This week I have had the experience of several people in different contexts telling me that I have done particular things rather well. And I must say that it felt very good. Very good indeed. At the time.
Later, I noticed a rather curious phenomenon. I was strangely reluctant to engage with the activities that had been deemed praise-worthy. What was going on? After sitting with this reluctance for a while to familiarise myself with it, I discovered that it was exactly the same phenomenon that my coffee shop friend had talked to me about a few weeks ago: Attachment.
When I become attached to the outcome of my efforts, and particularly when I rely on other people's judgements of my efforts, stress, misery and procrastination lie ahead; when I do things with full attention on the activity involved because I love it, want to do it, believe in it, I can take pleasure in the 'doing' of it. It's not that the outcomes are irrelevant; they are highly relevant, but noticing them and moving on from them feels so much better than trying to hold on to them, striving to achieve them, and failing to engage with the journey that got me there in the first place.
So.....to praise or not to praise? There is a large body of research documenting the effects of praise on children. In short, praising the effort taken appears to have a motivational effect; praising the outcome is less effective. If you hear me saying, 'Oh, good effort!' this week...you'll know why.
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