and amazing. But he was like, he was clearly very good at lots of things. He was good at sports.
• 19:42
  Ben Walker: He was good academically. You know, he was getting into sort of business things and investment, and he was very good at these things. And I think there was a for me, there was a sense of interviewing him, that there was sort of a convergence to not just having these, these multiple identities, but them actually kind of fusing together into something more global. And sort of just seeing yourself as a as a high performer, more generally. I think I remember him saying something like, you know, it's not, it's not just good enough to be a good rugby player. Similarly, thinking, you know, he's reached the the elite level. I'm like, well, maybe it is, but he was sort of thing, he's not just good enough to be a good rugby player. You've got to sort of be good at everything else in life as well. And so he's held himself to a very high standard. But yeah, I think it is. I think it's definitely possible to have multiple performance based identities, and I also think it's possible, like I said, for them to kind of converge or fuse into something that's, you know, a broader sense of being a high performer in life, as opposed to just in one particular domain.
• 20:41
  Sonya Looney: And when I hear this, I think about how this could be a good thing, but I also think about how it could be a bad thing. And you know, if you view yourself as highly competent, highly capable, and I'm somebody that can essentially go after anything and do well at it, that there could be benefits there. But if you go after things and you don't do well at it, and your identity is at stake, then that becomes highly problematic. What can people do if they if they feel that way, they feel like I have a performance based identity, but I'm not performing the way that I used to or the way that I want to be performing.
• 21:14
  Ben Walker: That's a really good point. Arthur Brooks, who's a professor of leadership at the Harvard Business School has a really great video on this exact topic. I think it just came out, like a month or so ago on YouTube. And he sort of talks about this, you know, the metaphor he uses is this idea of the success machine and people seeing themselves as success machines. And his argument in that video is basically that, you know, this is kind of like a form of objectifying yourself, like reducing yourself to just a non human entity who achieves things, is like a form of objectification in a way. And so he's sort of saying, you know, existentially, but also potentially morally. It's, it's, it's a, it's not necessarily a place you want to be in. In that video, I don't think the thing for me is, I thought that was an amazing analogy. The video kind of ended, though, without too many, too much in the way of like, okay, so what do I kind of do about that? One thing that I think is bad advice for people who might be struggling with those kind of things is just saying, Well, don't just care less, you know. Just care less about doing well and and everything. Will find it's like telling someone who's who's who's neurotic, like, just, just don't worry about things so much, you know. And I don't think that's necessarily good advice, and the reason why is, I think, that also overlooks the fact that ultimately, and this is something that's true of any kind of identity, and that we've known about identities for over 100 years, as identities are ultimately products of your social environment. They're not just things that pop into our heads and you know, through some amazing sort of coincidence the products of our social environments. So if you're if you're someone who is attaching a lot of importance to and making performance a really central part of your life, it's probably got something to do with the kind of people that you're hanging out with and that you surround yourself with most.
• 23:17
  Ben Walker: And so I think I really probably one of the best bits of advice I can give, because I think it's important for people to first identify what those circles might be, and then the second step is to kind of be like, Okay, maybe, maybe it's not about necessarily getting rid of those circles, but adding in other circles and communities where performance is maybe less of A big deal and there's a different set of values or priorities that are emphasized as important. I think that can be a helpful sort of first step, and that's hard to do, you know, because our social circles and our communities are not easy things to change. They give stability to our lives. They give us a sensible a sense of belonging. But as I said, I don't think they it's a matter of either or, you know, I think it's a matter of getting rid of those very performance focused social circles that give a lot of meaning to performance and reinforce it as something that's a really big deal. I think it's more about just adding on other things to kind of, I don't know, diversify where you get your your sense of meaning and acceptance and some belonging in life, if that makes sense, yeah,
• 24:23
  Sonya Looney: I think that's excellent advice, and it's difficult, because in at least Western culture, everything is reinforcing a performance based identity. Like someone posts on LinkedIn, like, look at this thing I did. Look how many likes I have on social media, even when somebody introduces you, like, like, Oh, here's Sonia.
• 24:41
  Sonya Looney: She's a world champion mountain biker. It's like, well, I it's something I did, but that's not really who I am. And I don't even like I struggle with this because I don't like asking people what they do for work.
• 24:54
  Sonya Looney: And I'll know someone for a while without asking them that, because I don't want them to define themselves based on what they do. For work, because that's defining themselves based on performance. So when you have conversations and you even think about how you're defining yourself, it's almost impossible to to get away from that.
