How Do Your Negative Behaviours Reward You – Part 2
In ‘How Do Your Negative Behaviours Reward You – Part 1‘, I introduced the concept that the reason people have trouble kicking certain negative behaviour patterns is that they provide some sort of emotional reward. The key to ridding yourself of the pattern is to identify the reward and replace it with something better. In the last post, we applied this concept to 4 negative behaviour patterns, including negativity, being too hard on one’s self, overconfidence and arrogance. Today we’ll apply the concept to four more patterns commonly found in martial arts schools and in general life.
Bad Temper
Anger in itself is not negative behaviour. We all get angry from time to time. Being hot tempered, however, is a negative expression of one’s anger. It is when you lose of control as a result of your anger, and it can negatively impact your life in a variety of ways. In the dojo, it can come about in a variety of ways. People will figuratively step on each other toes from time to time as they train. They might hit harder than they mean to, they might say something irritating causing anger in another. When doing partner training, a bad tempered student might lash out angrily at their partner by hitting them harder to get back at them, either unconsciously or intentionally. If it’s not a physical retaliation, they might release their anger by saying something designed to get at them.
The reward you get from these behaviours that come from a loss of temper is one of catharsis. You get an immediate release that helps sate your emotional response. A more positive way to deal with your anger is to defuse your emotional reaction, by counting backwards from 10, taking a few deep breaths, whatever works best for you. Then taking actions to alleviate the behaviour that caused the anger, whether this is asking your partner to be more careful, ignoring an irritating remark, or when dealing with repetitive behaviours, discussing the issue with your instructor privately.
Being Judgemental
It’s much easier to look at the faults and failings of others than it is to look at our own. There can be practical value to doing this, like when you’re a teacher or leader and part of your role is to be a critical eye and to help people improve. This is not the same as being judgemental. A person is being judgemental when they evaluate a person negatively in some way as a result of their faults and failings. In the dojo, students sometimes pass judgement about other people’s abilities, training attitudes, social behaviours, even simple things like attendance or punctuality. When a person does this, it rewards them unconsciously by making them feel better about themselves. That is why people tend to be the most judgemental toward other people about the things they feel badly about themselves on some level.
The best way prevent yourself from passing judgement in this way is to replace the tendency to judge with the desire to understand the person’s unique situation. Consider reasons why the person may have the faults or failings you observe. Perhaps the person has a learning impediment, has had some sort of traumatic experience, is under a lot of stress at home or at work, etc. Think of reasons that draw on your empathy, situations in which you would appreciate the understanding of people around you were you in the situation. It’s hard to feel judgemental when you think in this way. If it’s appropriate for you to take a step further, consider ways in which you can help the person improve. If their problems seem to be related to stress, ask the person if everything is ok, and offer to talk about it if it’s not. If the person is struggling with a technique when training, offer them re-assurance and assistance (if appropriate for your level). Lastly, look to your own attachment to the fault or failing. If you feel judgemental about it, chances are it is an area in which you need work yourself.
Gossip
Gossip is the outward expression of being judgemental. When people gossip about others they are simply voicing their judgements about the faults and failings of people around them. Fuelled by their judgementalness, gossiping spreads the feeling to others like a weed. People may notice negative things about other people they hadn’t noticed before, then they may face their own tendency to judge. Some people justify gossip by saying that they are just trying to protect other people, but it’s clear when this is the case and when it is not. In the dojo, there have been times when a person has had a bad experience being thrown by a fellow student. A gossip-y way of dealing with this is going around warning other students “Be careful working with that guy. His throw is terrible and you might get hurt working with him.” All of a sudden, no one wants to work with the guy, and there is a negative feeling surrounding him.
When a person gossips, they are seeking validation for the judgements they have made internally, further reinforcing the rewards of being judgemental that were previously discussed. If you’re feeling judgemental, don’t express it in any way unless it will help the person in question. If you feel the need to talk about it, troubleshoot the situation with a confidant to come up with ways to help the person or of positively addressing the situation as it affects other people. If it’s a situation in the dojo, your instructors are the best people to discuss it with.
Competitiveness
We are very much attached to the need to compete in the capitalist culture of modern Western society. It’s easy for this mentality to carry over into one’s career, purchasing habits, and yes, even in martial arts training, particularly in competition-based styles, but it’s not limited to that. Being competitive on its own isn’t necessarily a negative thing. It’s more in the way that you channel it. If your competitiveness leads to any of the previous discussed negative behaviours, it’s not doing you any favours. If you feel the need to point out other people’s failings for no good reason, either to push yourself up above them or to pull other people down below you, your competitive approach is materializing as a negative attitude/behaviour.
Comparing yourself to others and trying to position yourself ahead of them rewards you by making you feel better about yourself by seeing yourself as superior. The down side is that when your competitiveness is negatively channelled, you tear down the community around you to keep your inflated self-image intact. If you have to give yourself someone to compete against and compare yourself to, use yourself. Be your own measuring stick. Focus on being better than you were yesterday. And help other people to be better too. When the people around you improve in their training, it helps you improve. Read more about these concepts in my recent post ‘The Only Person Worth Competing Against in the Martial Arts.’
Have you any further suggestions and tips to share about dealing with negative behaviours in the dojo (your own or those of others)? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
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Good post. I like the replacement of a reward technique.
