April 7th 2024 : Let go of being good...to become BETTER!
Let go of being a good person...
to become a BETTER person!
We’re all good people aren’t we? Did you ever think that being a good person can get in the way of becoming a better one? Dolly Chugh, a social scientist who studies the psychology of good people, has something very thoughtful to say…
Join us this Sunday as we explore becoming BETTER people - together.
First reading
Being a better person is about taking a journey of personal growth that evolves you into the best version of yourself. No matter who you are, positive steps like building empathy, practicing mindfulness and helping others are ways you can be a better person in the world.
Changing your behaviour can be a difficult process, but like physical exercise, all it takes is practice.
It’s normal to feel you could be doing more when it comes to self-improvement. But being a better person doesn’t involve being overly hard on yourself. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
The more self-kindness and self-compassion you can foster, the more equipped you’ll be to treat those around you the same way.
Healthline.com
Second Reading
Dolly Chugh is a social scientist of who studies the psychology of good people. Dolly Chugh teaches at New York University’s Stern School of Business in the full-time MBA program and the NYU Prison Education Program. Her book, The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias, was published by HarperCollins and selected by Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain and Dan Pink as one of “six books to have on your bookshelf” in fall 2018.
Prior to becoming an academic, Chugh worked in the corporate world for 11 years. She received her BA from Cornell and her MBA and PhD from Harvard.
So, what I’ve been thinking about is what if we were to just forget about being good people, just let it go, and instead, set a higher standard, a higher standard of being a good-ish person?
A good-ish person absolutely still makes mistakes… But as a good-ish person, I’m trying to learn from them, own them. I expect them and I go after them. I understand there are costs to these mistakes. When it comes to issues like ethics and bias and diversity and inclusion, there are real costs to real people, and I accept that. As a good-ish person, in fact, I become better at noticing my own mistakes. I don’t wait for people to point them out. I practice finding them.
Sure, sometimes it can be embarrassing, it can be uncomfortable. We put ourselves in a vulnerable place, sometimes. But through all that vulnerability, just like in everything else we’ve tried to ever get better at, we see progress. We see growth. We allow ourselves to get better