• 25:11
  Ben Walker: Yep, and I think that's that's sort of a great counter argument to exactly what I just said is that, yes, you can sort of change communities and circles and things, but ultimately, there is this, and this is something that I, you know, think about a lot, and read about a lot, and also think about how we might be able to do things differently. There is this kind of broader socio cultural pressure to be good at something, you know, and I think it's a bit unfair, too. I think Americans often get a lot of the shoulder. A lot of the blame for this American culture is often held up as, like, prototypical of the sort of individualistic, performance, focused, success, success culture. And while there might be some truth to that, I think it's I mean, even you know, being in New Zealand, having lived in Australia for five years I've seen really similar things, you know, and again, you see it at the LinkedIn, the social media. It's similar, you know, people might say, Well, that's because America is such a dominant cultural force that's kind of exported its values to other parts of the world. I think there's really some truth to that. But ultimately, I do think you see this kind of pressures to succeed in lots and lots of different societies around the world. So it isn't to your point. It isn't an easy thing to escape. But I do think with a little bit of you know, attention and deliberateness, it is possible to kind of find yourself and move yourself into circles or environments where you're exposed to maybe a different set of values, where maybe it's not so much about performing better than others, but doing better than you did previously, you know, so it's more about self improvement and competition and comparison, things like that. I mean, that can be a helpful sort of like nicotine patch, I think, for performance addicts, because there's still something related to progress and and and doing well. But if your reference point is yourself, a lot of the time, that's going to, especially if it's if it's a new activity you're learning for the first time, it's always going to be a kind of upward slope, you know, where you're regularly getting better and better. I know in the world of sports, it can be quite different, right?
• 27:19
  Ben Walker: Because physicality and things can begin to decline. So it might, might be less helpful of an approach in those domains.
• 27:27
  Ben Walker: Yeah, I think that that shifting social, social circles can be helpful. And then at a more like individual level, there's stuff around, like exposure and Response Prevention therapy. I don't know if you've come across that before, but it's like a form of sort of therapy that's used particularly with people who have like obsessive compulsive disorder and and it's basically a form of therapy where you're gradually exposed to whatever it is that really triggers your compulsions to almost, basically to make you bored of it and desensitize you to whatever it is. So for people who are sort of obsessive about performance, I think that line of therapy and thinking as well can also be helpful. And, you know, there's a lot of great resources about that stuff online. And it's not necessarily something, you know, it's something that you can easily start to sort of build into your own life and and make it sort of part of your own routines.
• 28:25
  Ben Walker: There's different ways of sort of actioning, I suppose that stuff, but yeah, I think that can be really helpful too.
• 28:33
  Ben Walker: Because ultimately, I think at the at the root of a lot of the stuff is often the kind of obsessiveness about a thing. In our case, we're talking about performance, achievement, success, status, those sorts of things, yeah,
• 28:50
  Sonya Looney: like, how you said to spend time? Like, like, look at your social circle. Look what's being reinforced in your social circle. And I'm just personally thinking about my life, and it's interesting, because the people that I spend the most time around, and that are my closest friends, have nothing to do with cycling.
• 29:03
  Sonya Looney: Yeah, it's from all these different areas. Probably it was not on purpose, but it probably has helped me to just have some diversity in what we talk about, what I think about, how people, I mean, people still might view me as like, Oh, you did this.
• 29:18
  Sonya Looney: You do these things, but they are talking to you for who you are. Like, when you're walking around your neighborhood, it's a different vibe than if you're walking around at, like, maybe a conference or at a race or like, whatever people know you for.
• 29:32
  Ben Walker: Yeah, absolutely.
• 29:32
  Ben Walker: And I think it's like, I always think that there is a bit of a bit of a myth, or a sort of a sort of commonly accepted belief amongst amongst people, that in order to succeed, you need to care a lot about success, and the more you. Care about succeeding, the more likely you are to succeed. And I don't think that's actually true. I think definitely there needs to be a degree of caring about succeeding. It also, I guess, depends on what you define as success, to a degree. But I don't think the link between caring about success and actually succeeding is as strong as most people think it is. And I think too, like, you know, some of the research that's on goal orientation and the different goals people can set themselves is kind of, I think, pointed to the fact that actually caring about success and caring about your performance can can backfire more than it can help you in a lot of situations. So sometimes, to people realizing that that actually to be successful, you don't necessarily have to care a lot about being successful, that can kind of help as well. And to know that there is, there is a lot of good evidence that would, I would say, support that point.