I’d like to focus on competition for a second. I believe competitive behavior is mostly rooted in the natural process of evolution and life all together, rather than a capitalist society. The rule of ‘those who compete are less likely to miss out on the next generation.’. I would even go as far as to argue that the success of capitalist structures are rooted in this natural process, rather than the other way around. Just a thought I’d like to share. I’m not arguing that there isn’t a dark-side to competitive behavior.
Fully agree with you. Being competitive isn’t necessarily bad. There is such a thing has healthy competition (i.e. competition with one’s self, competition for fun, etc). Of course, this blog post is talking more about competitiveness in its negative form (which I do think has been exacerbated by the capitalist mentality). As for the success of capitalist structures being linked to the natural process, I’d say there is some truth to that, though I wouldn’t say that the capitalist structures that succeed is necessarily a good thing for our species or our planet. I believe that our capacity to think is getting us into more trouble than it is solving at present time. One should hope that that same capacity will eventually turn things around. Being the optimist that I am, I like to think it will. 🙂
This second article is even better than the first! Thanks a lot for sharing your wisdom.
Reading your comment about capitalist mentality, I think our beliefs are shaped by our experiences. With the years I have changed my attitude towards certain models. (Like Capitalism and Socialism)
A person I respect a lot, Dan Millman, advocates now non-competitive sports (but he was world champion). I prefer the concept I read in the ‘Inner Game’ books. That your opponent is your friend and partner, and is going to help you reach higher levels and in the process discover things about yourself…
It’s true what you say about our beliefs being shaped by our experiences. One can live in a capitalist society and grow up with beliefs that run counter to it. That being said, I think it factors in to some extent and we must challenge ourselves to look past it and do what we think is right for ourselves and our planet.
Dan Millman definitely has a lot to offer about right attitude toward sport. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
A good antidote to being judgemental is to periodically look at your own shortcomings and realise we all make mistakes and each one of us has his/her weaknesses. ‘Judge not lest you be judged’: still a good maxim in my mind. We all have an ego (quite necessary for survival) and sometimes our ego makes us do or say stupid things: when you realise we’re all in the same boat you won’t be as eager to pronounce yourself superior (the notion itself is quite ridiculous since there’ll always be people who are better than you and even if you’re superior to someone in one respect it’s likely you’ll be inferior in another) or put down your fellow man. Nobody’s perfect: I’m nobody ;).
Martial arts shouldn’t be about competition but about having fun, raising one’s quality of life and personal growth. This is why I don’t participate in competition and focus on a self-defense orientated approach. Who cares whether you win titles and medals? I very much doubt they’ll make you a better human-being.
Great additional thoughts to add to the article. Martial arts in modern times are more about perfection of the self than they are about fighting. 🙂
Well, it’s certainly true that fighting and the ability to fight is not that important anymore in modern society since we live in generally well-ordered societies with cops and the legal system keeping anarchy in check and the military to protect us from outside threats so, at least in the west martial arts training is generally not that combative nor really geared towards survival. In essence it’s more of an artform than a combative system although hopefully it can still function as such if need be. To me training has two aspects: the physical manifestation is the yang or hard side to it (fighting, self-defense), the mental growth and additional benefit the yin or soft side. Obviously the two are interconnected: you don’t advance in the physical aspect unless you also grow mentally and vice versa.
That being said for me at least what I train should be functional and applicable otherwise it wouldn’t motivate me anymore and I might aswell take up a sport or cultural activity. To me my training has been a rewarding experience and I’ve always had fun with it: since nobody’s forcing you to train and it’s not likely you’ll ever have to depend on it for survival the motivation should be internal as opposed to external. Another step is evolving from just a student to an assistent-teacher: obviously you still need to learn and keep practicing what you already know but now you get to help others along the path you’ve chosen and that in itself is a great experience also.
As to competition: I’ve done some judo competition when I was younger and I understand why people like it but to me martial arts is not about being better than the next guy and life in general is challenging enough so there’ll be plenty of opportunities to prove myself so why should I fill my spare time with it too? To each his own but it’s not my cup of tea and I don’t need it to keep myself motivated to train.
I like your training attitude, Zara. We’re pretty much on the same page.
That’s probably the reason why I keep coming back here ;).
With respect to being judgemental/gossipy…I think there’s a difference between passing judgement on someone’s character based on your observations (ie. that person is lazy/unworthy/bad)and using your judgement with respect to your personal safety. Some people, especially those just starting out, are more likely to injure you via inexperience, anxiety or over-enthusiastic application of techniques. In most cases it falls to the individual to identify those risks and make appropriate adjustments. I don’t think sharing your experience with fellow students, especially in the case of a classmate who has a chronically unsafe or frustrating approach, should be frowned upon. Sometimes that’s when people start realizing that the problem is not just confined to them, but is pervasive and should be addressed directly. In some cases an instructor may not be willing to take up the complaint with the student directly (for whatever reason), or the student does not address the problem after being spoken to by the instructor.
Passing personal negative personal judgements associated with a personal failings is not the same as taking actions to ensure the safety of the dojo. That is not what was intended by the point. Passing personal judgement is when a person judges a person’s character as flawed based on what the judger perceives as their failings. Of course, this point was meant to address this and not safety concerns which we constantly encourage that our students voice to keep everyone safe on the mats. In fact, I wrote a blog post to do with how to handle less than ideal ukes. Thanks for commenting!