[RT Wolf]

Originally Posted by bodhiavttas

Thank you very much RT Wolf and MindReality for helping me out.

RT Wolf, maybe you're right about me having beliefs about bragging that are an issue, although I'm not quite sure how that relates to me not feeling good about my accomplishment/s. I have no problem bragging to myself, even though I have problems doing that with other people (except for my significant other) and I'm slightly embarrassed when I realize I AM showing off.

Would you mind elaborating on ? What is a healthy belief about modesty?

Well, most of our beliefs are encoded when we're younger, so they might not made sense. Perhaps you were talking about your accomplishment as a kid and someone rebuked you, saying its not good to brag. Of course, you weren't bragging, you were a kid, you were just talking about something that made you feel good to talk about, so you thought that feeling good about your accomplishments was a bad thing. Although, because of your ability to feel good (just not good enough) I might say that that's not the case, but you'll have to decide about that.

Conversely to bragging or arrogance, you might have beliefs about how modest people should act or feel. You might believe that modest people don't talk about their achievements, say it was "nothing" and so on, which might be limiting your ability to feel proud of yourself. Remember, in this case, being proud is not about arrogance or pride in that sense. Its feeling really good about yourself and appreciating yourself.

A high self-esteem belief about modesty might be, "It is ok to feel proud of myself and express my happiness and appreciation of myself. It is not ok to go on and on and on, just because that's bad conversation manners, but it is perfecltly fine to express my admiration of myself." You might be able to come up with a better one. And these beliefs aren't set in stone, if you find a new one, you can replace it again.

Anyhow, I feel happier now than I did when I first got the news, and I know I will feel grateful for the years to come... but I still feel like I *should* feel better about my accomplishment, because I've never had a pattern of working hard-->achievement. I've always gotten by without working hard and this is one of the first times I've accomplished something pretty much on my own. So I think I would benefit from realizing that (hard) work pays off.

I think I will do what you suggested, and reward myself with something fun (including taking someone out to dinner soon!). I also LOVE the idea of reflecting on my growth and having a list of WINS. Thank you!

Yep, hard work is excellent. In its sphere and in its place, it has no equal, but it can still be applied to pretty much everything. I realized that a little while ago, too, its a very empowering realization. Nothing in life is outside your grasp, as long as you're willing to work for it.

I'm glad you liked my ideas. I hope they help you.

You're probably also right on when you both say I might want to work on my self-esteem. I have wanted to read Branden's book for a while. Do you recommend it? I do not understand the feeling of "deserving" anything.

You might've heard people (or said it yourself) saying something along the lines of, "I'm just not meant to be successful" after a failure. They imply that they don't have control of their lives (a key factor in self-esteem) and that they are somehow predestined to fail. Usually, this remains as an implicit belief unless it comes up after, say, a failure. They just don't feel like they deserve anything, they might feel like shams when they succeed, always afraid that someone will reveal them to be frauds. They might ask their lovd ones, "Why do you love me?" or something along those lines. Thing is, our beliefs often become self-fulfilling prophesies, so it'd be preferable to hold the belief that you are deserving of happiness, success, wealth, love and being loved.

I really do recommend the book. If you want to get seriously into this, there's many books on this subject, so I'd suggest picking up a few rather tahn just reading one, but you can't go wrong by starting with this one. I haven't done a lot of reading on self-esteem cause I've always felt my self-esteem was pretty good, but I'm realizing it can get better after I went through this book. And there's no such thing as too much self-esteem. Arrogance, pride and bragging come from having low self-esteem, rather than too much.

MindReality, I think I understand where you're coming from, but don't you believe hard work is necessary? I would (and do) feel guilty if I weren't working hard and I have not appreciated success when I didn't work for it. I have had amazing things happen to me that are not things that you can really work towards, and indeed I am grateful that God has granted them to me. But I do feel I would be a better person if I worked harder!

Thanks again for your help.

I think what mind reality is saying is that hard work is a "tool" inside the Personal Dev toolbox. Its a very important one, but beware the man-with-hammer syndrome. Which comes from the saying, To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. There are still many situations which are solved by nothing less than hard work, but there are circumstances where its easier/faster/more efficient to use other "tools". If you havne't already, I suggest reading the self-discipline series of Steve's.

Also, maybe you just need to give yourself to feel proud of yourself. Perhaps you let yourself be proud of yourself for, say, five minutes. Just sit there in that feeling of happiness and appreciation. Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to feel good about ourselves.

Just thought of something else, too. I've been reflecting on my achievements lately, too, and few of them cause me to get joyously happy. I am happy and proud of myself for achieving them, but by and large they don't cause me huge amounts of joy because I know I am capable of much, much more, and that I will do much, much more. Some of the things are impressive by outside or societal standards but not that impressive to me because of that. So, it might not be that there's somethign else going on, it might just be that you felt your achievement didn't really push you to your limits and that there is still unused potential inside you? Or there might be a combination of different factors. Human beings are complicated.

You're welcome. I'm glad I could help.