• 31:06
  Ben Walker: Sometimes that can be a sort of powerful realization, because people might have a very strong association between those two things that they sort of need to wind back and and weaken in a way that's kind
• 31:18
  Sonya Looney: of like defining success as a needed outcome, which you may or may not have control over, and if you're always focused on some outcome, then you're going to be tight.
• 31:29
  Sonya Looney: You're going to be really focusing on yourself too much, and you're going to forget why you're doing something in the first place, and you're probably not going to be as focused on the task at hand. You're going to be focused on how am I doing instead of what am I doing?
• 31:43
  Ben Walker: That's it, absolutely. And there's all this sort of research too. And I think I'm seeing sort of popular books coming out that kind of get at this point as well, about returning to viewing our activities, our work, even our sports, as crafts, you know, and looking at them as things that we do because they're enjoyable and we like the process as opposed to the outcome. I think that ultimately is probably a more, I mean, that can, I guess, has it has its own dark side sometimes, but ultimately, I think it's probably a lot more sustainable and probably rewarding to relate to the things you do, more as a craft than just as a another vehicle for achievements and, you know, outcomes. I think that that shift in mindset can be, like you say, really helpful as well taking attention off the self and more on the, you know, the actual doing that leads to the outcome.
• 32:46
  Sonya Looney: Yeah, I love, kind of just going deep into these things. So if you're and then, and then you can become too focused on the doing that you start over doing. And I've thought about, you know, Carol Dweck work a lot on fixing growth mindset, and I probably am taking it out of context here, but like, if you're focused on the effort, then the effort becomes the outcome, almost it's like, well, I'm I'm putting in the maximum amount of effort at all times, and now you're overworking. The type of work you're producing isn't very good, and you're just burning yourself out.
• 33:16
  Ben Walker: Yeah, and I think again, that is something that I've heard a lot from people in those jobs where performance is really hard to define and it's unclear. I think in those sort of jobs, there is this because performance is so kind of invisible and hard to put your finger on, a lot of people just revert to effort to figure out how well they're doing. And so this is where you get people working. You know, 80 hour weeks, just crazy hours, because it makes them feel successful, because they don't really have any kind of, like, clear or objective measure. But ultimately, I mean, maybe there is, there is achievement happening in there, but the long term consequences, I think we know from from evidence on work, Ill ism and burnout and things the long term consequences are usually not great. But yeah, it is very tempting, I think, especially in context where performance is ever defined, to revert to effort as you're sort of, you know, a proxy for performance and achievement. But yeah, it's a slippery slope,
• 34:23
  Sonya Looney: like the effort is not a proxy for performance. I tell myself that sometimes, how do things like perfectionism, where it's which is characterized by excessive striving and nothing ever being enough, or imposter phenomena where people can't internalize their success, even if they're doing well and they're worried about other what other people think about them, like, how does all that play under the umbrella of a performance based identity?
• 34:52
  Ben Walker: So I think that that perfectionism stuff, usually people talk about perfectionism as a kind of trait, like an individual difference. Stat is reasonably stable throughout people's adult lives. And I think that is absolutely those kind of traits, whether it's perfectionism, whether it's, you know, need for achievement, whether it's conscientiousness, one of the sort of big five traits people might have heard about, I think all of those kind of traits and that that personality sort of profile as a whole, is probably a lot more just, just inherently more likely to develop, I think these kind of performance based identities, well, sorry, I should actually check myself there. I think they're a lot more likely to attach personal meanings to performance, where they might struggle is with developing the label. Part of it, the self knowledge, part of it, because that you know something like perfectionism, nothing is ever good enough, right? You're trying to be, if you're trying to be the perfect performer, that that's probably a destination you're never really going to going to get to.
• 36:02
  Ben Walker: Nevertheless, the torment of that, I think, is that performance is so important to you. It's a bit like that thing of the, you know, the donkey with the carrot on the stick in front of them, always walking towards it, but never really getting the satisfaction of eating it. I think it's a similar thing when it comes to perfectionists and these sort of identities,
• 36:24
  Sonya Looney: and then the donkey gets the carrot and is like, this, carrot isn't good enough. It's not the perfect crunchiness.
