Want Praise? Bad Idea
"Never need praise, approval or sympathy." -- L. Ron Hubbard, from "The Code of Honor"
If you need to be important, to be admired and to be praised, you will be unsuccessful.
Your decisions will be wrong. People will not respect you. You will lose money.
If you need admiration to be happy, you become addicted to finding more and more admiration. You lose sight of goals that really matter in life.
Admiration can become an addiction. For example, you buy a car or house to earn status. You marry the wrong person because you think the marriage makes you look good. You choose a career because it makes you popular, not because you love the work.
Being a big shot is great! It feels good to be admired. It is satisfying to be liked. However, to seek approval and admiration, as your goal, can ruin your career, your business, your family and your life.
10 Reasons Why Seeking Praise and Admiration Is a Bad Idea
1. You need positive evaluations from others to feel happy.
2. To get praise, you decide you need to get the credit for all good ideas at your job. When someone else comes up with a great solution, you stop it or make sure it does not work. If you can take credit for the solution, you work hard to make sure it succeeds.
3. People learn they can control you by praising you or criticizing you. They can then take advantage of you. "We'll praise you and make you feel very important, if you work for less pay than you're worth."
4. As a boss, you refuse to let anyone else make decisions because making decisions makes you feel important. You want everyone to wait for your blessing before they act. As a result, you get stressed to pieces while competent people feel insulted.
5. You avoid duties that might make you unpopular. For example, a boss might not fix employee behavior problems because he does not want to be unpopular. An employee might not demand payment from a customer as he doesn't want to be unpopular with that customer.
6. Without a regular dose of validation, you start to criticize yourself. If you're not getting praise and admiration, you feel something must be wrong with you.
7. Working for admiration takes up your time and attention. You do not focus on more valuable, long-term objectives.
8. To ensure the "herd" likes you, you follow the herd and never break into personal success beyond the herd's success.
9. When you finally achieve fame and personal glory, you still may be broke. Famous, but not rich.
10. No matter how successful you might be, if you do not get admiration, you feel like a failure.
Recommendations
* As much as you might like praise, realize it is just someone's opinion or evaluation. Instead of seeking evaluations from others, constantly improve your opinion of yourself.
* Make your decisions based on what is right for your goals, your family, your group.
* Choose goals that have nothing to do with personal glory or fame.
* Admire and appreciate yourself; avoid the need for admiration from others.
* Do what is right, not what you will be applauded for.
* Evaluate yourself by your own standards of what you should be, not what others want you to be.
* Instead of praising your employees, friends, spouse and children, give them acknowledgements for their accomplishments instead. They will be happier and more productive! |
