Becoming worth a damn is what people in my 67 step coaching program are working on. But here is an aspect that is not touched on by Tai Lopez and his 67 steps program.

Being worth a damn is a tricky distinction: there are no guidelines to follow. If you want to be worth a damn, where you want to look is what value other people assign to you, how much respect, support, love, etc. you get from other people.

This is also my first time looking at life through this question, and myself have found two behaviors I haven’t eliminated completely, and all the negative social feedback is caused by those.

I am going to make it my business to alter these behaviors… and thus improve my lot in life, I guess, a lot.

The below is an excerpt from a book I read last night… A book written for men. But it is also good for women, who don’t live from their power, who demonstrate these mindsets and these behaviors.

My comments will be placed in the midst…

One more thing… The negative behaviors that are obvious to everyone who observes or interacts with you are the top of the iceberg… The cause of these  behaviors is in the unconscious.

These behaviors reflect your own self-value. You see yourself and your contribution as low value… and the behavior comes from that.

When you attempt to change the behavior, you’ll need to confront your deep set opinion of yourself.

Your opinions were shaped by your failures, by the things you were told, and by your own poor performance in the world.

Changing them won’t be easy, because unless you change the root, the fruit will remain the same.

In the 67 step coaching program we work on principles and actions that change your negative value view of yourself…

If you don’t do those actions, then changing the behavior will be impossible, or inauthentic.

But at the same time, some behaviors have become habits, even though the roots have been eliminated.

Find those behaviors and work on those… the stumps that have no trees. Where the behavior comes from some meme, or misjudgment of what is proper, what is humble, what is effective in the real world interacting with others.

Negative or value lowering behaviors are so detrimental that when you exhibit these behaviors, other people will not be able to see or appreciate the better and more interesting sides of you that are obscured by these negative behaviors.

Here are the TWELVE negative, “value” destroying behaviors that must be eradicated from your default behavioral systems with a vengeance.

Starting today, let’s declare war on these twelve behaviors:

If you have a coach, these also apply to you… and yet you hired the coach to be your guide, your teacher, so you will need to find a way to discuss and agree upon strategies and actions… but do it as an adult, not as a child… or a sneaky child who hides what they are doing

1. Seeking Permission To Act / Validation For Acts Taken

High vibration/high value people do not seek the permission of other people to do the things they want to do. (They don’t ask me: may I ask a question? may I say something?)

It is not that seeking advice is always a bad thing; in fact, it can be a wise thing to do, but the truth is, when you are a grown ass man, you do not need another person’s permission to do anything.

So, if you are a grown ass man, then start acting like one.

When you are a child, you must seek your parents’ permission to do things. But when you’re a grown ass man asking people for permission or validation for your decisions, you should not wonder why people treat you as a low value man.

In addition to permission to act, you do not need anybody else’s validation for the choices you make for yourself. Once you have acted, resist the need to get confirmation from others about the things you have done. What good is their confirmation anyways? What is done is done.

You don’t need a pat on the back from others.

2. Seeking Other People’s Opinions

Similarly, a grown ass man should know what he wants in life, what he wants to do, and provides counsel to himself.

Ultimately, nobody else knows you the way you do, so other people’s opinions about your life and your plans are irrelevant.

Whenever he had a major decision to make, one of my best buddies from college would always call his sister or mother to seek their advice, and usually both. He would not do anything without their opinion and their approval.

As a grown adult and now as a married man, he now has a new “boss” in addition to his two existing ones, and it is very apparent. His indecisiveness persists more than ever, and due to the fact that he has leaned on others his entire life, all of his life choices are now dictated by others, and he has lost his ability to make decisions for himself.

Even asking him to make a simple decision such as where he would like to eat is an excruciating experience to witness.

He has lost his ability to be entirely self-sufficient, and it is a sad thing to witness.

Learn to listen to your own voice and shut out voices that cannot speak for you. Stop being indecisive, and get comfortable making your own decisions and sticking to them.

If people try to make decisions for you or impose their opinions on you, cut them off (in a constructive, high value way of course).

