Develop True Pride and Become A Success
Depending on who you talk to, pride can either be a positive feeling or a negative trait. The difference between the two is really a difference in definition; while some consider pride to be a good feeling that shows that you like something about yourself on what you have created, others believe that pride is a negative attribute that can lead to negative self importance. Essentially it is better to have the former and it is not good to have the latter.
I’m sure that if you look back in your life, you will be able to find a time when you were very proud of something that you did. It’s interesting to note though that if you look back on this memory, you will most likely find that you took great pride in what you were doing and as a result, that pride was most likely the reason why you did so good a job in the first place.
What this shows us is that pride is not a black-and-white thing. Pride like anything else, and like any definition of anything, has many shades of gray. While an extreme sense of self-importance is not good, a complete lack of personal pride will not get you very far either.
Pride comes from a true commitment to what you have to do. Pride also comes from a sense of self-worth and personal ability. In order to develop pride, you need to believe in your self worth. In order to propagate this belief you must question yourself and find out exactly what you believe about yourself right now. Discovering what you believe about yourself, you change this belief if it is not one where you know that you are a worthy and capable person. You then cement this belief by creating positive accomplishments.
Having a strong sense of self worth and self esteem, you engage every task with the desire to do your best. Doing your best creates pride in your work. Doing good work always involves personal pride, this pride than motivates you to do the best that you can, and these positive results cement your self worth by making you feel proud of your work.
An overdeveloped sense of self-worth is usually a mask that many used to hide a low self-esteem. An overtly proud person therefore is someone who is actually hiding their feelings of incredibly low self-esteem. If you can question these feelings, all the feelings that you have about your personal self-worth, you will be able to change this belief by understanding your personal reasoning. Overbearing pride does exist of course, but it is usually a mask for feelings of low self worth. True pride begins with high self-esteem and a real sense of your own unique individuality.
Once you have pride in your self, you will take pride in your work. When you take pride in your work you will do far better work and you will be proud of that work. You will always be able to accomplish more, and whatever you do will be done to the best of your ability.
When you take pride in your work, you begin to own this work. You take responsibility for that work because you are proud of that work and you want to share your accomplishments with others. Build yourself worth by working on the beliefs that you have about yourself. With a true belief in your self worth, you will be able to create better work that you will be proud of. Pride is not a black-and-white thing, but by understanding what true pride is, you can accomplish great things.
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Thank you very much for this information. I have been struggling with pride my who life due to my self esteem. My question is this, if someone has poor self esteem, is it possible to lose pride as a result instead of mask it? Very curious of your input, thank you
Yes generally speaking I would say that people most often lose their personal pride when they have low self-esteem and don’t attempt to mask it at all. The masking usually happens when they want to do something and are battling an inner sense of worthlessness. These people feel that if they make a show of having great pride then perhaps they will be able to convince others of their worth even though they may feel very little self-worth.
People of low self-worth that don’t mask their low self-esteem with a mask of great pride tend to be people that have given up or feel that somehow they are being more honest with themselves and the world because they are faithfully showing how little they can accomplish; they feel that they should not try because they will fail and others should not expect anything because they will most likely fail them.
Masking and not masking with over-inflated pride are both wrong. In the article I ask you to not to ‘fake it til you make it it’ with an over-inflated ego/pride because this little bit of new age advise will most often hurt you much more than it will help you. And I also hope that you do not take the second approach and totally give up, thinking that you are being honest with yourself and the world.
Instead I suggest that you experience ‘completely’ all of the doubts and supposed negative emotions that you feel. And as you do so, examine yourself to find out what it is that you believe about yourself. What proof do you have that you are so inadequate?
Then when you find these supposed facts, realize that these are not facts at all but just opinions and assumptions about your life and reality. With this realization, it becomes easy to change those ‘facts’ by taking new careful action, improving where you think you are lacking, and by taking action one small bit at a time until you are satisfied that you did the best you could. Eventually you will begin to really believe (even though at first it might seem silly) that you do in fact have good reasons to feel self-worth. Then things will begin to change quite naturally.