Moving Past The Need To "Prove Myself"

Why bother working at all? Or why do anything at all?

Aside from the need for income for practical reasons, there are a couple major reasons that motivate us.

For me the major reason since I was in high school has been to prove myself. Unfortunately, this is a motivation that usually starts with poor self-image.

A realized in the last year that a lot of my motivation for many of the things I do started with a poor self-image problem, including my athletic hobbies, career, and academics.

This realization has left me wondering... is there anything that I have done for reasons other than to mask my inner sense of inferiority and self-hatred?

Another question is what other reasons exist to work on difficult and challenging projects? Is there any point at all, except to earn money or make up for some inferiority complex?

I came up with this as a list of reasons to excel, which do not depend on self-loathing and the need to "prove myself":

1. The joy of creation. To get into a flow state and just enjoy making something, even if nobody ever sees it or appreciates it.

2. To make something that is important for the world, e.g. a mission that you believe in.

3. To help others, e.g. instead of enabling my own goals, this would enable someone else to pursue their goals.

Note that all of these reasons involve contributing to something bigger than myself.

Looking back on the work I've done in my career and personal creative projects like novels, short-stories, puzzles, games, and even hobbies like jiu-jitsu, I realize that actually these are the reasons that I've found happiness in these pursuits!

And actually, the pursuit to "prove myself" has actually never been a source of happiness. It has always been a source of stress and pressure. And it comes not from others, but from within – from that big empty place inside myself where I should feel a warm confidence that I am a person worth of love.

Thus I realize that the source of my feelings of burnout and depression is precisely this emptiness inside. It isn't really anything to do with the job market and so on. And my interest in spirituality and religions is actually very spot on, because the point of those philosophies is to nurture and inner sense of love for yourself and others.

So... I think I am done with this burnout journal.

I think that all I have to really do to recover is to love myself, as corny as that sounds.