Life Begins at the End of Our Comfort Zone - Being with Uneasy Feelings about Our Activity Results.

Whenever we complete an activity, we need to put in context what our results mean. Please remember your results with any activity are not who you are. Your results are a snapshot of a moment when you did an activity. It's just one measure, a single thread, of many strands of who you are. Any result is a guess with statistical error. And it's possible the measure is flawed in a way so it doesn't work for you. Please do not think of your results as definitive dogma. Instead they're a starting point of your self reflection. Please keep in mind too, self-reflection can feel uncomfortable. "Bad" feelings are not actually bad. They're information. So, even if your activity result is inaccurate and flawed, you might ask yourself what your feeling about it is trying to tell you? Let's explore the context of activity with greater depth.

We take a "sciency" measure and all our answers get summed up neatly in a number or a box, like my IQ is 97 or I'm an introvert. When we get results, and learn about what they mean, it can feel like they're defining us. They don't. They're a single thread among many. Let's consider examples.

IQ predicts success, but it's only a single predictor. Many qualities go into helping us be successful, like our: curiosity, conscientiousness, self-efficacy, perseverance, social skillls, family of origin's income, our family of origin's mental health, having good teachers, having the right training, and getting practice. Sometimes I feel our society deifies IQ, like it's a sacred number. Some schools and teachers treat it like a gatekeeper for what their students can accomplish. They're wrong. So please do not take your score and limit yourself with beliefs like, "My IQ is too low to become a ..." There are many pathways to any goal you have. Sure, your activity score predicts outcomes, but it's not the only predictor. We're multifaceted.

Maybe a personality tests declare you an "introvert." And introversion predicts how we interact with others. But please don't limit yourself with beliefs like, "I'm an introvert, so I can't approach people I don't know." Of course you can! Introversion is a single traits and many other traits matter. But don't limit yourself with multiple traits either. Like I'm an INFP. You're not a box a measure puts you in. Personality traits aren't everything mattering in our social worlds. We bring to our social world our attitudes, values, shared interests, experiences and social skills. There are many pathways to fulfilling relationships.

Every activity and every measure is flawed. They're made by people like me, and every one of us has failings. When I design a measure, I literally make dozens of choices. What exactly is it I'm trying to measure? What are the right words to ask questions evoking the response from you genuinely reflecting what I'm trying to measure? How many questions is too few to get a decent average? How many questions is too many because you'll lose focus? When I make a scale I have a lot of guidance from prior researchers. I review existing studies. And I rely on my background knowledge about statistics, psychometrics, and research methods.

Every activity I create is something I've carefully thought through and tested. Even so, I grew up in a particular culture, in a particular era, in a particular way. While I try to make sure I include as many other perspectives as I can, I have failings. Maybe a measure isn't such a good way to tap what it's supposed to in a person like you, from your perspective. When I review prior research, I often find multiple previous measures. Because each of us has to struggle to set aside our own biases. It's a big reason why we need a diverse range of voices in Psychology. Maybe you notice a flaw in a measure and it inspires you to a career in Psychology, pushing our field from another perspective. Honestly, I would love to see that happen!

Even when a measure is perfectly good at measuring what it's supposed to in somebody like you, it's still an estimate. If you were to do any measure again, you'll probably get at least a little different of a result. That's because even if the main thing driving your answers is what "supposed" to, it's never the only thing. Things are on your mind: maybe something bad happened recently (e.g., a breakup, bad grade), or something good (e.g., compliment, promotion), or a conversation (e.g., politics, upcoming classes) or anything else (e.g., theme in a video you saw yesterday). You're always changing (e.g., mood, sleepiness) The environment you're completing activities in varies (e.g., distractions, another person providing you a social comparison). Research shows all these little things can nudge people’s results different ways (e.g., priming). The validity of measures comes from combining lots of people whose circumstances push their scores in different random directions. In research with hundreds of people, we call this “error variance,” which is unavoidable in the complexity of the world. It's still solid measure, but for an individual it can be more impactful.

When I share with you results, I share why it matters. Things like more of trait predicts being a more likely to do a certain thing or by higher or lower in some other ways. Remember these are not absolutes. Psychology Findings, like any I describe, are statistical. Just because you're maybe super high in P and research shows people high in P are also high in Q, doesn't mean you are high in Q. Maybe that sounds unbelievable, but look at figure 1. Notice how the scatter plot shows a big positive correlation between P and Q, meaning people higher in P tend to be higher in Q. That's a meaningful result on a group level of analysis. Even so, on the individual level we see plenty of exceptions. Notice the four participants I highlight in circles. Two scored high in P but low in Q and two scored low in P but high in Q. Maybe your personal patterns are among the less common. That's okay and your experience is totally valid.

If you spend time working on your mental health and self-improvement, like I do, you'll probably come across an expression like, "our capacity to grow is directly proportional to our capacity to accept uncomfortable truths about ourselves without running away." "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone," is an earlier expression of a similar idea shared by Neale Donald Walsch in his book Conversations with God. Gestalt therapy shares a similar insight through the Paradoxical Theory of Change - we can not truly change until we accept ourselves exactly as we are, and the moment we do, we begin a natural process of growth. The wisdom has ancient philosophical and spiritual roots in traditions like Stoicism, Buddhism, and Taoism, and modern philosophies like Existentialism. And I feel its the deep and simple idea behind my hero, Mister Rogers, reminding us, "people can like you exactly as you are." To me, each of these perspectives taps a core truth, and I hope you'll consider taking it to heart while reflecting about Copernican Revolution activities. It's harder than it seems. Here's a personal example.

Even before I create activities for others, I try them myself. Among activities on my site is one about aggression. I score extremely low in aggression, whether physical, verbal, relational, and so forth. Just like my self-concept. Except one scale I score high in: anger. But I'm not angry!! Literally, over and over again, people have commented about how happy I always am. I'm not angry, even when others are angry on my behalf. I'm just not the kind of person who gets angry.

Receiving a high anger score stayed with me. I read Brianna Wiest's The Mountain is You, and one passage especially pulled my attention:

The problem isn't the scale. It's me, I'm the problem, it's me. Ever since childhood I have understood anger is rage, anger is being out of control, and anger is hurting others. And becoming willing to recognize how much anger I carry with me helps me heal, use my anger productively, and assert my boundaries.

If any results of any activities strike a nerve with you. Please don't dismiss it completely. Even if the measure is flawed, there's something valuable in asking ourselves what our "bad" feeling about the activity is really telling us.

Don't let nice neat summaries of results define you. You're multifacted and many pathways are part of your journey toward your destinations. Every results is an estimation, with error, and sometimes bias could make the error even worse.
No activity is the end point in your journey. But despite weaknesses of activities, please reflect on them and be open to uncomfortable feelings you have about them because that's how we grow. And helping us grow is why I created the Copernican Revolution.