• 36:31
  Ben Walker: Sometimes that happens too, right? People do get it, but it's fleeting and momentary and ultimately, maybe disappointing. So yeah, I think all of that sort of those kind of traits can definitely would be a they're sort of like in research terms, we'd say they're part of the nomological network, which is basically just saying the factors that move together, that hang out with performance based identities, you know, they're they're things that live in the same neighborhood as one another. So you tend to see them, a lot happening together, basically. And then with imposter syndrome, it's an interesting one, because I think you know, if I frame that in this, this performance based identity language, imposter syndrome is really a failure to develop a performance based identity where one is really actually warranted, you know, so, so where it would actually make sense to have some sort of identity as being good at what you do. But it's not happening for whatever reason, right? I think that is ultimately sort of the root of imposter syndrome, and then people, because of that, because they haven't internalized their success, as they say, you have these feelings of feeling like a fraud and like you're not good enough, and that you're going to be found out, and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I think again, the closely related ideas, and I think that that performance based identity thing kind of just, just helps to it helps to give a way of explaining, I guess, why that happens. You know, why we have imposter syndrome? And, you know, there can be lots of reasons why people don't develop performance based identities. Part of it might be something like perfectionism, where even if they are really good, they're not perfect, and because their ideal self is someone who's, you know, the perfect performer, they they never really like, feel like they can actually claim that identity, you know.
• 38:35
  Ben Walker: And on the one hand, I mean, you kind of think about, you know, I think about athletes like, like Coby Bryant, for example, I think was really infamous for having that kind of mentality.
• 38:44
  Ben Walker: You know, it can, from one standpoint, I think it can be something that creates a sort of perpetual drive to be better and improve and succeed. And even if you never really get there, you're still constantly getting better. So I think it can have that sort of productive outcome, but then also the the other side of that coin is all the things we've talked about around sort of obsessiveness and workitalism, burnout and so on.
• 39:10
  Sonya Looney: It almost sounds like how you define success. It is kind of a key indicator of if a performance based identity is harmful or hurtful, or harmful or helpful to you, like, yeah, if you're, if your success is an outcome, then you're, you're not going to feel satisfied, and it's going to be not good for
• 39:28
  Ben Walker: you. Yeah, totally.
• 39:28
  Ben Walker: I think it's a, it's a really valid point if your ideal self is to be the best at whatever, you know, the thing is, in the world that is a really, really it's the bullseye on the the target, you know, it's a really narrow thing to hit. The upside of that can be like, you know, like we talked about more motivation, sort of perpetual desire to be better. But the downside is you never really get any satisfaction. Actually.
• 39:58
  Ben Walker: Getting there. So having a broader sort of ideal self or target might be, you know, less helpful for motivation, but maybe more helpful in terms of, just like, general life satisfaction and well being and happiness. You know, yeah, I'm not the best, but I'm reasonably good, and that's kind of enough for me. It's this great book I've been reading by an author called Avraham Alpe. I think his name is, and it's called the good enough not the good enough life. And he basically makes this argument, not just for individuals, but for how we think about community, societies as a whole, that that may be good enough should be the sort of goal that we idealize and set as our central goal, as opposed to perpetual growth or perpetual success. You know, maybe good enough is good enough as something to strive for, yeah,
• 41:01
  Sonya Looney: something that I've been kind of arguing for the last couple of years is how growth can't be the only goal, because with everything, even if you're pursuing mastery, there are very long plateaus and maybe plateaus where you can't even measure the improvement, because you've been at it for so long.
• 41:18
  Ben Walker: Yeah, yeah. I think that's a great point. And there does seem to, you know, there needs to be, I think, something beyond just the superficial stuff, you know, the indicators, the observable outcomes and achievements, that's it's guiding whatever it is you're doing. So, yeah, I really
• 41:37
  Sonya Looney: would agree with that. I think that comes right back to what you were saying about the people you surround yourself with, and being a person who can impact other people that so it's not just about you or growing or being you know the best at something, and this is what my work has been. It's how do my accomplishments impact others and and how can that be beneficial to my satisfaction Well, being past how good I am at something?
