HOW TO FEEL SPECIAL WHEN OTHERS MAKE YOU FEEL UNIMPORTANT

HOW TO FEEL SPECIAL WHEN OTHERS MAKE YOU FEEL UNIMPORTANT

Be Significant Without Comparing Yourself to Someone Else 

Everyone needs to feel important and that they matter. Having the need for significance often comes from comparing ourselves to others. In our quest for significance, we become involved in hierarchical pecking orders and questions of superiority or inferiority. We can feel significant because we have achieved something, built something, succeeded at something, or we can seek significance by tearing down something or someone else.
 
In its positive aspect, significance leads us to raise our standards. But if we are overly focused on significance, we will have trouble truly connecting with others. We can become distanced from co-workers, friends, and even loved ones.

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Life Stages Alter Our Need for Significance

As babies, we needed to feel we were number one. The way we express importance in those early days of development often meant throwing a temper tantrum. As adults, we would get a much different response from a boss or associate if we threw a temper tantrum than how our parents responded. As we mature, the way we meet our need for significance also must mature or we’ll suffer the consequences.

On the other end of the spectrum, some people achieve a sense of significance from failure. They feel connected with themselves and with others in being the worst at something or from having low self-esteem.
 
Whatever the measure of significance, a sense of being important is necessary to all human beings. The quest for significance is really the result of someone seeking love.

How to Avoid Asking Yourself,
​Why the F%#@ Did I Just Do That?

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Unless we have a time machine we can’t go back to an event where we did something that we aren’t proud of doing. The best thing that we can do is to learn from the behaviors of the event and move forward with different thinking, emotions, and behaviors in the future.

Consider a recent event that you wish that you had a time machine, so you could go back for a redo. Were you in a state of pride, feeling important, trying to be at a peak level of performance? Were you in competition to achieve a goal? Or you were on the other side of the spectrum and did something that would be rejected which made you feel important?

Here are some questions to ask yourself so you can optimize your vehicles to meet your need for significance. By the way, in doing this, you’ll also take away the power of others to yuck on our yum.

1. What has to happen to feel significant, or to feel like you matter?
What do you currently do to meet this need? 

2. What are new ways that you can meet the need for significance? 
How can you make it easier to meet this need? Which key people in your life, can help you meet this need? What are the skillful ways to communicate with your key person 
about your need and how can they help you?

THE BIG TAKEAWAY

If you are experiencing feelings of being less than, or not good enough, it’s time to choose new ways to meet your need for significance. Comparing yourself to others has you focusing on differences rather than commonalities. Run your race and not someone else’s and observe the magic happen.

Learn more about what role significance has in your life. 

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