Is there any advice or tips for someone who can’t stop bragging on how to be humble? I think bragging and hyping up my achievements/abilities has been a common bad habit I picked up when entering university. I’m 26 years old now and that bad habit has never died.
When I was young, throughout highschool, I had an inferiority complex which is why I think I ended up this way when I moved to university where no one really knew you. In the recent years I have been bragging about the things I can do and overhype my achievements (even the little ones) and my abilities. That bad habit has made me a little bit popular in my classes. But now it has impacted my life where people think I’m overly cocky and arrogant. I have been aware of this for several years, and was brought to the attention of my overbragging habits by people close to me.
I’m trying to get rid of this habit by becoming more humble and practice humility. I used to meditate, but it never stuck. Everytime I tried to meditate, I subconsciously go back to the habit of talking about myself and my achievements. And once I’ve realized it, I always feel terrible because it feels like I’m unable to control it. It has affected my ability to build new relationships, and even at work because I overhype my capabilities while only demonstrating average performance. Some colleagues have thought of me to be a showoff or a know-it-all, and has been confrontational and aggressive with me.
I really want to change. I have a big ego. But I don’t want to die one day and be remembered as a guy who’s arrogant and only loves to talk about himself and how great he is. Any tips and advice on how I can restrain myself from bragging or to be more humble/humility?
8 comments
Therapy
The problem is, you’re hypercompensating. You maybe still think that the things you do aren’t good enough so you have to display it to get outside appreciation. I think that’s normal given your background. But to humble yourself is to be mindful. You know that everything you did can be life changing for you, an university degree is fantastic. Landing the first 100k job feels amazing. And having the „perfect“ partner feels like a dream. But everything you achieve can be taken away from you. Everything you achieve someone else also achieved, everything you base your successes on is built on hundreds of years of human evolution. Take that away, and ask yourself who’s left? So don’t Identify yourself with your achievements, rather identify yourself with the process of improving. You got the degree? Good! But it’s even better that you were able to focus on a specific goal and work hard for that. You got the new job? Good! But it’s better that you’re a competent young man who’s still going further in his career. You got the beautiful girl? Perfectly fine! But it’s better that you’re actually a good man being appreciative of the girl and being appreciated by her.
All that to say this, there is much more than your achievements you’ve already made. So no Need to brag about them. But on the other side, don’t forget to give yourself due credit without hoping to be seen for it.
Good luck.
Meditation takes practice. It’s not about not having thoughts, it’s more about not REACTING to the thoughts you do have.
Imagine your brain is a train station and your thoughts are the train.
When a train pulls up to the station it’s our instinct to get on- regardless of where that thought is going.
The trick is not getting on the train. You can watch it pull up and if yo don’t board, it drives away without you.
All meditation is, is practcing not getting on every train that comes into the station.
One thing I remind myself is that others are better than me. Some may call this comparison negative, but this nips any thought of “bragging” to the bud because I know that I need to do *much* better to even come close to my peers, who are smarter and just better than me.
Failing hundreds of times (for example, in job applications) has ensured that I have no “ego”.
Only way your gonna fix this is by reducing your ego. Good luck to you because my roommate is like this and he is insufferable.
Gratitude journal. I forget to be humble too. When I force myself to sit down and write a few sentences on things I’m grateful for, my accomplishments and good praise doesn’t mean much. Do it daily.
A kinda unconventional one, but works for me: whenever I feel like I need to calm my ego down, I will watch my go-to videos that breaks my heart and makes me want to cry. Like watching a TedTalk about a North Korean kid talking about feeling guilty about eating because parents and sister are still in NK. That pops that ego in an instant for me.
“It’s not about thinking less of yourself, it’s about thinking of yourself less.”
I think you need to dig the issue deeper. Therapy is a tool to do that, you can also try building frameworks yourself to try figure it out.
For example, off the top of my hat, i think you can categorize things by “how, what, why”.
How has it negatively impacted your life? (Brainstorm as much points as possible, including how it’s affecting the ppl around you)
What are the “bragging” behaviours? (You gonna have to be brutally honest and break them down, so you can catch yourself doing it in the future)
Ask yourself “Why am I like this??”(Imo this is a life-long journey to figure out, for everyone cuz we all have our own demons to fight)
After analysis, have an action plan to address the negative impact of this personality trait has on your life. Short term and long term. For example, meditation would be long term. Because the main benefit is allowing yourself to be more present and catch yourself getting triggered and then start the bragging behaviour.
— the action plan should ideally include behaviours to replace the bragging behaviour. Because sometimes, we do things because that’s the only things we know how to do. When u catch yourself bragging, and want to shut up, but it’d be hard to shut up if you have nothing else to talk about.. so for eg, replace bragging with asking about others’s perspective or opinions.
Lastly, we are all imperfect in our own way. Dont be too harsh on yourself. Improve a little bit everyday. Just focus on channeling good intention to everything you do. It’s like the quickest sanity check: im bragging right now, what’s my intention behind this? Just to show im better? That might hurt the person im talking to, i should not do that.