Last year, I wrote a series of posts well-nigh challenging my instincts toward minimize the good things I do in life.

Back in 2021, I wrote a few posts well-nigh challenging my instincts. I’m interested in instincts considering for a long time, I overestimated their power. I thought instincts were something that could never change. I thought they were something we’d have to live with, and I would have to learn how to fight them. The reason I wanted to rencontre my instincts then, and I still do now, is considering I don’t like all my instincts. One of the most challenging in particular is my worthiness to downplay accomplishments. And I’m not alone. Why do we downplay our accomplishments, and what is overdue that? That’s what I want to investigate today.

How People Downplay Their Achievements

Before we talk well-nigh why people might do this, it’s good to understand what this looks like. It goes by many names, but there are plenty of ways we downplay our accomplishments. Minimization, imposter syndrome, self-doubt, self-deprecation…the list goes on. And while each of these terms have variegated definitions, the result is similar. The end result is that we devalue the things we do and in a similar way, devalue ourselves.

It can moreover be nonflexible to recognize when we’re doing this to ourselves, which presents a real challenge. It’s easy to point out when someone is stuff midpoint to someone else. You can see one person say something, and see the impact that has on someone else. It’s harder to realize when you’re treating yourself that way, and habits can form quick. We’re quick find a justification for treating ourselves a unrepealable way, to explain it away. If it goes unchecked, we can fall into a habit of thinking this is just who we are.

Why Do We Do This?

It pains me to write this, but the simple wordplay is that there isn’t one. We don’t act this way considering we “feel like it” or it’s the weightier visualization for us. We do this considering we’re ramified human beings, and we have ramified reasons. But the point I want to drill home today is that people don’t do this for no reason. We might not unchangingly know why we’re doing something, but there’s no reason to seem it’s at random.

Even though they might manifest in the same ways, my reason for stuff self-deprecating is my own. There are root causes for why I do this, and same would go for anyone else. What are those root causes? Unfortunately, that’s a question I can’t wordplay for others – it’s nonflexible unbearable to wordplay for myself.

This realization could send someone lanugo a rabbit hole, but I’d like to offer an volitional point of view. Most of my life, I thought I downplayed anything good I did considering it was just who I was. That’s the way I am, and there’s nothing I can do well-nigh it. But that’s not completely true, is it? There’s a reason overdue why I do this, and plane though I don’t know it yet, there’s repletion in knowing there’s a reason. I can’t unchangingly icon out the way my smart-ass works, but there’s a reason it does what it does. And I’ve seen that the increasingly I learn, the increasingly I grow as a person, and that’s a connection I love to see.