Parke is a Licensed Professional Counselor based in Richmond, Virginia. He runs Therapy for Men RVA, a small private practice of male therapists working with men dealing with anxiety, stress, pressure, and feeling stuck. The practice offers walk-and-talk therapy along the James River and virtual sessions throughout Virginia. Learn more at www.therapyformenrva.com.

Dude Breathe: one idea. A few minutes to read. Once a week.

The man was a hitting machine.

George Brett ended his baseball career with 3,154 hits. Only 18 players in the entire history of Major League Baseball accumulated more.

Yet, in the eyes of his father, George felt like a failure.

Jack Brett had a vision for his son. George would be the next Mickey Mantle.

And Jack would use three tools to drive his son toward those lofty heights: criticism, shame and fear.

Once when George struck out twice in a Little League game, his father punched and kicked him.

Another time, Jack threatened to kill him. George was often told that he had “embarrassed the family” when he made an error or misplayed a ball.

Even well into his big league career, George said he was “scared every single day.” When he played well, he would drive home late at night thinking about how happy his dad would be when he saw the paper the next morning.

However, when he was in a slump, he was filled with dread. The next morning after a tough game, his father would scream at him on the phone.

“Every game, I thought I would embarrass myself. Every day. I thought, ‘What if the ball goes through my legs? What if I strike out and fall down? What if I let them down? What if we lose because of me?’”

Then in 1980, George had one of the greatest years ever. He hit .390, coming within five hits of hitting .400 over the course of the season, an astounding feat no one has accomplished since before World War II.

When he came home for Thanksgiving after that season, the first thing Jack said was, “If you had taken better care of yourself, maybe you could have gotten five more fucking hits.”

Later George said of his dad, “My father cared a lot about me, but he never gave me the satisfaction of really knowing it. Hitting .390 wasn’t enough for him. Nothing seemed to be.”

In 2020, The Athletic released its list of the 100 greatest baseball players ever. George Brett came in at 35th.

Mickey Mantle came in at 11th.

Imagine being the 35th best person who ever lived at your profession and still feeling like you fell short.

It’s probably easy to read this and think none of this relates to you. I would never coach my kids this way. This guy was obviously a maniac.

And you’re right. But I’d bet some version of this hits home for you. I know it does for me, and I hear it with my clients.

Not in how we coach our kids, but sometimes in how we coach ourselves.

If you are like me, you probably have some version of Jack Brett living in your head.

Is that voice in your head ever truly satisfied with your accomplishments? Mine rarely is.

How understanding is it when you inevitably make mistakes? Mine’s default is to

hammer me.

If I ask what I need to improve upon, it gives me a laundry list. If I ask what I’m doing well, it’s crickets.

Where does this come from? And why do so many of us have this type of narrative?

Some of it seems to be natural. It’s how we evolved. As the psychologist Rick Hanson says, “our brains are wired for survival, not happiness.”

Others of us get unlucky enough to be raised by insecure parents who try to fill something missing in their own lives through us. I was fortunate here. Dad, you did great.

Then we enter a hyper-competitive, individualistic culture where everything is measured and ranked.

And now we have endless opportunities to compare ourselves to the best at almost anything.

What else would we expect but to spend our lives trying to ward off a pervasive sense of never being good enough?

To make matters worse, a lot of us feel that if we don’t motivate ourselves with criticism, fear and shame, our performance will drop off.

If we stop whipping the horse, we might lose the race.

This is one of the most common themes I come across working with men in therapy.

And I get it. Pushing ourselves and building resiliency is healthy. Doing hard things is good for us. Pressure and stress can help motivate us to perform.

But pushing ourselves too hard for too long can lead to a deterioration in both performance and well-being.

This is the basic idea behind the Yerkes-Dodson law. There’s a sweet spot. Too little pressure and we sit on the sofa and do nothing. Too much starts working against us.

George Brett probably would have been great regardless. But without the chronic stress that started externally and then morphed internally, I wonder how much more he would have enjoyed the ride along the way.

So the antidote isn’t to stop pushing ourselves.

It’s to stop setting unrealistic expectations, chronically criticizing ourselves and performing from a fear-driven place, a perceived deficit.

Then we can start coaching ourselves in a different way, with the same desire to improve intact, but with more encouragement and less shaming.

And maybe we even start to develop the habit of relating to ourselves with, dare I say, self-compassion. Which, unfortunately for many of us, remains a dirty word.

One Thing to Try

Think about one area of your life where you’re pushing yourself hard.

Where did that come from? Whose approval are you trying to gain? Are you operating from a place of fear or joy?

Is the way you’re coaching yourself helping you improve and enjoy your life?

Or are you excessively striving to ward off a sense of never being good enough?