Why You Shouldn't Be Upset If You Haven't Done Great

Miscellaneous / by admin / September 03, 2021

Pay no attention to the son of my mother's friend.

No matter how quickly a person goes through life, from time to time he still stops and sums up intermediate results. And often not in their favor. Of course, if he won a medal at the Olympics, invented a vaccine for a terminal illness, or founded a successful startup, there is less cause for concern. Although even then there remains a field for alarm - for example, why the medal is silver and not gold.

And if you just lived, was a good person, an effective specialist, a pleasant partner, questions may arise to yourself. How is it that I have been for so many years, and I have not done anything outstanding yet? Not included in the Forbes list of "30 under 30", which includes successful youth. Didn't become the youngest CEO. And even videos on TikTok don't get millions of views. And then panic sets in: it seems that life is being wasted. But this is not at all the case. Why - we figure it out together with psychologists.

Why We Worry We Didn't Do Anything Great

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There are many complex reasons. Here are the main ones.

Mom's friend's son effect

Children are still gagging in strollers, and mothers are already comparing: “How is it that yours still doesn’t say? Mine immediately started with complex sentences, as soon as the head appeared in childbirth. " Few people manage not to get involved in this endless competition.

Alexandra Titareva

Psychologist, member of the Association for Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy.

Our culture is generally built on a system of evaluation and comparison. From an early age we are taught to compare ourselves with others: “Look how quiet the neighbor boy is. Why are you shouting all the time? " Then, at school, they are set as an example of excellent students, and at the institute, teachers celebrate the best students. Finally, at work it is required to apply all my effortsso that management will appreciate us.

This is how we begin to notice that there is always someone who has something more than we have. Seeing someone else's success, we immediately forget all the good things that happened to us, and begin to delve into the thoughts that we have not achieved so much in our life.

The cult of achievement

Since childhood, we see successful people on the screen: athletes, singers, actors, politicians, businessmen. Less commonly, prominent scientists or researchers. We learn about ordinary, normal people from the media only if they are in trouble. And the routine life seems to be of no interest to anyone.

Because of this, the illusion is created that it is imperative to succeed. Moreover, in recent years, it has achieved good PR. There are thousands of articles on the internet on how to be productive. And the idea of "how" is given much more attention than "why". And social networks additionally give an illusionthat everyone around is living perfectly and doing everything.

Craving for recognition

Striving for the best is perfectly normal. People want to gain recognition and satisfy the need for the narcissistic component of the personality. But there are nuances.

Ksenia Yurieva

Family psychologist and gestalt therapist.

People sum up the results, set goals most often from the position of “look who I am”. Each of us has it, regardless of age, type of activity. We live in an age of colorful covers, ubiquitous ads and social media. Messages are heard from everywhere: "Strive to be the best version of yourself." People have become more motivated, but there is also a downside to the coin - poor living of the result. So saturation with success will never happen, there will always be little. It will not work at all to form love for one's true self; a program will constantly work, within the framework of which one must deserve love.

Fear of death and desire to leave something behind

Man understands that he is not eternal. And one of fearsassociated with death - the realization that after you there will be nothing left, the fear that everyone will forget about you. This, by the way, is one of the motives of childbirth - to try to launch at least your genetic material into a conditional eternity. It is even safer to create a masterpiece of a different kind - so that the surname gets into textbooks, and a memorial plaque is hung on the house. At least the Wikipedia article was written at the worst.

Great Mission Idea

It is also known as the Meaning of Life - like that, in all big letters. It is believed that every person should have one. And to live just like that, for joy and fun, is shameful.

But we already once dismantled with psychologists that there is no universal meaning in life. Each has his own. And to live joyfully is a completely worthy reason for existence. However, this is not easy to accept. Therefore, it can be difficult for a person if he not only has not done anything great, but does not even see a global goal in front of him.

Do you have to do something great

The answer is closely related to the passage about the meaning of life: no.

Andrey Smirnov

Master of Psychology, Practical Psychologist.