Men usually continue their mother/child relationship with their wives who, usually is just as unqualified to give professional advice as their mother was.

Same is true for women with their mothers, or girl friends…

Start transforming your relationship with mothers/wives to partnership and do not imbue them with the power of a coach!

3. Overly Apologetic

Back in high school, I used to be friends (the key phrase here is “used to be”) with this guy who for whatever reason, would apologize about a hundred times a day to anybody who would listen to his self-flagellation.

He was so “apologetic” that if he could, I bet he would apologize for living and breathing. I would bet money that he has actually done that many times, but I just wasn’t there to witness it.

And, I hope I never have to.

Being overly apologetic is an extremely low value behavior.

 

Even if you’ve done something wrong, nothing warrants you getting on your knees and letting someone slap your face.

There is nothing wrong with apologizing for things you have done truly wrong to another person, but never apologize for having an opinion, doing things that benefit yourself, and for things you have no control over. When apologizing, you don’t have to be submissive and self-flagellating.

And, most of all don’t apologize for living!

4. Blindly Accepting Others’ Opinions

This includes the opinions of The Voices. Or The Memes. Or articles. Or teachers. Your job as an adult is to distinguish yourself, tell yourself apart from anyone and anything, and form your own opinions.

In life, people will always try to impose their viewpoints and opinions on you. It is okay to listen to and respect other people’s opinions, but don’t accept them blindly or even easily.

When you set a pattern of behavior of deferring to other people’s opinions, but then you suddenly have an opinion on something, people will react to you having an opinion violently. So, the best thing to do is to never set an expectation that you will defer to the people in your life.

Low value men have a very strong tendency towards following and deferring to others. You don’t have to always dominate people and be selfish, but you do need to check this tendency so that people will learn to respect you.

Instead, make sure you question others on their viewpoints and opinions. Ask for proof and evidence, and don’t get caught up in the logical fallacies and dirty rhetorical tricks people use. If you find yourself having problems with this, check out my book “The New Art of Being Right”.

Accepting other people’s opinions too easily is a low value behavior. If you are a high value man, you do not feel bad about questioning viewpoints and opinions that you do not agree with since you have your own valid opinions.

It is just a switch in perspective that’s required here. Instead of always letting others dictate their opinions to you, you should start learning how to bring your opinions to others and letting them respond and justify their opinions to you.

Now, don’t go too crazy with this, but be at least a bit of a challenge to other people when appropriate. When they understand that they cannot steamroll you with their viewpoints and opinions, they will develop more respect for you in the long run.

5. Excessive Humility (or Excessive Bragging)

This guy talks about humility differently than we do…

We consider humility as the ability to learn. But in the “real” world humility is the fake humility… Don’t be mislead, please.

When you have done something worthy of praise or of high achievement, don’t downplay your achievement. You don’t need to be excessively humble about what you have accomplished.

Some people take humility to such an extent that they even engage in self-deprecation. Don’t self-deprecate! Never put yourself down in front of other people!

On the flip side, you also do not want to excessively trumpet your accomplishments either (like The Black Belt Bully I referred to in a previous chapter). Live by the saying “Act like you’ve been there before”.

When you brag about your accomplishments, don’t think you are fooling anybody. Nobody is impressed by a braggart, and demonstrating a need to brag is an obvious poker tell for insecurity.

Being on either end of the spectrum is low value behavior.

6. Avoiding Conflict / Non-Assertive / Easily Intimidated

Don’t get into unnecessary conflicts, but when it comes to unwarranted disrespect, don’t back down and be assertive with your own needs and desires.

Remember the banker’s box incident in a previous chapter? Remember how failing to confront his boss caused my friend to endure numerous subsequent disrespects? You don’t want to always be fighting, but you cannot avoid conflict when it is necessary to protect yourself from a potential pattern of disrespect.

You have to be willing to (or at least show that you are willing to) confront people when they have wronged or disrespected you, especially those people who you must interact with frequently.

The goal is to give people the impression that you are not someone who can be trifled with or intimidated. A high value man is not someone who can be trifled with. Let them know they will have to pay a heavy price if they decide to trifle with you.

