The Biggest Obstacle to Self Improvement

Secondary Gain. At least that’s the “technical” term (well, as technical as it gets, that is!!)

What is Secondary Gain? It’s a short phrase that explains that we do everything we do for a reason - and that the reason behind what we are doing is actually a “good cause”.

And before you even ask, yes, I am speaking specifically about things that we wish we didn’t do!

A drug addict doesn’t use drugs to escape this world. A drug user uses drugs to enter into a world in which she feels good, that she feels important, and one that feels safe and secure.

We push away money not because we don’t want wealth, but because we fear how wealth might change our personal relationships, or because we fear that if we become wealthy we would lose our motivation to do anything in life.

We feel guilty not because we are horrible people, but because it is the status quo, because it enables us to connect with others, and we fear that if we didn’t have guilt, we would never get anything off of our procrastination lists.

I watched a conversation thread in one of my email groups today about good and bad emotions, and what “good” and “bad” means specifically. In fact, emotions are there to serve us no matter what they are. They are our Action Signals - that we are meeting our needs in either empowering or disempowering ways. Negative emotions are just an Action Signal that we need to find a way to meet our needs in more empowering ways.

When I needed transformation, if my coach came at me with “this is what we have to eliminate”, part of me would have resisted the process. It’s because I have done everything for a reason. You can’t remove a disempowering belief, change a negative emotion, or break out of a limiting pattern unless you find the benefits you are receiving from the actions in the first place.

For example, the benefits I got out of having a fear of failure were that I didn’t have to try, I didn’t need to risk rejection, and I got to hold onto a feeling of security.

The need I met by holding onto this fear was one of certainty and comfort. Once I found a healthier and more empowering way to feel certain, I didn’t need the old ways of feeling certain any longer - ones that in the long run would have destroyed my spirit.

Sometimes it’s rather hard to uncover the hidden benefits of our disempowering choices. It takes quite a bit of self-honesty that isn’t exactly flattering. But once the benefits are established, it’s easy (from a coaching perspective, that is) to help people who in the past haven’t wanted to change.

But getting people who don’t want to change into a coaching environment is a WHOLE different story… I’d love to hear your ideas on THAT one!