• 42:05
  Ben Walker: Yeah, totally. And I think, you know, sometimes too, you can, kind of, you can kind of make that if the activity that you're setting your mind to is something that is going to to benefit others, you can kind of make that work, I think, with a performance based identity, you know. Because if the outcome, if good performance for you is seeing, you know, like I think about my job and as a teacher, good performance for me is seeing an idea click with a student and seeing them just push to think that next level deeper about whatever it is. The topic is, you know, and so for me, if that's, that's my idea of success, then caring a lot about that kind of works, because there's a broader benefit beyond me. And I think that's kind of what you're saying, right,
• 42:54
  Sonya Looney: exactly. And I'll bring the athletic context into it, like, maybe one of your goals is to be the best that you can be at a sport, but in doing so, you will impact others like you're setting an example for other people, you're role modeling. And so being on the lookout for how that's actually impacting other people, instead of how good am I doing, that can bring an entire other level of satisfaction. Yeah,
• 43:17
  Ben Walker: that's a really good example, and it's essentially, I think the the shift is performances becomes a means to an end there, right? It's not performance as an end in itself, just because succeeding is inherently good. It's, it's shifting from seeing performance as a way to get to some broader, like you said, some broader outcome, whether it's helping others, whether it's role modeling, inspiration, whatever it is. So, yeah, I think, I think there's a lot to do that, you know, and taking that zooming out, and taking that broader perspective on, why is it that I'm actually doing this and trying to be good at this?
• 43:55
  Ben Walker: What is the ultimate sort of end goal? There's a lot of value to to engaging in that kind of reflection. Yeah,
• 44:04
  Sonya Looney: something that I'm very interested in is just our self narratives and how that changes, how we view the world, how we view ourselves. So in the context of performance, the things that you are saying to yourself, the way that you're defining success, the way that you're that you're pursuing things, am I looking inward? Am I looking outward? Am I looking am I comparing myself to others constantly? Like all of those things play such a key role. And what is underneath all that is how well you know yourself, how aware am I of the things I'm even telling myself,
• 44:36
  Ben Walker: yeah, yeah, I totally agree with it. It's something too, like just taking my my academic hat still kind of on, but taking it off for a second, I think, like this year, I've been on sabbatical, so I've sort of been on lighter duties.
• 44:50
  Ben Walker: I haven't had to do as much teaching and sort of service stuff around the university.
• 44:54
  Ben Walker: And, you know, I've been working as an academic now for. For six years since finishing my PhD, and this was like the first year where, because I had their breathing room, I actually felt like I could think for a second.
• 45:11
  Ben Walker: I could pause and be like, Hold on. What's important to me again? Like, why am I doing this research project and this one and this one, and why am I teaching the course in this way, and it was actually been really helpful to just, you know, do a bit of what you're saying, zoom out, re, you know, get back in touch with, like, the purpose of the work, the purpose of of striving to have these accomplishments and things and sort of, you know, prioritize goals and values and how those two things relate to one another for the next few years. And I think the reason I sort of share that experience is because I think a lot of the time, a lot of us just don't have the space, the time or energy to do that, like I didn't for the last six years this has been that, like I said, the first year, where I've really felt able to do that. So sometimes, you know, people might not be able to connect those dots or take their broader perspective and zoom out a bit until they just, like, take a bit of a break, you know, and it might need to be, like, in my case, it needed to be quite a long break, I think, which is not always ideal, because not everyone can take a sabbatical or take leave from whatever it is that they're doing, but it can be helpful for just that reset on perspective, values, goals and outcomes.
• 46:35
  Sonya Looney: Yeah. I mean, I'm so glad that you're having that experience and that you're able to connect with the purpose behind why you're doing these things, and also, for some people, it's it's too scary to take a break from. I'll give a personal example. So you know, I've been a pro mound biker for a very long time, since 2006 and I'm questioning why I'm racing still. And I've been questioning for years making sure that I'm not doing it because it's something I've always done, or I'm too afraid to not call afraid to not call myself a pro mountain biker. And I'm focusing now on trail running, which is, you know, it's still like performance and, you know, running and stuff like that. But I had to really work for, actually, a couple of years of letting go, of being brave enough to say it's okay for me to let go of this part of my identity and just take a break from it. And so there's lots of people listening, probably that are thinking like, I don't I don't know how to step away and take a break to give myself breathing room, because I don't know who I am if I do that and I'm too afraid to face myself.
• 47:35
  Sonya Looney: So like, how can people face themselves?
