Why I feel the need to prove myself?

Receiving external validation is great, but doing things for the purpose of receiving it is one of the most self-damaging things one can do.

Seeking external validation

Having the need to prove yourself can be related to a history of you being unappreciated by others.

Being pampered may sound amazing for some but it is actually harmful, but being unappreciated is not good either. Both situations can flunctuate throughout your life, yet both are extremely dangerous and can have life-long effects, especially if you experience them intensely as a kid growing up.

While being pampered puts you in a position where you don't have to do much, everything is done for you and the little you do is 'applaused' by others, being unappreciated makes you feel that no matter how good you do, how good you behave and how good your intentions are, you always lack something.

Try to remember times when you were growing up, as a kid, as a teenager and as a young adult, did you ever feel that your efforts, well-intentioned attitudes and feelings were unappreciated by others?

If you did and it happened constantly, it probably damaged your self confidence. However, there is another way which can make you feel the same unappreciation and throw the responsiblity upon others... And that is if you don't appreciate yourself, what you do or what you feel.

At one time or another in your life the question 'why do I feel the need to prove myself to others?' probably have crossed your mind. That is a perception on your subconscious emerging to your conscious self to tell you that something is not right.

First, let's talk about true unappreciation by others. When growing up, times can be tough at school and even at home, and not necessarily because of bullying and physical violence but because of you doing things and expressing your feelings and not being appreciated by others. And how do we usually cope with it? For many, we simply keep going, we ignore or have a one 'bad day' about it and then everything 'becomes normal again'. But the thing is, the more we keep such an attitude, the more we harm ourselves. However, dwelling on the experiences and the feeling of being unappeciated, and even start blaming others and being mad is as much harmful.

What to do instead?

Well, let's think of a situation... You're a kid or a teenager and you are learning to play an instrument, you are super excited about it, and there is this one song you want to learn to play so much, and then one day you finally manage, and you feel so good and proud of yourself. Then, you go and tell your parents and your friends, and even show them but they don't give much to it, perhaps a shallow and cold 'congratulations' or not even that, just 'nice' or whatever else... At that moment you might not notice but your level of joy and pleasure from what you have accomplished drops considerably, and only later when thinking about it the 'feeling bad' can emerge to the surface of your consciousness.

Maybe the specific situation explained above doesn't apply to you, but if you take a time to remember situations in your life, surely you will find situations in which your excitement and joy dropped considerably due to the unappreciation of others. Experiencing such unappreciation can make you put doubts upon yourself, in the example given you could think that you didn't play the song that well or that you made mistakes that only others noticed... And when you blink the eye you could be filling your head with a lot of worries and even shame about your performance.

Do you notice what is going on?

You are seeking external validation from others and ending up frustrated because of it. Receiving external validation is great, but seeking it and expecting it, is not. Why? Because that way you disregard how you feel and what you think about what you have done, felt or accomplished, and begin measuring the value of those things based on other people's reactions.

And you know what also happens when you expect and look forward to external validation? You can start putting the responsibility of how you feel about things upon others. And guess what happens? You can receive appreciation and yet feel you were unappreciated. This happens because how others express appreciation might not level up to how you expected them to express it. But you know what? It's not always that someone can understand how important certain things are for us, just like sometimes we don't understand how important certain things are for them.

As you keep expressing unappreciation by others, you can follow two pathways: close yourself or become desperate to seek attention in order to receive appreciation (not rarely by lying or over exaggerating things that would make others see you as 'great' or even as 'above them'). Both ways lead to self destruction and a never ending hunger for external validation. Because even the most closed people in the world would love to receive appreciation, and that is natural... But one thing is to want it, another is to need it and be desperate for it.

We have discussed a bit about not receiving appreciation, but what if the opposite applies?

Being pampered!

Perhaps you grew up being pampared by your family and others, probably they did not do that on purpose, nevertheless receiving everything whenever you want is a problem! It is because it gets you so accostumed to it that you can't deal with having to wait for things or being unappreciated by others or not standing out from the crowd wherever you go. In this case, for many, when they realize they are not being appreciated as they used to be, they start showing off to others, speaking louder than others, trying to be the center of attention, and always making sure others have the idea (close to the truth or not) that they can do this, can do that, are the best in this or that...

How is this harmful?

Well, on one hand you might give the idea of yourself being the best others can find around. And that can lead to you receiving external validation, which in turn feeds internal validation... However, not rarely people overemphasize and overexaggerate their experiences or even make up stories. This way, there's a falseness to it all, and even if others believe it as being completely true, you know it's not and then you have to go through a lot to keep up the lies. And 'keeping up an act' is draining. But let's assume that all you say is true. In that case, you don't have the draining from keeping up lies and always making up new stories, but you are still drained due to you expecting others to appreciate what you are saying and the stories you are telling.

By now hopefully you have concluded by yourself that seeking external validation and having the need to prove yourself to others is very tiring, it drains your energy and most importantly it can drain your energy even when you have accomplished something you are proud of. Now, there's nothing wrong with you telling others something you have accomplished or a feeling you have but expecting external validation from them puts you in a position of risking devalueing all the efforts you made and all the importance of the feelings, and consequently also the satisfaction you got from achieving goals and the meaning of the feelings.

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