How to Stop Pats on the Back

By Cliff Kuhn, M.D.
The Laugh Doctor
"It all starts with a SMILE"

Everyone loves an occasional pat on the back. But sometimes you
can love them too much. Sometimes the pats on your back become
so comfortable that they start to feel like you’re productively
seeking advice rather than commiseration. And commiseration is
a very different animal than solution-seeking.

Usually, in fact, by the time I see a new patient, she has
exhausted her network of friends and family. I hear phrases
like, “Everyone is rejecting me”, when what she really means is
that people are tired of commiserating with her and are starting
to actually give helpful suggestions because they are worried. She
is now my patient at least partly because she has run out of
people to commiserate with.

Commiseration is, of course, that pat on the back I just alluded
to. It comes from someone who understands and says, “I feel
your pain.” It is a comfort to receive it because it reminds us
that we’re not alone. But it does not help you solve your
dilemma. So, because it feels so comfortable, you always run
the risk of getting stuck in the rut of seeking commiseration
over real help.

To affect positive change and personal growth, you cannot
overestimate the value of someone who has gone where you want to
go. An expert with first-hand experience. Someone who’s walked
the walk and knows how to take you there too. While I’m telling
you to stop commiserating, I want you to develop the habit of
seeking out experts to make sure you’re making genuine progress
towards your goals.

I’ve written a Smile Strategy to motivate you: Ask an Expert. Most
of us occasionally fall into the commiseration trap; we
want to be a millionaire, for example, but we go around asking
gas station attendants how to do it. There’s noting wrong with
being a gas station attendant, mind you, but how much real
guidance is he going to give you regarding your million dollar
goal? You need to talk to a millionaire.

I’m sure that getting occasional pats on your back will always
be something you indulge. But developing the habit of asking an
expert will move you closer to the coveted realm of super health
and success that you seek. Remember that only 1% of the
population is reported to exhibit the necessary habits and drive
to achieve lofty goals. This strategy puts you within that 1%.

Finding an expert is not difficult. If your current network of
family and friends does not provide you one, start asking for
recommendations. Ask for people who’ve achieved your goal or
who have successfully solved the problem you’re having. Then
seek that person out and get as close as she’ll allow.

Not everyone will be comfortable teaching you, you will hear a
few “no’s”. But by taking yourself lightly, you’ll trust that
this is not the right person and you’ll keep looking. You found
me, after all.

It’s important to remember, too, that the culprit behind your
decision to commiserate rather than seek actual solutions is
almost always fear. An unwillingness to abandon your familiar
routines because the known dysfunction is preferable to the
unknown results of something new. Seeking an expert requires
you to challenge yourself with a different methodology, but if
you do your footwork you can sooth your worries because you’ll
know that your expert knows what she teaches you.

But knowing that your expert can move you to the “next level”
does not always make it comfortable.

My friend Laurie was a commiserator; she was much more
comfortable sitting around with people in the same situations as
she, complaining about things. Rather than finding someone who
had first-hand experience at solving her problems. When she got
sick and tired of spinning her wheels, I introduced her to this
Smile Strategy.

She found some new friends who were living lives she wanted to
emulate - people who had things to teach her. After some time,
Laurie actually came to accept what all successful people do:
she learned that she has two choices, either do things the same
old way, which is eternally uncomfortable, or do things a new
way, which is temporarily uncomfortable. And she learned that
only an expert can teach her how to do something different, if
she wants lasting, sustainable results.

There really is no such thing as “standing still,” after all. In
life you’re either growing or shrinking. If you wanted to
shrink you wouldn’t be reading this. So get out of your comfort
zone and start growing. Ask an expert to help you attain a goal
today.

Your Attention Please!

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Cliff Kuhn, M.D.
The Laugh Doctor
7406 Wesboro Road
Louisville, KY 40242
"It all starts with a SMILE"