Falling into Things: An Issue of Self-Esteem & Expectations

By Camden Baucke, MS, LLP

What do you want?

This is a common start to a conversation about initiative. Not just knowing what you want, but how you intend to start getting what you want. You may spot your preferred destination on the horizon, but it’s time to start sailing there.

But what if you don’t move, even when you want to?

What if you know what would make you happy, what you would work hard with, and what would lead to a brighter future, but you simply can’t seem to start?

You might wait for someone to push you to your preferred destination, or wait on the shifting circumstances of life to drift you in that direction.

This stagnation represents a passive approach to your life, even with the knowledge of your desires.

Seemingly both intricate and simple, I will break down some of the reasons why you may know what you want, but struggle to start reaching for it.

What is “Falling Into” Things?

“Falling into” refers to a life trajectory dependent on the drifting course of circumstances.

It is passivity manifested in life story. You take an unenthused step into the next phase of your life, then the next and the next. To be clear, if you are going down your preferred path, then you’re not drifting. You’re going down the road of what feels naturally fulfilling. However, if you watch your preferred direction remain unfulfilled while you drift away in another direction, that is problematic passivity.

That likely means you invest little to no stakes in the nature of your next step in life.

If you’re not interested in your next stop, it’s worth wondering why you’re aimed in that direction in the first place.

Wanting for Initiative

To initiate means to start a process, to begin something.

Falling into requires little to no initiative. You just continue down the stream you were headed anyway.

Pursuing your fulfillment, on the other hand, takes initiative if it’s not your current trajectory. It would necessitate risk-taking, effort, and resources dedicated to your preferred new path. Your willingness to do so may depend on several mental components. You may not be motivated to pursue what you want. You might devalue your preferences, and believe you don’t matter enough to change directions for.

Hindering Beliefs

When you struggle with personal initiative, you might be barricaded by a plethora of hindering beliefs.

Beliefs about yourself, your actions, and your wants. Beliefs are claims of what you assume to be true, so not every belief is going to be accurate. The issue arises when we mistake certain self-sabotaging beliefs for undeniable truths.

You Aren’t Allowed to Give Yourself Permission

What may lie between you and what you truly want is self-gatekeeping.

You might believe that you are not allowed to give yourself permission to pursue what you want, much less ask for it, much less consider it.

This might not be a conscious belief. It may lie in your subconscious, silently planting barriers in your life. However, it’s worth bringing it out into the open and interrogating it, challenging it.

Why are you not allowed to pursue what you want?

You might be stopped by rules for yourself. Principles implanted by those who seek to guide you to their preferences rather than your own. It could be based on ability. You may believe that you are utterly inept outside of anything you have ever done. Gatekeeping yourself might be what you believe is the right way to live, to regulate yourself and prevent hurting others or yourself. These beliefs frame your expectations for what it means to initiate in your life.

Beliefs, like other thoughts, are not always true.

Because not all thoughts and beliefs are true, it is up to you to challenge the ones that keep you from where you want to be. Here are some common beliefs that might stop you in your tracks before you consider changing your life:

Predetermined Failure & Fault

Most folks who fall into things estimate their failure even before their first step toward success.

In every challenge, like initiating change, your mind usually calculates two things:

(1) Competency: If you reluctantly believe you are incapable of making change, due to doubting your skills, abilities, or efforts, then you will likely believe that you will fail even before you begin.

(2) Challenge Difficulty: If you believe charting your own course will be incredibly daunting, then you might count yourself out before you start.

In combination, someone who (1) underestimates their competency and (2) overestimates the difficulty of their challenges are likely to never try at all. However, this is a false math. It would be like a science experiment proving its hypothesis to be absolutely correct with no experimentation or data to back up that claim.

So, the beliefs forming the perception you will fail without having tried indicates a baseless claim of your life circumstances. If you gatekeep yourself based on what you expect to fail, you will lean on the only true evidence you have. You will continue drifting down the path you know, because at least you have evidence that you can succeed there. You will continue to fall into what you have tested.

