06.06.2024

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE SABOTAGING YOUR SUCCESS FROM HIGHER COMMITMENT

You like each other and there's a reason. You are a seasoned professional and your successes prove it. You are a decent person and the excellent relations with colleagues prove it. Your high self-esteem is justified and you don't think it's arrogant to feel it at all.

It's great that you think that way about yourself. Lack of self-confidence is one shortcut to failure. The other, however, is hubris. There is a very fine line that you should not cross in order for your self-esteem to be healthy.

An intelligent and educated person does not look down on anyone because he knows that this behavior is socially unacceptable. From an early age, he was taught that he should not show superiority, even if he really is something more than others - smarter, stronger, richer, more beautiful, etc. But arrogance in thought is not unacceptable.

Everyone is free to value their own self the most, especially if they have reasons. Self-love is an irrevocable part of the so-called Self-concept. Disliking yourself is more of a pathology.

However, when you like yourself too much, the feeling causes you to make mistakes that hinder your own development. Psychologists say that you should not even be arrogant with yourself, because you will miss out on receiving benefits from others.

It's not about gross benefits, although there is that too - a haughty person is not likable. When you want to convince someone to be on your side, it's much easier if you flatter them instead of showing them that you think you're more than them.

It is about at least five intellectual benefits that the haughty person deprives himself of.

1. You compare yourself to the wrong person. You have achieved a lot and there is much to be happy about. But you haven't achieved everything.

It is very unpleasant to compare yourself to people who are superior to you. The thought that there are more successful, richer, more talented than you can have a bad effect on self-esteem.

But if you get caught up in hubris and compare yourself only to those below you in the hierarchy at work or simply performing worse, you become complacent and demotivated. Yes, you feel good in your thoughts. However, you have no incentive to improve yourself and aspire for more. You've probably heard the saying that if you're the smartest person in the company, you're not in the right company.

So leave the arrogance and compare yourself to people who are superior to you, at least for now. Otherwise, you will sink into complacency, and soon many others will have the right to look down on you.

2. You're doing nasty self-promotion. There is no argument, and self-promotion is necessary to get noticed. A foresight person does not wait modestly only for others to appreciate him, but cleverly uses convenient occasions to build an image of a capable professional, to emphasize his qualities, capabilities and achievements.

However, arrogance leads to arrogant self-promotion, which makes a negative impression. Because one thinks of oneself as something more, one cannot help but compare one's self with others in order to make one's self stand out. It even seems to him that he looks even better when he emphasizes that he achieved greater results than a successful colleague, not an incompetent or a loser.

No exaggeration, it's all true, it can be proven with numbers. However, you run the risk of being seen as an arrogant braggart and damaging your image.

The key to effective self-promotion lies in not comparing yourself to others, experts say. Highlighting one's own successes is best received when it does not demonstrate a sense of superiority over someone else's success, advises psychologist Carolyn Van Dam. Focus only and only on your peak results. Say you hit record sales this quarter that you haven't had in your professional career. Don't emphasize that they are bigger than Ivanova and Petrov.

This way you both highlight your accomplishments and create a situation where your boss is more likely to praise you than if there is an element of discredit to other colleagues in your self-promotion.

But to direct attention to your progress without trampling on the successes of others, you must not be arrogant even in your thoughts.

3. You miss out on added value from criticism. Most people generally hate saying unpleasant things face to face, unless they are from the so-called. haters. They avoid criticism in order not to get into a conflict situation, because they know from experience that no one likes to hear disagreement or bad evaluation. They break this rule only when their own interests are affected.

Outside of striving for politeness, people usually intuit when someone is being arrogant. Then they don't even try to tell him an unpleasant truth, even though it would benefit him. And so it is - selfish people who think of themselves as something more than others rarely accept that they can learn something from them. Even if they assume that the colleague has the best intentions, their mind goes "Huh, he's going to tell me".

When you treat others with arrogance, you deprive yourself of the opportunity to hear an objective opinion. This can give you the illusion that you are doing great and a false sense of security. At some point you will probably realize - you missed hearing that you have a problem and how to deal with it, but it will be too late.

A far more practical approach is to temper your arrogance and encourage criticism that will benefit you. Even if you don't think very highly of your boss in your mind, he will appreciate it if you ask, "Is there something specific about my performance that I need to spend more time on." This makes you look like someone who is looking for constructive feedback because they want to improve.

4. You are ashamed of help. When you have healthy self-esteem, in a stressful moment you are not ashamed to admit that you need help. And for the high-minded, several deterrents are triggered. Basically, they are cocky and think they can handle it on their own. At the same time, they tell themselves that others cannot be useful to them because they are less capable. And it seems to them that it is somehow beneath their dignity to admit that they are not perfect.

If arrogance does not cloud the mind, no one thinks of himself as a superman, psychologists point out.

5. You underestimate people. Puffers often underestimate others because they judge them by their own thoughts. For example, it seems to them that it is natural for a high-ranking manager to display some arrogance. If it doesn't pretend to be important, it's not really important.

But important people with healthy self-esteem don't need ostentation. They may even use trickery - behaving immediately in order to gain sympathy and more easily achieve their goals, or consciously want to be underestimated.

Arrogance can play a very bad joke on you when it prevents you from correctly assessing your colleagues, partners or competitors, experts warn. It will be of greater benefit to you not to underestimate them, but even slightly to overestimate them.

------- The most insidious enemies --------

There are different rankings of which feelings are the most insidious career enemies, but usually hubris enters their forehead. Among the other undisputed in the top 3 are impatience and greed.

It may seem strange to you that laziness is not among them. Even the most stupid person guesses that if he doesn't work hard enough, he will fail at some point. Or that I shouldn't let myself get angry because he's a very bad counselor in any situation.

Insidious feelings are those that, at first reading, do not seem very dangerous. For example, what is wrong with impatience? It is even good that a person does not want to wait, but strives for higher results. But the bad thing about good things is that they don't happen quickly, but with persistence and persistence.

Greed and ambition to make more money are also two different things. Sometimes it makes more sense to take a step back in income if it will lead to an increase in the future. However, the greedy can rarely be far-sighted in this regard. So this is also an insidious feeling that can mess up your career.