Hey /adv/. Lately been having issues with a guy I've been dating for a while. Everything's great, but he gets really down about me becoming successful someday.
He thinks he's not smart enough and that he won't be as successful as I am, if successful at all. I tell him it's all hardwork and that he's smart enough to get to where he wants as long as he works. But it doesn't help and he tells me I'm lying to make him feel better.
WHAT DO I DO????
>>17351126
Try to manipulate him into doing something impressive and then show it to him. It might boost his esteem and I think that's what he needs.
>>17351126
He most likely feels like you will be so successful you might feel you dont need him.
Punch him for being a loser and tell him to do something before it's too late
>>17351126
Explain to him that the bridge between wanting to accomplish ambitious goals and actually accomplishing them is taking the time to figure out how you are going to accoimplish them.
If he wants to be successful, it doesn't do him any benefit to tell him that he will be, even if he *really* wants it, unless he has a plan for how he will become successful.
When you tell him that he's smart enough and can do it with hard work, I think you are unknowingly leaving out the crucial piece of information that he needs to hear, most likely because to you it is obvious.
If you are already somewhat successful and are headed toward even greater success, you must already know that planning is the only way to accomplish large or complex or difficult tasks. You've probably known it for so long that you can't imagine someone now knowing it.
And so when you see the guy you're dating not advancing toward success, it would be natural for you to assume that the reason he isn't advancing is that he must simply feel discouraged, and so you lend him some encouragement because in addition to being successful, you're a decent person.
But it may be that he is not advancing toward success because he has no idea how to do so. You could really change his life forever by explaining to him the value of planning, and teaching him how you go from having a goal, to creating a plan, to executing the plan, to accomplishing the goal.
Now, if he is like I was, he may resist you. When my now-wife began teaching me how to plan, I felt like the way I went through life was fine, and that the reason some people found success when I didn't was that they were just born with that ability and I wasn't. But I was totally wrong. In the long run, planning kicks ability's ass.
So, uh, make a plan for how you will teach the guy you're dating how to plan. Then, mutually choose a large, complex, or difficult task for him (for me, it was planning a vacation for the both of us), and leave him to it.
>>17351141
I don't know, I feel like that could very easily come off as OP being condescending.
