Self-esteem and the need for self-respect, and not arrogance and contempt for other people – it is this kind of genuine pride that should not be ashamed. Studies show that it can be a powerful driving force.
Pride, which manifests itself in vanity and arrogance, in the rapture of one’s own abilities, indicates an inflated ego and can be destructive. But if we are talking about the satisfaction and joy that we experience when we see the successful result of our hard work, then this is an important and useful emotion that helps us become more persistent and resilient.
And for people in creative professions, wounded pride at some moment of crisis can be an important sign that the wrong decision has been made. In some cases, it can also mean that it’s time to change strategy or even take a completely different direction.
Consider the example of ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes, who once ran 563 kilometers in one run and another time ran 50 marathons in 50 days. This person seems to have a very serious motivation. But where did she come from? The impetus was on his 30th birthday, when Karnazes reflected on his life and career in a very promising sales field, which, however, did not cause him any sense of pride.
As psychologist Jessica Tracy of the University of British Columbia, Canada, explains, it was this lack of self-esteem that propelled Karnazes to become one of the world’s most successful distance runners.1. “Karnazes started running not because he knew it would change his life, but because he wanted to feel something,” she writes.
Wounded pride turns out to be a kind of “achievement barometer” that encourages us to develop
If you’ve recently experienced disappointment—say, your carefully thought out project was rejected or your creative commission failed—your self-esteem collapsed and you turned to self-criticism, try not to plunge yourself into this depressive state. Instead, use hurt feelings of pride to motivate yourself to do something and make a difference. If you are quite successful, but your achievements do not cause you true satisfaction and pride, it may be time to reconsider your work priorities.
In general, we could all benefit by listening to this feeling. “We often live by inertia, when it seems that everything seems to be in order, but still we lack this feeling of victory, taken heights,” the psychologist explains. “Awareness of self-esteem in ourselves is often what pushes us to do something else and live differently.”
Together with her colleagues at the University of British Columbia and the University of Rochester, Jessica Tracy has conducted a series of studies on this topic. For example, they measured students’ sense of pride in their achievement on an exam and noticed that those who reported feeling a prick of self-esteem (did not feel satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment) for their poor performance, as a rule, said that they planned to study for exams differently. And on the next exam a few weeks later, they scored better.
Those students who received poor marks on the first exam and did not feel that their pride was hurt did not demonstrate such improvements.
Also, as part of the study, psychologists interviewed members of the running club after the race. The bottom line is the same: those who ran badly and were hurt by it tended to say they planned to change their training regimen and improved their performance the next race.
These results show that hurt pride is a kind of “achievement barometer” that motivates us to develop. The most important thing, of course, is not just to notice, but to take the time and effort to reflect on that feeling (or lack of it) to really boost your motivation.
What do you see as the reason for failure?
But one word of caution: if you’ve gone through a series of disappointments and are not just hurt, but depressed and completely lost confidence in yourself, then you run the risk of reaching self-abasement. Shame is the feeling that “I can’t do anything, I’m not good at it, which means I won’t try anymore, because it will end in failure anyway.” Such a statement is by no means motivating. “Feeling hurt pride, on the other hand, means that you lack validation of your competence and accomplishments, and you are trying to verify your abilities again,” explains Jessica Tracy.
There is a great way to determine whether it is you who are feeling wounded pride or shame. Think about whether you see the cause of the trouble in something that can be fixed, such as a lack of effort or the wrong strategy, or something that indicates the kind of person you are.
For example, if your latest project didn’t get a lot of positive feedback and you justify it as being a bad designer and lacking talent, that is, of course, demoralizing. But if you feel a burning desire to be proud of yourself and know what you need to do to succeed next time, this can be a powerful motivating force.
So treat your sense of self-respect with…respect. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be even more proud of yourself for your passion, dedication and determination.
1 Source: J. Tracy Take Pride, Why The Deadliest Sin Holds The Secret To Human Success, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.