65. Self-Esteem Diversification Part 2

Waaaaaay back in Blog number 7, I posted an article called Self-Esteem Diversification.

The point of that post was to talk about the potential benefits of having a variety of things upon which to place our self-identity, self-worth & self-esteem. 

In short, reasoning was:

• More things that make these up = less emotionally destructive when one of those things goes to shit

• Less things that make these up = more emotionally destructive when one of those things goes to shit

As you may have guessed from the title, this post is a bit of a follow up to that one...

The idea of ‘Self-Esteem Diversification’ was one that popped into my head a few years ago when I first started to dabble in the world of Stocks & Shares.

As I’m sure we all know, from a ‘risk mitigation’ point of view in investing, it can be wise not to put all our money in just one asset. As if/when that asset crashes, we lose a load of money. Bad news.

On the flip side, if we chuck our money into a range of assets, then if/when one of those crash, then the damage is offset by the wider assets in our portfolio. Better news.

A theory that I think can be applicable to our lives more broadly. 

Now, before we get into that, it’s worth saying that there can of course be huge benefit in the single-minded pursuit of something. The ‘all eggs in the one basket’ approach. 

To become properly shit hot at something, it seems that the only way to do so is to have a near enough single-minded obsession about it. 

It’s that idea from writer Jason Pargin

“Accept that all your heroes are full of shit. Your heroes aren’t gods, they’re just regular people who probably got good at one thing by neglecting literally everything else".

Not exactly a ‘diversified’ approach, but one that almost seems a prerequisite to get to the top of something.

So that’s good.

What’s not so good is when we over-invest our time, effort, energy and self-image into one thing, and that thing gets taken away.

I think this is relevant regardless of what 'level' we're at.

Let's say everyone knows us for something. The studious one at school, or the person who's always up for a night out, or the career-driven one, or the social media influencer, or the sporty one, or whatever it is,

If our identity, sense of self, or self-worth is overly wrapped up into that thing and it suddenly gets taken away, then the potential for feelings of emptiness, meaningless, worthlessness and generally feeling lost can be quite high...

To use an extreme example to showcase the point, let’s take Olympians.  

Apparently, this crash is a fairly common thing. 

I recently watched a documentary called ‘The Weight of Gold’, presented and narrated by Michael Phelps.

The doc is all about the mental health struggles and psychological pitfalls that a huge portion of Olympians face. Phelps reckons that about 80% of athletes go through some sort of post-Olympic depression. 

Talking from his own experience, he says

"Yeah I won a shit ton of medals. I had a great career… but, so what? I thought of myself as 'just a swimmer’, not a human being". 

Poignant… 

I mean Michael Phelps is what, top 5 most successful and famous Olympians of all time?

He then goes on to talk about the identity-crisis, depression and (sorry to lower the tone!) suicidal tendencies that he experienced post-career. Eeesh.  

Obviously, he wouldn’t be one of the greatest athletes of all time without that ruthlessly obsessive single-minded level of commitment - but the price he had to pay afterwards is an eye-opening one…

Now, the point of this post isn’t to shit on ambition, passion, or lofty goals.  

However, as someone who’s wired to be slightly ‘all in or all out’, I am very familiar with the emotional pitfalls of placing a disproportionate amount of value, self-worth, time and energy on one area of life, only for that area of life to go to shit. 

It’s not a great feeling.

As such, if living a slightly less emotionally volatile life is the goal, I do think there can be benefit in having a wide range of things that we draw a sense of self-worth from. As when one area of life inevitably gets taken away, we have a variety of other things to soften the blow. 

Self-Esteem Diversification.