Can we accept ourselves as we are? Or are we in a constant state of flux – ever wanting to change this or that about ourselves? The new year offers us another chance to be the best version of ourselves. To lose weight. To stop drinking. To stop smoking. To stop biting our nails. Yet every year, our ‘Resolutions’ often fall by the wayside, leading us into a feeling of despondency and failure.
Why is that?
Carl Rogers spoke about the concept of the real self and the ideal self.
The ideal self sounds just that – ideal! Yet in reality, it isn’t. Our ideal self is how we want to be – how we want to look – how we ‘ought’ to be and this is often shaped by external forces. These can be parents who are judgemental about how we dress or whether they think we’ve put on weight. Or friends who are similarly judgmental about what we wear or what we drive. If our goals don’t align with those who surround us, we can find life to be both difficult and painful. The human psyche is driven to seek support, comfort and acceptance – whatever the cost. And often, the cost is our real self.
Our real self is that which is where our innate inner structures would take us if they were left unhindered. Imagine the child who loves football and has a dream to be a footballer one day, only to be told by his Dad that they are ‘Not good enough’. The child’s organismic self – the driving force for dreams and wishes – takes a severe knock and the child accepts (though not always) that maybe they ought to find something more reasonable to focus on.
Think back to your childhood. What dreams did you have when you were growing up? Pilot? Wrestler? Photographer? Dancer? Hairdresser? The dreams we have are our goals that our real self pursues. It’s what drives us, using what Rogers called ‘The Actualising Tendency’ – striving to be the best version of ourselves (whatever that might look like).
Time passes. We go to school. We pass (or fail) exams. We leave. We get a job – or we go to University. We might have reconnected with our actualising tendency at this point – great! But many do not. For many, the prospect of work becomes something that HAVE to do in order to survive rather than being something they CHOOSE to survive, but with the added bonus of being something they WANT to do.
Think back to your school lessons. You loved the ones you enjoyed – subjects that clicked with you. You hated the ones that didn’t sit right with you. So for some students, sitting through an hour’s worth of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is purgatory because their passion is baking or woodwork or sports. Similarly, there are students who struggle with creative activities and find the academic work more enjoyable. Unfortunately, our school system is currently highly in favour of the latter, meaning a lot – A LOT – of young people are disenfranchised by their school experiences. Their actualising tendency is not being allowed to flourish.
From a very early age, many do not get the opportunity to follow their dreams. And it’s not just dreams – it can be something as simple as a job/career that provides satisfaction – that nurtures that organismic self (our ‘true’ self – the one that follows the actualising tendency). We do not become the people we set out to be.
But the new year offers us another crack at this. Ever hopeful, people will try to chase their dreams of being a better person – thinner, fitter, more educated, more creative…the list goes on. If we were to listen to Rogers, he might suggest that the problem exists because of the gulf between our real and ideal selves. Once we begin to listen to our real self, we connect with who we truly are as a person and we can begin to become congruent – of having some inner satisfaction of who we are and what we’re about.
‘The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change’
Carl Rogers, ‘On Becoming a Person’ – 1961