• 47:40
  Ben Walker: Well, I think in your story, I heard something that I think is a really key point, which is having something else to kind of transition you out of, you know, into you know, whatever the next destination, or what your future self might look like. I think the I think the great insights come out of that story as having something to go to, you know. So if you're going to let go of an identity, have another identity, or set of identities, that you can kind of go to, even if they're still in the early stages, in their infancy, something else that gives your life purpose, structure, meaning, I think is really important. I mean, you see this all the time too, with with pro athletes when they're forced to retire, you know, so if they have some sort of injury or something happens, and usually it is injury that forces them to give up sport, and they haven't had a chance to do any kind of planning or setting up what the next chapter looks like. That's where you start to get all of those sorts of problems around mental health and identity crises and things like that. So I think the more that people can sort of have that foresight and think about, okay, what's something I can kind of put there to lead me into the next chapter of my life and my sort of myself more broadly, I think is really helpful. Yeah, it
• 49:14
  Sonya Looney: makes me think of like just what we were talking about, like self complexity, having a diversified identity, so you could do lots of different things. And even if you are really focused on one thing, like, there's still other parts of you as a human that you can express those interests. And part two to that is, if you are shifting to something else, like, you know, personally, it's like, okay, trail running. And then also a career in psychology, which I'm really enjoying, that it's very fun and very interesting when you're kind of transitioning the pressure, in some ways, is way less like if I show up, for example, to a running race, like nobody knows who I am there, there's like, nobody cares how I do like, all that stuff makes it so much easier than if I go to another bike race and it's like.
• 49:58
  Sonya Looney: Even if I just get on my bike, and there's all the thought processes that I have to, you know, go through of like, Well, how am I feeling today? What does this mean, you know, and all the mental skills I have to employ to not let those become a story. Yeah,
• 50:13
  Ben Walker: absolutely right.
• 50:13
  Ben Walker: And I think one of the things that you kind of hinting at there is, I think it's important to to carve out at least one thing in your life that's non evaluative. So something in your life where it is really hard to ideally not something like your work that you have to do a lot of. But you know, whether it's a hobby or a sport, something where it's hard to figure out how well you're doing, or it's hard to see how well you're doing relative to others. Like, I think for me, the example of that I have in my life is kind of like gardening, like doing things in our garden, around the house, and I know that there's, like, you know, there's, there's, there's a gardening community on Instagram and tick tock and and YouTube. And if I wanted to, I could see, like, how crappy a gardener I am relative to those people. But the point is, you know, you have to go out of your way to kind of to make that connection. So for me, it's just something that I love doing. The activity is a lot of fun. It's nice to be outside. You know? It's nice to see things grow, in some cases, bear fruit or veggies or whatever it is. So I know I'm not necessarily the greatest gardener, but it's for me. It's a really, like, a non evaluative activity, like, I don't really care about how good I am at it.
• 51:37
  Ben Walker: It's more just something I do, you know, for the for the sake of doing, because doing it brings me a sort of a sense of joy and satisfaction. So I think as a, maybe as a reasonably simple thing people can do as well, if they really performance inclined and inclined to care a lot about that, deliberately trying to carve out something, some kind of hobby or or activity in life that that's less evaluative in nature.
• 52:07
  Sonya Looney: I'm just smiling because in my like, I've talked about my research a little bit on this podcast, but I developed a framework for meaningful accomplishment through a qualitative study that I did, and one of the key points for the type of meaningful accomplishment that gave you the greatest type of self or greatest type of satisfaction, was because you could not measure it. It was or it was very difficult to measure. And the fact that it was difficult, especially for perfectionists, who are always trying to measure, and say, Oh, this is good enough or not good enough.
• 52:38
  Sonya Looney: When you can't measure something, or if you can't evaluate it, then it becomes about the thing. It doesn't become about the measurement.
• 52:46
  Ben Walker: Yeah, I think that's, I mean, I think it's definitely true when it's sort of, it's a lower stakes activity in the context of your life, you know. So for me, it's something like gardening, and for other people, it might be a sort of a sport they do just as a bit of a hobby, or different forms of exercise and fitness can be like that for people. And I think, though, going back to what I said a little bit earlier, if you have that in something that is kind of a takes up a lot of time and is really central to your life, you can get that kind of morphing into judging by effort, you know? So because the measures not there of outcomes or achievement, then you get that slipping into judging based on how much, how much effort Am I putting into it. So I guess the lesson there is when people are trying to find these sort of non evaluative hobbies or activities in their lives, avoid, trying to avoid that trap of slipping into thinking, Oh, well, you know, I need to be, if I want to be a successful gardener, then maybe I should be spending, you know, every day after, you know, like in the middle of the night, like it's, I mean, it's a bit of a crazy example, but that kind of just illustrates the point. You know, that sometimes the lack of measurement, sometimes people will invent another measurement that can give them grief. So, yeah, can sometimes, you know, go it can go both ways, I think, depending on how people kind of approach it.
