Don’t Look for Praise
Learn to appreciate your own value — External praise is highly over-rated.
It was a tactic you probably first experienced as a child. Your parents would applaud you for any and every accomplishment in your life. They were giving out “atta boy/girl” every time you walked an extra step, ate some new food on your plate, learned a new word or successfully managed to negotiate the bathroom experience without an accident. Their approval fed your desire to feel loved and valued. When you went to school, your teachers gave you a gold star for making progress in reading class. Your little league coach gave you a trophy just for showing up most of the time. Praise, accolades and profuse, over the top acknowledgment of effort, has turned into a manipulation tool at all levels of society.
It’s even extended into the workplace. How many times have you received a plaque, a new, impressive “title” or an employee of the month prime parking space instead of a raise for your efforts? How many verbal pats on the head have you received for going above and beyond the minimal expectation? How many times have you received an ego-boost of words rather than a substantive acknowledgment of appreciation? Positive reinforcement is a wonderful thing, don’t get me wrong. I always try to follow the motto taught to me at my mother’s knee — “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” I just don’t want to cheapen my own life down to the level of being a “praise-whore.” I can’t simply rely on the words of others to measure my worth or my accomplishments.
I need visible proof of my accomplishments. If I’m exercising and trying to eat right, I want to validate this by increased energy, a favorable number on the scale or an obvious increase in strength. An outside force telling me how great I’m doing because I exercise three times a week or I skipped a pizza in favor of a salad means nothing without the real-time results. If I’m working on writing projects, I need to see a quantitative result. It might be an attractive sale, it might be a certain number of pages created (even bad writing provides a significant step on the learning curve) or a flood of new ideas in my brain that inspires me to continue. Being questioned with comments like — “Are you still writing” or, “Isn’t it great that you keep trying” do not stoke the fires of my passion. Mostly, I never bring up my writing to anyone other than other writers. The comments and responses (even from well-meaning people) sound mostly condescending.
If You Don’t Believe in Yourself, Outside Praise Won’t Fix it. Praise is really all about internal self-esteem. If I don’t believe in me, an outsider cannot change that with words of praise, cheap plaques, or an honorary parking space. When I know what I’m worth, I exude that confidence to the outside world. When I feel like I don’t measure up (it happens quite a bit), it’s up to me to figure out my strengths and weaknesses and act upon them. Sympathy or faint praise will not solve my problem. If you go through life with an inflated ego because you are constantly being told you are wonderful, your work is top-notch or your accomplishments are stellar, you will have a much harder time finding it within yourself to grow and improve. And, you are the only one who can really make a difference in you. I know the yardstick I use to measure myself. I work at growing on that scale by my own internal strength. I appreciate the well-wishers, because I choose to live in a positive environment, but I don’t seek them out.
I’m not good enough until I say I’m good enough.