You’ve Been Thinking it Wrongly: Self-Praise isn’t Only for the Shameless

Self-praise, international disgrace; admit it or not, this is the sentence that goes through most of our minds every time we want to pat ourselves on the back.

And because of this, we put ourselves down, thinking that it’s nothing special, everyone can do it.

Disclaimer: I don’t usually write these articles (mostly because I’m not that great at it) but the thought just kept niggling in my head so I thought I’ll just get it out for you guys.

A Shameless Act

Every time you hear someone praising themselves for a job well done, you’ll label them as shameless. Tch, buay hiao bai (shameless in Hokkien).

It could be the way we were brought up, or it could just be the way the society works in Singapore but no one likes a person who praises himself.

A braggart, useless attention whore, shameless bugger, we say.

But is it really?

Is Self-Praise Really an International Disgrace?

This thought came to me when I was having dinner last night. I was with a friend who praised herself for doing something good at work.

Immediately after praising herself, she became self-conscious and hurried to defend herself: Ah, now I know why some people praised themselves so much. It feels good! 

And that got me thinking. Is self-praise really an international disgrace?

If you Google the term “tips to build up self-esteem”, one of the methods to do so is to make yourself feel good.

They phrased it in nice ways: give yourself pep talks in the mirror, take credit and acknowledge the good that you did, etc.

I call it self-praise.

You Are What You Say

And that is probably the crux of the matter: valuing yourself.

If you’re constantly putting yourself down in a bid to fit in, you’ll find that at the end of the day, your self-esteem is minuscule.

After all, what’s there to be proud of when the things you do can be done by anyone else, the ideas you have can be thought of by someone else and the achievements you get can be obtained by other people?

Go ahead and praise yourself, but there’s a catch

So be humble but never be harsh on yourself.

One of the best things you can learn in life is to acknowledge and voice out your strengths and achievements.

Because not only will it make you feel good about yourself, it makes other people around you feel good about you too.

And if you thought the hardest part is to praise yourself, it isn’t. The hardest part of the entire thing is to praise yourself yet remaining humble.

Taking the credit for what you did and giving credit to those who duly deserves it.

Achieve this and you’ll go damn far in life.

Editor: Then why are you still working here?

…

Because I like it here?

Editor: Okay, so you don’t need a pay raise for this year, right?

Wait. Wait-

-End-