Last week I was onsite co-facilitating a retreat with the exceptional Ellie Hearn from Pencil or Ink (who, coincidentally, will be next week’s guest on Better Than Fine).
During a session an important question came up: is shame a good motivator?
Let’s discuss.
The More|Better substack is a weekly dose of fitness, wellness, and wellbeing here to help you make sense of all the nonsense by Darlene Marshall.
What is shame?
Have you noticed the recent influx of content about emotions and emotional intelligence? Perhaps it’s because of Huberman’s 2 recent episodes on emotion or the sudden impulse for people to unpack the aftermath of the pandemic era. As emotional skills become the topic of the moment, it’s a good time to remember that emotions are lots of things.
One of those things is information from your subconscious and nervous system about your own experience.
(deep dive on that idea here)
If emotions are information, what is shame trying to tell us?
Shame, by it’s definition, is the emotion of “I am wrong” (this in contrast with guilt with the feeling that you have done something wrong).
Let that really sink in - shame is your body telling you that you are, at your essence, wrong.
From an evolutionary perspective shame would be an important adaptation for our ancestors. If a member of your survival group (your tribe or village or whatever) did something that endangered everyone they’d really need to know about it. The people around you would give you the swift feedback and you’d feel ashamed and then never do that thing again <gasp omg>!
The problem with shame is we internalize the idea that we, at our core essence, are wrong; but most of us are no longer in situations where going against the status quo will be threatening to ourselves, our families, or our way of life.
Growing up in the 80s and 90s and then working in the fitness industry for the last 13 years I’ve seen a lot of people motivated by shame to “care” for their bodies. I’ve seen managers berate subordinates to “motivate” them. Which begs the question…
Is it really motivating?
To understand how shame might be “motivating” it can be helpful to know our current understanding of human motivation (deep dive it here if that’s what you’re into:)
TL;DR:
When we’re motivated by systems of reward and punishment the motivation is short lived - shame being a very powerful punishment because we fear being ostracized or fully rejected by our peers, mentors, lovers, friends, and leaders… which, for our ancestors was a death sentence. Nbd!
In some situations we internalize that reward and punishment structure - now, we’re shaming ourselves. We see this in fitness All The Time!
But is that motivation is short lived.
As soon as the shame becomes to powerful to psychologically bare or the reward is removed, the behavior crumbles.
Why won’t shame help us long term?
Shame doesn’t work for us long term for 2 primary reasons:
if it’s external, one of two things happens: either the source of the shame leaves and we go back to what our desires and impulses drive us to do or we gain enough power and resources that we no longer have to listen to the shamer
if it’s internal (meaning we’ve internalized the source of shame and now we are ashamed of ourselves) we withdraw. We self reject and self harm. If you’re a fan of this substack I’m going to assume you already know why this is not good for any of us
Essentially, shame drives us away from an authentic, integrated, whole, and healthy self. That’s not the path to fulfillment - no sir, no how.
What works instead?
Understanding. Kindness. Patience.
Doing the internal work to heal the sources of internalized shame and helping leaders, parents, teachers, coaches, fitpros, and the like to understand that shame isn’t “motivating” as a tool.
In fact, that shame is a very short term motivator for most people, causes a ton of resentment towards the person with power, and damaging for those that internalize it.
There are some obvious exceptions - in cases of moral transgressions.
But most of us are not dealing with those cases. We’re dealing with the kid who didn’t do their homework, the client who skipped their workout, or the employee who got their work in late again.
The better question (stolen directly from Ellie Hearn at Pencil or Ink):
”Help me understand why this keeps happening” said with compassion and patience. The openhearted ask is an invitation to explore the problem together and actually solve it - instead of demanding weak compliance.
Shame getting in the way of your own fulfillment?
Here’s a few things to try:
Explore the source of the shame. Here are a few journal prompts to guide you: who taught it to you? Do you agree with the underlying beliefs? If not, what belief would be more helpful?
Find where shame lives in your body. What is that feeling trying to tell you about yourself, your life, and your role in the world?
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