Self Worth & Achievement

A very good friend of mine shared a podcast with one meaningful take home message: we have based our entire self worth on achievements.

It punched me in the face.

Below were some of the snippets I’d like to share:

We are overwhelmed, overburdened, stressed/angry and have lost focus on the small things such as how to be kind.

We’ve placed more pressure on ourselves, more anxiety, and created more self doubt because we’ve placed so much weight on basing everything on achievement.

This has created us to live a non compassionate and hurried life.

We are busy comparing our chapter one to others chapter 20.

We have trouble celebrating things in life because we are focused on our next agenda item and at the end of the day it doesn’t matter how much you succeed you will still experience a void.

And lastly, we’ve even accepted exhaustion is a status symbol.

If you’ve nodded your head in agreement, you know exactly what I’m talking about and here’s how we change this.

1) Ditch perfection for excellence.

Perfection is a defense mechanism we use because we care what people think. We think it’ll protect us against judgment, shame, and is a belief system that is toxic.

Instead strive for excellence. Look for opportunities for you to get better and seek the good in others vs faults.

2) Focus on being interested vs interesting

Ask questions about others. Care. Sometimes we seek to reply instead of actually listening.

3) Start seeing waiting as an opportunity instead of punishment.

It’s a reminder that we aren’t in control and it’s some kind of burden.

Look at waiting as a gift. It takes bravery and courage to wait. The next time you are in line at the grocery store or in stuck in traffic, smile because you are waiting.