I am fairly goal oriented and have chased accolades at various times in my life. I fell into the trap of ‘other praise’ in my academic career. Early on it was easy to achieve and have the world tell me I was ok. As a professor these accolades became rarer, and my ego/self esteem suffered. Somewhere I remembered that it is important to ‘esteem ourselves’ rather than wait for others to do it. And I retired to be a stay at home dad, but that’s another story.
Parenting is a good example of learning to recognize our own achievements rather than wanting others to do so. There aren’t many awards for ‘dad or mom of the year’ despite many humorous coffee cups. As parents we have to tell ourselves we are ‘ok’ rather than others. In fact, in the age of social media there is way more parental shame than praise peer-to-peer.
Anyway, this episode is about why accolade seeking can be a trap (e.g., money) and why we need to remember to find rewards within.
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