7. High Neuroticism

Numerous studies of status in social groups (fraternity, sorority, and dormitory) and peer ratings of status determined that “high neuroticism” predicted lower status in men.

Neuroticism is basically a variety of negative emotions such as anxiety, envy, and jealousy. Or, in simpler terms “emotional instability”.

If you show anxiety, envy, or jealousy, that is inherently a low value behavior. If you are truly a high value man, these emotions will not come to you naturally because your cup is always overflowing.

Anxiety, envy, and jealousy come naturally to people who question their own value, whether consciously or subconsciously. When they see others doing well, that also causes them to question themselves.

However, a high value man is not bothered or triggered by the successes of others, and that is because he holds himself in high regard.

Learning how to manage these negative emotions is beyond the scope of this book, but if you suffer from any of these emotions consistently and to a great extent, I encourage you to seek help from professionals who can help you work on these issues. It doesn’t have to be this way!

8. Overly Reactive / Over-Sensitive

By “overly reactive”, I mean too sensitive to other people’s actions or omissions against you.

When people commit small slights against you, you take it as if they have slept with your mother, and you lash out as if this were the case. Sometimes, people may not even realize they have slighted you, yet you immediately jump to this conclusion.

When people don’t do the things you may expect from them (but which they may not even know you expect), you harbor resentment and anger, and act passive-aggressively.

Or, you just let other people throw you off easily or get under your skin, and worse yet, you show how easily triggered you are and everybody can read this characteristic of yours like a book.

All these things are low value behavior.

“Alpha males” actually have a problem with this one. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are acting as a truly masculine man would, or in a manner that shows you cannot be trifled with. Your short fuse is a clear poker tell to the world you do not have your house under control, i.e. your internal mental makeup.

High vibration people do not let small slights or incidents bother them, and these small slights bounce off of them as if they were made of Teflon.

As of the writing of this book, there was a recent “road rage” incident where a famous athlete was shot to death by another driver.

The facts of the case are not yet completely clear, but I suspect this road rage incident has to do with egos being bruised too easily, tempers being unreasonably short, and small slights being taken as large insults.

The lesson to take from this is that having celebrity status and big muscles are external things, and these things as usual, do not necessarily reflect one’s internal mental makeup.

9. Uncomfortable Around People

Low value men wear their discomfort in social or work situations on their sleeves. You can tell in their body language, eye contact, vocal tonality, and all other sub-communications they give off.

Talk about uncomfortable!

Often times, they view other men as threats because of the higher value they perceive these other men to be. This causes them to act uncomfortably.

Around women, they act awkwardly and subconsciously elevate women to a pedestal. Obviously, this is highly unattractive to the opposite sex.

Studies have actually shown lower “status” men in groups of people tend to have higher cortisol hormone levels (“cortisol” being the ‘stress hormone’ that is released when humans are stressed).

Ability to handle the “stress” of social interactions has been shown in studies to be correlated to status hierarchies through the studies of how long people maintain eye contact. When people meet each other, there is a “nonverbal dominance contest” that occurs (usually subconsciously). What I mean by this is that the person who breaks eye contact first usually ends up as the “lower status” person in that relationship.

Also correlated with higher status in these studies are lowered brows and a non-smiling mouth. The theory is that “status” within groups of people is merely a reflection of the underlying “dominance dynamic” based on the differences in “outstressing” ability of the people involve.

Now, don’t go crazy with trying to implement these findings in these studies, but the takeaway here that you must develop what’s called your “outstressing ability” muscle over time.

What do I mean by that? You must learn how to become more comfortable and relaxed around other men and women. You must learn to be relaxed in the face of social tension. Got it?

10. Try Hard

This isn’t completely intuitive or easy to develop, but the most high value men always appear to be effortless, relaxed, and easy going.

Low value men on the other hand, always come off as tense, trying too hard to fit in, trying too hard to be perfect, and as a result, everything they do appears to others to require tremendous effort.

This is a simple precept, and it sounds zenlike, but not easy to actually implement:

The harder you try, the lower value you appear.

The less you try, the higher value you appear.