• 54:19
  Sonya Looney: Yeah. I mean, we've covered how complex a performance based identity is and how difficult it is to untangle from that. If it's something that that is causing issues, and for some people, it isn't causing issues, is there anything else that you want to to add before we have to sign off here?
• 54:37
  Ben Walker: I don't think so.
• 54:37
  Ben Walker: Other than just to like, the fact that you use the word complexity. You know, I think these things performance based identities and related topics like worker holism and perfectionism, I think they are, one thing I've learned from researching these kind of things for the last almost 10 years, I suppose, is that they are really. Complicated. You know, they are very dependent on the person and their context and their communities and all these sorts of things. And so I'm generally, yeah, very all of that has had the effect of making me quite skeptical of people who offer really simplistic prescriptions for how to, you know, it's like, it's, it's hard to take that stuff seriously when you've seen from all of these different studies just how complex these topics are. And I think that, in itself, is a good insight for people who might be struggling with these things, to realize like they are, they are complex things. There's, a lot of moving parts and but that doesn't mean that you can't do anything about it. It just probably requires, you know, a range of different kind of interventions and approaches. And it also probably means that you've got to go you've got to go easy on yourself, because they are quite complex topics and sort of psychological things. Having the kind of relationship you want with performance or achievement isn't going to happen overnight.
• 56:12
  Ben Walker: You know, it's going to take a long time to craft it. Even myself, as someone who studies these things, I'm constantly still reflecting on and trying to sort of tinker with my own mental relationship, with my sort of work and my performance.
• 56:28
  Ben Walker: So, yeah, I think it's, it's good for people to realize these things are complicated, but it doesn't mean that they can't do things, I think, to to nudge themselves more to having the kind of mental relationship performance that they want to have.
• 56:46
  Sonya Looney: Yeah, and I think that you make a good point that it's not about making it go away, and you probably won't ever make it go away. It's how you relate to it and how you manage it. And that part is very complicated.
• 57:00
  Ben Walker: Yeah, it's complicated, but, you know, there's things you can do. I mean, we've talked about some things today. There's things people can do. And I think it is, yeah, like you say, a bit of a bit of self acceptance, like, if you're a perfectionist, you're probably never gonna really stop being a perfectionist. It's, it's something that's that's a reasonably stable trait, but we can become a lot more aware of those traits and how to, like said, sort of manage their impact on our lives and our happiness, I guess at the end of the day,
• 57:35
  Sonya Looney: well, thank you so much for being so generous with your time and for coming on the podcast. And where can people find your papers and your work?
• 57:44
  Ben Walker: So if they're interested in research stuff and just hearing more about what I do, they can go to Ben Walker, hyphen, phd.com, and so there's a little blurb about the different things I've been doing on there. And I think on there too, there's a LinkedIn too. If you're interested in sort of the hardcore research stuff, there's a link to my Google Scholar page. And if they just want to connect and talk more, my email address and my LinkedIn link is on there as well.
• 58:15
  Sonya Looney: Thanks so much for coming on the show. This was such a treat.
• 58:19
  Ben Walker: No problem. Thanks so much for having me.
• 58:22
  Sonya Looney: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of grow the good I'm so excited that you are here, that you have been with us through this transition from the Sonya Looney show to grow the good podcast, and we have some amazing guests lined up. If you are trying to remember what our format was, we do three episodes a month. We do one interview with a guest. We do one moving meditation from me and one solo episode from me. On the insides of performance, well being and how to grow the good.
• 58:51
  Sonya Looney: If you like the show, please don't forget to follow us, or, even better, leave us a five star review as that helps the show find others. We really are trying to build a tailwind and some momentum with this show, because these guests have such important insights that we want to share with the world to help it be better, to help people strive from a healthy place. As always, I'm with you on this journey of growth adventure and our mission to be better, and I'll see you right back here next week. You