“It’s the perpetual need to impress or prove something to people that makes them like you less.”
— Mark Manson
I have been a reader of Mark Manson’s for a while now and I enjoy his brutality a lot on some topics. A few days ago after a heavy journaling session, I bumped into this quote by him on his Instagram profile. It suited the topic that I was writing about so I made a note in my journal as well.
I had a real struggle with figuring out friendship dynamics (still do sometimes) and how to deal with rejection. I had serious FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) as well, and now that I am in a different country, far away from my close friends these symptoms are heavily flaring up.
I caught myself being bothered by not being liked and invited by people with whom I actually don’t want to hang out with. That sounds dumb, I know, but this is what I have to work with. I still want to impress people, even if their opinions shouldn’t matter at all and I know, that people can feel this kind of emotional neediness. Then why?
I think people have this perpetual need to impress and/or prove things to others when they don’t believe in their own worth. When you cannot believe full-heartedly that you are doing well enough, and that people will like you (or not like you) unconditionally because of who you are and not because of what you are doing and providing to them.
Not having self-worth and self-respect can cause plenty of issues in human relationships and can affect overall mental health as well. We all know this. However, I am a confident person, who knows their worth, strengths and weaknesses, who is self-aware and try to work on themselves every day. So then why do I still have these feelings? Why do I get triggered at the slightest exclusion? The answer is, that I know all these things, but I do not feel them.
The feelings of unworthiness usually come from childhood and can be connected to Anxious Attachment Style as well. When you struggle with human connections, usually the issue is based on how you create connections and the reasons behind it. If you are interested in the topic of Attachment Styles, I would recommend this article which talks about the 4 Attachment Styles, how they form and their descriptions.
And that’s why, my conclusion would be, that if you feel the need to prove yourself to others, I would recommend asking a lot of whys and working on the base issue. I thought I got better at this with time, but it looks like, that at the moment I am taken out from a safe and known environment, I am back to square one.
