Reply To: Overcompensation

Hi Truman,

Thanks for posting.

What you have described might be related to specific contexts, or just a general sense “not enough as I am.”

Please elaborate on when the fear of rejection or not being liked shows up for you.

There are different ways to completely resolve this. You can CT the contexts where this shows up. Just directly CT the feeling of not being enough and that you need to overcompensate. Get this down to a 0 or 1. Imagine the rejection you are seeking to avoid. Meet it head-on and CT it away.

Then, you might want to venture down the belief route.

The core beliefs like “I was not important” or “I was not good enough” really would need to be eliminated first. If anyone holds those beliefs, they then have to do certain things and act in certain ways to compensate for what they lack.

In what ways do you overcompensate?

It may be a combination of things,

For some people, they don't feel good enough unless they impress people. A belief to blast there might be:

“Impressing people made me good enough” or “getting the approval of others made me good enough”

For others, it is achievement:

“Achieving things made me good enough”

For other people, it is about knowledge or intelligence:

“Being intelligent made me good enough”

For others, it is about physical appearance.

For others, it is a certain career, role or having a certain amount of money.

The common thread is “being thought well of by others” and, in this age of social media, so many people have gone to tremendous lengths to achieve this. In some cases, this makes the desired outcome either fleeting or less likely (e.g. it being viewed as inauthentic). It may even feel like self-sabotage, but is usually well-intentioned.

When you go down this rabbit hole and eliminate the “need to be liked”, or the “need to get lots of attention”, it creates so much freedom and possibility.

If we make our sense of self contingent on praise, attention, approval, money, achievement, physical appearance etc., then we put everything outside of ourselves. It means we either are or are not based on external factors. That is not a model that tends to lead to a sense of ongoing fulfilment.

There is nothing wrong with desiring being liked or getting attention, of course, but it is a different game when these are preferences rather than compulsions. In other words, even if someone didn't like you, you know you are already good enough and can deal with anyone's reaction in its corect context.

Thanks again for posting and I look forward to your reply.

Paul