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Self Improvement Training – Look past Dr. Spock’s Self-Destructive Advice
Monday, November 9th, 2009
Most people’s deepest fear is that they are not good enough. Many of us struggle with a negative and weak self-image. Many times, our level of mental health can be measured by the amount of love and affirmation we received from our parents. As a result of this lack of affirmation and love as a child, it is easy to understand why many people develop deep insecurities and lack of confidence in our own ability to achieve our goals and dreams.
Dr. Spock was a very influential parental guide in the 1950’s and 60’s and I believe he was directly responsible for the level of neurosis which exists in our world today. At the time, Dr. Spock was the expert on child rearing and influenced thousands of parents, especially mothers, in the development of their parental philosophies and self improvement training. His book was the parent’s bible at the time. Many of us are the product of this destructive parental advice.
His philosophy was to tame the child’s self-confidence and pop their bubble so their egos wouldn’t become too over inflated. He taught parents not to compliment their children too much. He taught that a parent needed to keep their children’s expectations as to what they could achieve “realistic” so they wouldn’t be disappointed if they couldn’t accomplish their dreams. We withhold our affirmation and our compliments so our loved ones and the people we meet won’t become too overconfident or their egos won’t become too inflated.
I have been a sales trainer for many years and part of my training is showing salespeople how to overcome the initial resistance you encounter when first meeting with a prospect. A very effective way of doing this is by the use of sincere compliments. The reason why compliments work so well with people is because of people’s deep, underlying belief of not being enough. A compliment is, therefore, medicine for people’s greatest fear. A lot of times we are insecure about giving compliments because we are afraid of rejection. We all need to develop a good enough self-image that we give compliments easily without fearing rejection. We should offer compliments as a gift and not worry about whether the recipient is going to accept our gift or not.
My wife, Donna, and I were at dinner one night when she stopped our waitress to tell her that she had beautiful eyes. The waitress’s whole face lit up like a Christmas tree and her whole demeanor changed. When we returned the next night, she told us that she went home that night and looked at her eyes in the mirror for the first time in a long time and saw what my wife was talking about. She really did have beautiful eyes and she had never acknowledged that about herself. You never know whose life you are going to change by giving others this medicine for the soul. When you know what’s people’s greatest fear is and you don’t use it, you are depriving them of something that could have a major impact on their lives.
Get over your fear of rejection and offer sincere compliments every time they come to your heart and mind. Don’t regret not giving a compliment because of your own fear of rejection. Let’s outgrow Dr. Spock’s negative advice and begin to truly believe that we can accomplish anything! Don’t worry about popping your children’s, your own, or your loved one’s bubble. Believe in yourself. Believe that you can do and be anything you desire to be. Compliment your children; hug them every chance you get, wrap your arms around them and tell them you believe they can accomplish anything because they CAN! Let them dream and discover their own internal power to create a magnificent life for themselves and use their God-given talents to make the world a better place. Become a good parent to yourself as well and quit popping your own bubble. Don’t be realistic! Dream, believe and achieve your heart’s desire and your children’s dreams. It is time to outgrow this Dr. Spock’s destructive parental advice and become all that we were destined to become. It is time to be an instrument in guiding our children into fulfilling their own immense potential.
