2106: Social Drag by Steve Pavlina on Handling Personal Shifts and Misinterpretations

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[00:00:57] This is Optimal Relationships Daily, Episode 21-06. Social drag by Steve Pavlina of

[00:01:07] stevepavlina.com. Hello, everybody and thank you so much for starting a new week with us here on

[00:01:13] ORD. I'm your host and narrator, Greg Audino. Really happy to have you here today as I will be sharing

[00:01:19] an article from the wonderful Steve Pavlina. An article all about how the changes we make in our

[00:01:24] lives can often lead to confusion and misinterpretation from those who have maybe known us for a while.

[00:01:31] This can be difficult to deal with sometimes, but hopefully by the end of the article and my commentary

[00:01:37] you'll feel a bit more confident about your own changes and how they're received.

[00:01:41] So let's jump into this post now and optimize your life.

[00:01:44] Social drag by Steve Pavlina of stevepavlina.com

[00:01:54] Social drag is what happens when you undergo a significant personal shift,

[00:02:00] yet everyone around you still treats you the same. Suppose you've decided to switch careers.

[00:02:06] Even though you're still working in your old career, mentally you've already made the leap

[00:02:10] to the new one, and it's only a matter of time before your external reality reflects that.

[00:02:15] But the people around you haven't yet internalized your shift. It isn't real to them yet,

[00:02:21] so they keep interacting with you as if you haven't made the shift at all.

[00:02:25] Has this ever happened to you? Every significant shift I've experienced has had a corresponding

[00:02:30] level of social drag. Whenever a person makes a significant change in their lives,

[00:02:35] it can take the rest of the world a few years to catch up. This is especially true with family

[00:02:40] and friends that you don't see often. Their mental model of who you are is likely to drift behind

[00:02:46] the real you. Whenever I experience a major personal shift, it always takes my extended family and

[00:02:52] friends a while to get it. After college, when I started dexterity software, my parents still

[00:02:59] behaved as if I was looking for a job. Like many college students would be expected to do after

[00:03:03] graduation. They mailed me job applications and sent me employment leads, but I just junked them.

[00:03:10] It took a couple of years for them to internalize the idea that I was running my own business,

[00:03:15] even though I'd already made that commitment from day one and had no interest in working for someone

[00:03:19] else. I think it was around the time I received a check for $50,000 from a publisher that they finally

[00:03:25] got it. More recently, when I told them I performed an improv comedy show, they reacted with surprise.

[00:03:32] For Steve two years ago, this behavior would be a little surprising. But doing improv is pretty

[00:03:38] consistent with Steve now's behavior. My local friends weren't really surprised. I've been giving

[00:03:43] humorous speeches for a year and a half. Another cause of social drag is when there are artifacts

[00:03:48] of your old self left behind, giving people a glimpse of who you once were but not of who you are

[00:03:54] today. For example, when I was actively building dexterity software, I wrote a number of articles on

[00:04:01] game development and marketing, most of them between 1999 and 2002. Those articles became very

[00:04:07] popular, and I decided to keep them online in the hopes that people might still find some value

[00:04:12] in them. The copyright dates are listed at the bottom of each article. Unfortunately, people who

[00:04:18] read these old articles today often react as if I just wrote them yesterday, and people who knew

[00:04:23] me then seemed to assume that I would offer the same advice today as I did several years ago.

[00:04:29] Heck no, the game scene has changed a lot since then. If I were active in the industry today,

[00:04:35] I would do things very differently. My old articles serve as advice on how to run an indie

[00:04:40] games business at that time, not how to run one today. Many of the high level ideas still hold true,

[00:04:47] but the more specific details are largely obsolete. The shareware distribution model has changed

[00:04:53] markedly since I wrote those articles. Today's independent developer should skate where the

[00:04:58] puck is going, not where it's been. Thanks to social drag, there's this ghost version of Steve

[00:05:04] Pavlina that still lingers in the indie games industry long after I retired. People periodically

[00:05:10] debate his old ideas as if they're modern ones. Some of the stuff people attribute to him

[00:05:15] is amusing in a sad sort of way. As time goes on, he drifts further and further away, performing

[00:05:22] whatever role social drag assigns. Social drag keeps him alive. Some people praise him for helping

[00:05:29] them, others scorn him for giving them bad advice. Yet he exists only in their minds. The real human

[00:05:37] being from which this ghost spawned has long since moved on. Social drag is mainly a nuisance,

[00:05:44] but it can be more serious if the drag threatens to slow you down or to erase your progress.

[00:05:50] You can choose to accept and then ignore it, which often works well when you're dealing with

[00:05:54] acquaintances like co-workers you're about to leave behind anyway. But if you're dealing with friends

[00:05:59] or family members will be around for a while, I recommend doing something to interrupt their

[00:06:04] old pattern of relating to you so you create space for them to get to know the new you.

[00:06:09] What's the best way to interrupt someone's outdated method of relating to you?

[00:06:14] The most obvious approach is to verbally correct the person and remind him or her of your shift.

[00:06:19] This works well with some people, but I often find that it doesn't stick. It lacks the power to

[00:06:24] break people's old patterns. I find humor to be more effective. A little shocked value can help

[00:06:30] too if used appropriately. It isn't necessarily to burn your old self in effigy,

[00:06:36] but feel free to poke fun at the person's old way of relating to you until they finally get it.

[00:06:41] One of my favorite approaches is to do a reversal. You let the other person know their

[00:06:45] model is outdated by relating to them in a humorously outdated way as well, so you're reflecting their

[00:06:51] error back to them and exaggerating it. For example, you might treat a divorced friend as if

[00:06:56] he or she is still married. This will get the other person's attention and encourage her more

[00:07:01] her to update the mental model of who you are now. A bit of teasing works well on people with a

[00:07:06] healthy sense of humor, such as your typical ornary game developer. But a straightforward, heartfelt

[00:07:12] explanation tends to work better with people who are more sensitive to the emotions of others.

[00:07:17] I don't recall ever meeting a game developer like that though.

[00:07:24] You just listen to the post titled Social Drag by Steve Pavlina of StevePavlina.com

[00:07:31] and be sure to stick around for my commentary right after this. Now, I am a big believer that if you

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[00:09:54] free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash ORD. And a big thank you to Steve! He always has

[00:10:03] such interesting perspectives. I really like this one a lot and as a person who has undergone a

[00:10:09] lot of personal, professional and geographical changes myself, I can absolutely relate to what he's

[00:10:15] saying. Social drag is a really interesting phenomenon and I enjoy his tips on combating it that

[00:10:20] he provided towards the end. But one other thing worth mentioning and looking out for is when social

[00:10:28] drag feels strong enough or perhaps we just feel unsure enough about our recent changes,

[00:10:33] that we start to convince ourselves that maybe this change is not for the best,

[00:10:38] maybe we're in over our heads and all those voices who don't quite buy into it are onto something.

[00:10:44] Should you be feeling that way? I hope you keep this post close to you and let it serve a reminder

[00:10:51] that social drag will always exist, it's not unique to you. It exists for anyone who isn't

[00:10:56] changing their entire lives all at once, meeting all new people in a whole new country or what

[00:11:01] have you. And if we can remember that, it can help to deligitimize the voices that might be telling

[00:11:08] us we've made a mistake and instead allow us to embrace a new chapter. But that's going to do it for

[00:11:13] today everyone! Thank you again to Steve and thanks of course to you for coming and starting your

[00:11:18] week off right with us! Have a terrific Monday and be sure to come back again tomorrow where your

[00:11:23] optimal life awaits.