Why overcorrecting oneself is counterproductive
Dear readers,
Have you ever thought to yourself that, no matter how much you achieve or how much success you’ve amassed, still you’re feeling like you’re not enough ?
And despite the approval and endorsement from your friends and family, you still feel broken inside, as if you don’t deserve them in the first place ?
Or perhaps when you beat yourself up over a mistake that others call trivial ?
If the answers to those questions above are a “Yes”, then perhaps you and me are on the same boat.
My story with overcorrection
It all starts with when my bad habits got out of control in my mid-teens.
I was a reclusive, timid and soft-spoken kid with fiery passion for simple pleasures. During downtime I’d indulge in games or those dirty stuff we all know and hate.
And after years of teenage mediocrity I had finally had enough of it. I knew for a fact that I needed to change, to change for the better.
Back then, it was fair to say that I was a piece of human anti-achievement. Apart from the school accolades in English competitions, I had no real hobbies, part time jobs or a vibrant social life. It’s just me, the bright LED screen and occasionally some bags of chips.
Quitting those addictions got so hard that I eventually received traumas that took years for me to recover. I recovered somewhat from that mental rut, by working on my crafts and skills, adopting a couple of healthy habits like reading and writing.
I exercised 6 days per week, shunned sugar and comfort foods, meditated 15 minutes per day and set aside 1 hour or two for fun. I was in my best shape in my entire life and I could see my intelligence spiked. But no matter how much I’ve achieved, there was always something inadequate about me.
Those traumatic experiences from high school didn’t stop creeping up into my mind, and that screwed my productivity by half. It impacted my self-image and self-esteem to the point that I kept questioning if I had some neurological condition, like ADHD or Asperger’s syndrome. No girls seemed to be interested in me during those college years, got bullied by a coworker at my part time job and almost screwed up in school tests.
Feeling like a total train wreck, instead of backing down and reflect on my sad life, I doubled down on my self remediation effort. More work, harsher workouts and MORE discipline.
And guess what, few years down the road, I was relatively the same old me. Even though I’ve worked in a job and got some freelance work. Those trauma didn’t stop giving me nervous reactions, my muscles didn’t get significantly bigger, high paying jobs didn’t grace my life enough, and *drumrolls please* involuntarily single.
20-something but still do be living like a moody, withdrawn college freshman. I never feel like I’ve grown up.
Surely this signals a bigger personal repair work, right ?
And my initial answer was “Right”. I worked tirelessly for another round, formulate theories around my neuroses, and continued improving my social skills.
Except for the fact that my plan fell through by the time my hormones shuffled across the body. That’s when I realized that I was putting myself through a loop of pain and frustration.
Why we overcorrect
Overcorrection comes from a multitude of factors. Our families might be over critical of us when we were young ( that was me actually ), and other people simply projected their insecurities onto us.
“Son…don’t hold your chopsticks like that.”
“You shouldn’t go out with friends like that.”
“You shouldn’t be thinking this way.”
“Remember, a gentleman never admits failure.”
A pattern emerging from those questions tells that it’s wrong to be authentic to ourselves, and because it’s difficult to determine our self-worth, our place in the society, we often compare ourselves to those high up on the social ladder, even if it sabotages your mental health.
Then we keep raising our bar to the level that is out of reach — that is, anything less than our goal is a disaster and you deserve a reality check.
Self-moderation is a tricky business and setbacks are likely going to occur, so the only viable choice is to overcompensate yourself and force yourself to change everything about you.
You would hyper-focus on your flaws, and get paranoid whenever things go too well for you.
In order to keep up with the momentum, you’re gonna spend your life solving problems that don’t exist anymore. And sadly we still think that we can eventually put our flaws under control.
Even though you feel like you’re doing work and improving yourself, but in reality you’re stuck in the same mental rut.
How I took action against it
I have to admit, it’s difficult to make a playbook for dealing with this, but it’s even more difficult to maintain your new mindset with the playbook.
Anyways, I reexamined the reason behind why I was overcorrecting.
My personal reason was probably being abstracted by other compelling ones, such as trying to be valuable to employers or being lovable to others. It took me a whole year of abject failure to recognize the root cause mentioned above.
Then I decided to move slower with my life, by taking quality breaks at the end of each day, went out more with friends and most importantly….
Make peace with your flaws.
I still get distracted from work at times, sometimes my brain would freeze up at some unpleasant flashbacks and screw up things that I shouldn’t.
But they’re all fine to me. Because I knew for a fact that they’re not going to affect me as much. I can let go the thoughts and feelings just as easy as shaking off feathers. I don’t have to change it or suppress it — just leave them as they are and they will fade into the background.
Truthfully speaking, those thoughts don’t affect me as much as my pathological desire to control every outcome and mold myself ruthlessly to become the kind of person that I want.
We cannot self-hate our way into lives we love.
I journaled down my thoughts, experiences and actions for over a year now, and from reading the old entries I was able to sympathize with the person I was back then. The old me was just as diligent and conscientious as I was now.
If I hadn’t kept a journal, I’d sure to narrate my past stories with my inaccurate memories of it. Not to mention excessively negative feelings can distort our view of reality.
From there, I stopped being too hard with myself. I could let go of my past slip ups better and actually learn from it — not ruminate it.
I’d still try to improve myself no matter what, but it should came from self-respect and self-love. I want to self improve because I want to treat myself better, to keep becoming the person I knew and love.
Final words
This post has been the most personal since a year ago. and if you’ve been struggling with self-hate and overcompensation, I hope this post helps.
Because the happiest thing to happen to me is that I’ve helped you guys in a positive way. Don’t hesitate to comment your thoughts down below !