Judging objectively, it becomes clear that for the overwhelming number of people inhabiting the planet, the so-called Great Mission is simply impossible. I think that it is formed more by chance and coincidence than as a result of planning. For example, scientific discoveries that turned the world upside down happened unexpectedly as a result of many years of painstaking work. Power and the ability to decide the fate of people also in many cases come as a result of luck in combination with certain qualities of character and a very strong nervous system. In percentage terms, the number of such people is small. But there are thousands of times more people who have failed on this path.

According to Smirnov, many people experience existential crisis, they realize that they have not done anything great. But you shouldn't set yourself super-tasks. It is enough to come up with the meaning of life yourself and enjoy it. One is engaged in rescuing stray and sick animals, the other collects stamps, and someone just lives and does not really bother looking for a big goal. And all these people are right in their own way. The main thing is not to despair and not fall into depression because of the impossibility to understand the meaning of existence.

And sometimes the idea of the Great Mission can only interfere with normal life.

Lyudmila Andropova

PhD in Psychology, Special and Clinical Psychologist, Psychologist and Sexologist.

In fact, everyone has their own mission. This mission gives additional meaning to human behavior. For example, the wife of an alcoholic not only lives with him and suffers, but saves him. Or a person controls everything to the smallest detail, annoys everyone, but if you dig a little, it turns out that he considers it his mission to save everyone from mistakes and troubles.

A person wants to find meaning in everything, but one of the postulates of existential therapy is that life is meaningless.

How to stop worrying about someone else's greatness and start living

The main thing is to change the attitude towards what is happening.

Focus on achievements, not failures

We see the success of other people in distilled form, and our own life as a whole. Therefore, we often cannot appreciate ourselves. It turns out something like: “Yes, I grew up well in the profession. But yesterday I spent the whole day with pizza to the TV series. And a month ago... No, I'm just lazy. And soon everyone will understand it. "

Ksenia Yurieva

Family psychologist and gestalt therapist.

To break the vicious circle of impostor syndrome and surges in emotional state, I suggest focusing on your own resources. Every person has value. Create a list of 30 of your talents and skills, from birth to today. Any circles that you attended as a child, hobbies, work experience, etc. And bad experience is also a resource. He says that you are able to withstand stress. Save this list on your phone and reread it every day before bed. Your value and mission is in yourself.

Accept that everyone's options are different.

Comparison with others often devalues our merits.

Alexandra Titareva

Psychologist, member of the Association for Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy.

It is as if a signal is triggered in my head: if we have not done anything that some person has succeeded in, then we are nobody. However, it is not known how much grief and misfortune the one who outwardly successful and prosperous suffered. And the more we sprinkle ashes on our heads, expecting great accomplishments from ourselves, the more we fall into the illusion of our unlimited knowledge and abilities and a guaranteed result.

People have different starting conditions. For example, parents often tell their children, “Look at you! But the son of our neighbors is a dollar billionaire. " Only at the same time it is somehow hushed up that his parents are dollar millionaires, so the reproach is, in general, to the wrong address.

Recognize that success is never linear

It seems that the story of any success can be depicted as a skyrocketing graph. However, this is not quite true. Almost every such story is a series of ups and downs. Perhaps you just picked the wrong place for a checkpoint and are evaluating your achievements from the lowest point. But this situation will not always be.

Enjoy the path to results

It sounds corny, but banal advice often works. Life is not a single success, but years, hours, minutes, in each of which something happens. And everything matters. Let not for humanity, but for you, and this is already insanely important.

Alena Kondratyeva

Psychologist.

Now everyone is trying to find himself, his destiny, a great mission. But the truth is that you don't have to look for yourself - you have to create yourself. Every day, bit by bit, make yourself such a person as you paint a happy and successful yourself in your dreams. And, by and large, this is the main mission of our life.

We are used to evaluating our achievements by external signs. And to do something great is kind of like influencing the whole world. With your music, painting, discovery or something else. But at the same time, we forget that we influence the world every day. We just prefer not to notice it. But the so-called butterfly Effect works seven days a week. Each of our decisions affects not only ourselves, but everything around us. Even the very fact of our existence creates a large chain of events in which all the people of the planet are involved.

For existence to matter, you just have to live. And if you still do something good and, if possible, do not do bad, then in many ways you are already great.