You may want to become more high value, but most of the time, if you try too hard, you will actually come off low value. Getting rid of this behavior will require you to let go, and to care less about your own value and the value of others.

Only when you do that will your find your value growing.

11. Prioritize Being Liked

This is one of the main ways low value men undermine themselves when it comes to interpersonal relationships.

Low value men trade away their own value and being true to themselves in order to be liked. Wanting to be liked and acting in accordance with this desire leads men to lose their “power” with respect to interpersonal relationships.

For example, when it comes to women, a low value man would rather that she “like” him and that he feels comfortable, than risking building any tension in an interaction with a woman.

Therefore, he plays it safe and fails to develop any sexual tension with a woman. He would rather not “lose” her than play to win. This is just like the saying “winning the battle, but losing the war”. By prioritizing his need to be liked, he has already lost her.

With other men, a low value man doesn’t stand up for his own opinions. He would rather agree with other people’s opinions rather than challenge them when he does not agree. His main priority is to fit in, rather than express himself freely.

With all people, low value men aim for “perfection”. They try not to make any mistakes, hide their perceived “flaws”, and become completely bland, uninteresting, and low value, all in the effort to be “liked”.

“Humans connect with humans. Hiding one’s humanity and trying to project an image of perfection makes a person vague, slippery, lifeless, and uninteresting.”

-Dr. Robert Glover (“No More Mr. Nice Guy”)

All of these things contribute to a complete lack of self-respect. If you seek to be “liked”, you will undoubtedly encounter numerous situations in life where people disrespect you, whether in a major or minor way. Regardless, if you do not stand up for yourself and instead take the disrespect in order to avoid tension or to continue to be “liked”, you will take the hit, i.e. lower your own value in other people’s eyes.

By standing up for yourself, you maintain and grow your value over time. People will be forced to respect you or stop dealing with you altogether. I say THAT is a good thing.

12. Neediness

Neediness can come in many forms, such as needing other people’s permission or validation (as we discussed earlier), opinions (also as we discussed earlier), their time, or their positive emotions.

Low value men are extremely needy because they subconsciously do not feel they have any value of their own and so they (whether consciously or subconsciously) always look to leech other people’s value, which may include their validation, their opinions, their time, and their positive emotions.

Ultimately, nobody respects a needy man, so if you think you exhibit this behavior, you must eradicate it since it is truly one of the most attraction killing and value lowering behaviors of them all.

Let me close this chapter by saying once and for all: Neediness MUST no longer be one of your guiding emotions in interpersonal relations.

This is an excellent list. It will drive up all the ways, into the conscious, that you haven’t been conscious of, the ways you screw yourself, the way you keep yourself safe and the same.

If we really look, and if we attempted to look through different distinctions, we would find plenty of proof that behaving as if you had no value is a racket.

Whether it’s a racket or not is relatively easy to decide. If there is a payoff and there is a cost, it’s a racket.

What could be the payoff? Just one example: you could be exempted of having to be all you can be. To put out. To perform. To be responsible for your brilliance, for your talent, or for your results.

Bit payoff.

There is a distinction: being on… being off.

Being always on is very energy consuming. Politicians, celebrities experience that all the time. So, if they want to be well, they need to learn to be seen and yet be off… Relax, without becoming an a…hole.

Hard.

You may not be a celebrity, but you still have an on/off persona… and you probably rebel.

The solution is to find a way to be that is tension-free. I am successful at it only 70% of the time… and I have found that my low value behaviors are in those 30%, when I just want to be, breathe, and be normal.

Another payoff could be is being right. You knew nobody loved you, you knew nobody appreciated you… you decided that when you were three years old… That is another big payoff; you never have to learn anything, you can just remain a three-year old…

But the cost is tremendous. Being someone others don’t respect, don’t value is a big cost. And being someone YOU don’t respect, and don’t value is an even bigger one.

And the soul is driving you crazy… because the soul part of you knows the truth.

And the last and most important cost is that there is no love between you and you. And that results in a really shitty life.

Read the original article: 12 behaviors to weed out to become worth a damn