Have You Long Been Unwanted?
Have you spent much of your life unwanted, personally and professionally? You’ve probably spent much time trying to figure out why.
So, after just a few questions that might help to unearth any new ideas you might want to try, most of this post focuses on how, moving forward, to improve the situation and to come to deserved self-acceptance.
Self-assessment
These four questions may help you identify something on which you'd like to improve.
Imagine that a group of people who know you well, anonymously answered these true/false questions about you. What would the consensus be? You
usually make other people feel good about themselves
are usually interesting to listen to
are diligent enough
are competent enough.
Suggestions
Do your answers suggest something you’d like to work on? If you're not sure what to work on or how to do it, is there someone you should ask? In the meantime, here are some examples:
Making people feel good about themselves
Let’s say the aforementioned people believe that you often don't make people feel good about themselves, and you want to improve.
A common reason is that you're too blunt. Let’s say you’ve already tried hard to restrain yourself and be more tactful but to no avail. Sure, you might continue to try to be more measured about when and how blunt to be, for example, ever asking yourself, “Will this make the person feel better or worse about themselves?”
But you also might want to accept that people sometimes benefit from your being that unusual soul who is direct: People know what you’re thinking, and that could benefit them if they could push aside their annoyance at your style and judge you on the quality of your ideas.
Of course, many of your listeners will dismiss you because of being blunt, but you might legitimately come to self-acceptance by not caring unduly about such people. Also, given that you probably will always be quite direct, you might remember that the world is better for having some straight shooters rather than just people who ever couch, equivocate, even dissemble. That mindset may allow you to walk the earth with legitimate basis for feeling better about yourself.
Another way that you can make people feel bad about themselves is being self-absorbed so other people don't feel you care about them. A baby step toward improvement is to get in the habit of asking people about themselves, and not with the tossed-off standard “How are you?” "Fine" "How are You?" Rather, you might, for example, look the person in the eye and, after asking "How are you" in a caring tone and listening carefully, asking a follow-up, for example, “I’ve been thinking a lot about vaccination. What are you thinking about or doing these days?” Also, look for opportunities to give earned credit for their work, idea, whatever.
Becoming more interesting to listen to
Keep your utterances under 30 seconds, certainly under a minute. If you don’t have a good sense of how long that is, practice with a timer. And put yourself in the listener’s shoes: Are they likely interested in those details or tangent? Does it seem self-absorbed? And in most two-person conversations, aim to talk a little less than half the time.
If you'd like to have more to talk about, perhaps read more, perhaps the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today?
Becoming more diligent
Start with one task that you often have to do that could use more diligence. Do you want to get in the habit of starting it earlier? Doing it more thoroughly?
Becoming more competent
Start with one thing on which you’d like to be more competent: writing, time-management, something technical, whatever. Should you tackle it with self-study, getting feedback, for example, from a coworker or tutor, or by taking a class?
Looking better
Unfortunately, we are a lookist society, but unless you're willing to pay a big price, you might want to devote some attention to your appearance.
Of course, the standard advice has legitimacy: Take some care in clothing, hair, and personal hygiene. But let’s take worst case, the unusual situation in which your face is irretrievably unattractive, at least in terms of society’s norm. A legitimate way to feel better about yourself is to recognize that if, on the substance, you’re a good person, that will be noted by some people, striking a small blow against lookism.
Going solo
Despite all such efforts, if for much of your life, you’ve usually been unwanted, you might reduce your efforts to worm your way into the mainstream's heart and instead, minimize interactions with people when they or the situation doesn’t bring out the best in you. For example, you might ask your boss if you could do more solo than team work. In your personal life, spend as much time as possible in solo activities or with the discerning person(s) with whom you click.
The takeaway
Is there at least one of the aforementioned suggestions for improvement that you’d like to try, and/or is it time to focus on self-acceptance?