Everyone wants to be rewarded - but first we must go the extra mile.
One of the most important motivators for people pretty much across the globe is the motive of appreciation. We all want to be valued and appreciated which holds true in both our professional and private life. The degrees to which we have this desire can vary, sometimes more, sometimes less, but to regularly experience some level of appreciation from our surroundings is essential. However, what many of us in need forget, this does not just come by itself. Appreciation from others always requires a lot of underlying hard work and care for others as well. How others see us does not just happen, it is the result of hard work and effort, and we constantly must work on it.
Appreciation and being valued by others or receiving positive feedback from our environment can boost our self – confidence and ultimately make us more fulfilled and happier in our life overall. However, many of us forget that this requires work and input from ourselves.
In a world where things can get tough around us, having a healthy self-confidence and learning to love ourselves is essential to live our lives as authentic, strong, and confident individuals in often difficult environments. However, many of us, also driven using social media and other channels, fall into the trap of over loving or overestimating ourselves. If we start to think too high of ourselves, the route to arrogance is often very short. This will not lead to the reception of appreciation from our surrounding, but rather make us seem self-obsessed and overconfident in other people’s eyes. If there is a growing discrepancy therefore between how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us, the result is often disappointment and misunderstanding, why we do not receive as much value and positive signals from our surrounding as we with for.
We therefore must understand that value and appreciation do not come for granted. If follows a work hard first and get rewarded later approach, which we often don’t understand and take appreciation and value for granted. The beauty of this echo mechanism is also, that we can become active and value and reward others first, to then have the same happen to us. This is very important to understand. The question to ask here is – how often have we told others around us that they are awesome and special to us? How often have we really appreciated and valued them in an active way? Only when we ourselves do this will be feel like we receive the same from people around us. Many people never actively pursue this and are often surprised to what extend this negatively influences their own reception of appreciation by others. The rewards here will come slowly but they will eventually come.
Appreciation is always a result of going the extra mile and working hard, especially in a professional context. Not many people nowadays however are willing to do this. Are we really willing to work until late at night? Are we willing to sacrifice family life to help colleagues? Those are the things that can really make the difference. To get valued and appreciated it is essential that sometimes we therefore do exactly that, make an impact for others not so much ourselves and go the extra mile to help our team and drive everyone forward together. This however becomes more and more difficult in a very self-centered society. We therefore must start doing things for others around us first and being less centered on ourselves and our desires, to eventually receive the reward for our actions through value and appreciation from others. The earlier we start the better, as this can be a long-term journey rather than just a short walk in time.