If you face this barrier, challenge your beliefs of both your competency and of the challenges you want to take on. If you’re tempted to quit before you’ve even tried, interrogate your thoughts. Why come to such a grounded conclusion based on the absence of proving evidence?

Meanwhile, this could also just seem like way much more effort than you deserve to give yourself.

Believing You Don’t Matter

If you don’t believe you matter at all, then this is likely the source of your passivity.

Value drives behavior. If you don’t matter, then you’re saying you’re not valuable enough to be worth fighting for.

If you don’t matter, then neither do your wants or needs. If you don’t have value, your values don’t have any weight to them. Falling into things could be exactly what you believe you deserve: nothing more than what you’ve ever had.

Simply put, if you don’t believe you matter, then initiative is a worthless risk. This belief is deeply intertwined with your self-esteem. Self-esteem is the English translation of the Latin word “Aestimatio Sui“, meaning an estimation of your own worth. If you have low self-esteem, your estimation of your own inherent worth is abysmal. If you aren’t of value, then neither is anything you want or need, and you likely won’t have the motivation to attain them. If you are passive, stagnant, and fall into things, it might just seem like what a worthless person deserves.

To pursue directions you desire, it requires resources. (1) Attention, (2) time, (3) money, and (4) effort are all resources you might spend pursuing a new path, each having a value.

If you don’t matter, then your desired direction might seem as worthless as you believe yourself to be. Consequently, the cost of change doesn’t seem to be worth the resources needed to manifest it. As a result, you may not invest time into researching what you want, spend money on what you need, or pay attention to how you feel when you’re putting in your daily effort. If you don’t matter, you probably won’t initiate for yourself because it may simply not be what you believe you deserve. However, I’d encourage you to challenge the beliefs underlying your self-esteem.

Why don’t you matter? Why don’t you deserve to blaze your own trail? Why are you unworthy of fighting for what may reward peace and prosperity? I’d encourage you to do this independently, but also with a mental health professional. Self-esteem is a complex and deep subject, often best addressed in a clinical setting.

The Fear of Mattering Too Much

Many people fall into things because they fear what the alternative might mean about themselves.

They may believe that acting in your best interest is a slippery slope toward narcissism and self-obsession.

This sort of expectation is often learned vicariously. You may have witnessed someone pursue the extreme end of self-interest and dive into the depths of self-destructive narcissism. However, I must assure you that narcissism is the equally unhealthy and opposite extreme of worthlessness. If you witnessed this sort of behavior in others, then you likely know what the consequences are. Personality disorders, especially narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) are often characterized by unstable social dynamics, usually damaging and/or losing meaningful relationships.

If you have a past that taught you to fear this extreme of self-obsession, then it’s natural you may have found comfort in the opposite unhealthy extreme of passivity. It’s not what you feared, but it’s not any healthier. Falling into things in life is as empty as forcing everyone out of your life. Neither are worth the cost.

Do you fear mattering too much?

If you do, know you can find a beautiful and healthy balance of self-estimated value. You are not worth more than everyone else, but you are not worth less than everyone else. To achieve this healthy balance, you must matter.

If you must matter to achieve this balance, then so must your preferences and passions. Then so must your actions to fulfill them and pursue the path you desire. Fear of mattering too much by advocating for yourself is based on a belief. If you can allow yourself to be open to alternative truths, then you might discover the balance you need to stop falling into things, and to start fighting for your wants.

Final Thoughts

Falling into things may seem nearly inevitable if you (1) don’t matter, (2) don’t have permission to initiate change, (3) believe you’ll fail even before you try, and (4) fear mattering too much even if you did.

To become an active player in your own fulfillment, you need to start challenging these beliefs and bringing conscious alternatives to the forefront of your mind. Instead, you may (1) matter, (2) give yourself permission to initiate change, (3) attempt change, and (4) know you are mattering a balanced amount if you do.

You don’t have to fall into things anymore, and neither do you need to accept the beliefs you already hold, no matter how unconscious they are. You must intentionally rebel against the restrictive norms you know and fight against the rules that ban you from fighting for yourself.

Be open to freeing alternatives, interrogate harmful and normative beliefs, and start fighting for the direction you want to spend the rest of your life sailing toward.