7 Awards That Don’t Exist (But You Try To Win Anyways)
It took until I reached adulthood for me to realize that I had severe self-worth problems. I spent most of my life trying to reach perfection and being way too hard on myself when I made yet another mistake. I spent most of my time trying to make the people around me happy because I felt like they would only love me for what I could do for them– and not for who I was as a person.
But now that I have gone through my self-love journey, and my self-worth has increased exponentially, I realize there are seven different unattainable awards that many of us are always trying to win, and I want to share that below.
Awards That Don’t Exist But People Try To Win
1. Stayed at work the longest
Somewhere along the way we have convinced ourselves that the more hours we pour into our careers or our jobs, the more success we will start to see. However, we often confuse being busy with being productive and they are not the same thing.
Have you ever had a co-worker who was pretty useless and didn’t get a lot of work done, even though you both worked the same amount of hours? Putting in time doesn’t mean work is actually getting done. In fact, it has been shown that people need rest and breaks in order to work at their most productive.
So those breaks you are skipping to cram more work hours in the day could actually be harming your productivity instead of helping you.
Not to mention, not taking proper care of yourself and giving yourself the time you need to take proper rests is a recipe for burnout.
There is no award for staying at work the longest. Go home. Take your breaks.
2. Never made a mistake
There is no award for never making a mistake, because there isn’t a person on this planet who has never made a mistake in their life.
And for good reason.
Mistakes enable us to learn and grow. If we are only worried about getting the right answer, it can prevent us from understanding the deeper meaning and theory of the thing we are trying to learn.
Accepting and acknowledging our mistakes doesn’t mean we have to be ecstatic when we screw up. But it means we treat ourselves with kindness and the understanding that it is okay to mess up and try again, and that it is a necessary part of life.
3. Never asked for help
Asking other people for help is something I still continue to struggle with. I grew up being fiercely independent and needing to support myself emotionally, so I got into the habit of doing everything myself and not asking anyone for help when I need it.
This doesn’t make my life any easier.
In fact, it makes things for difficult. I have many people in my life who love and care about me. When I am able to realize that I may need some help, and that being stubborn and trying to stumble through it myself is actually creating more problems instead of easy solutions, things become much easier for me.
There is no award for never asking anyone else for help, but I have been trying to win it for years apparently.
4. Rested the least
For many of us who grew up surrounded by hustle culture, we were never taught the importance of proper self-care and rest. In that case, is not surprising that overwhelm and burnout are at an all-time high.
We need rest in order to function at our best, and sacrificing that rest often only hurts us in the end.
5. Lived up to the expectations of other people
Many of us can relate to worrying about what other people think of us. From our friends, to our family, not living up to their expectations of us can be paralyzing. We often want the people around us to be happy, but often that can lead to us living for other people, instead of ourselves.
But worrying too much about what other people want from us means we end up making other people happy, which often doesn’t align with the things that would make us happy.
When I graduated high school I had no idea what I personally wanted in life– but I did know what my family expected of me. They expected me to pursue secondary education, get a great job, and join the rat race.
6. Never said no
Boundaries are extremely important if you want to be happy and healthy.
An absence of boundaries often leads to people taking advantage of you or even abusing you. By being a “yes person” and saying yes to everyone all the time you run the risk of giving so much of yourself to everyone else that you have nothing left for yourself in the end.
This is never a good situation.
Just like they say in airplanes, in case of emergency you need to secure your oxygen mask first before you help anyone else. You need to ensure you are taking the best care of yourself and that you have left enough resources for yourself before you start helping the people around you.
7. Being perfect
Again, no one is perfect, so no one would ever win this trophy.
Trying to improve and grow as a person is great, but in the long run it is all about balance. Giving ourselves permission to grow, make mistakes, and be lost, or be a mess sometimes are all a part of being human.
Final Thoughts…
Most of the time, the person who is the hardest on us is ourselves. We have been taught to put so much pressure on ourselves to work harder or to hustle. We have been taught that resting is lazy. That self-care is selfish. That mistakes are bad.
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