You're Not a People Pleaser. You're Proving Something.

**Find out where you are being held back.** The quiz takes three minutes: [amenkaur.com/quiz](amenkaur.com/quiz) You have been trying harder than you have ever tried, and it is not working. This episode looks at what actually happens to your sense of worth when you lose the thing you had been proving it with, why affirmations can make it worse, and two things that genuinely help. Underneath most people-pleasing there is one thing going on. We are trying to prove we are worth something. But proving your worth and feeling your worth are two different things, and one does not lead to the other. In this episode I look at what actually happens when the thing you had been proving yourself through is taken away. Why effort stops working at exactly the point you need it most. Why the advice you have been given, including affirmations, can make it worse rather than better. And two things you can do this week that actually restore something. I also share what happened in my own working life, a client of mine who went from being made to feel less than to thriving in a different environment, and a wasp at my daughter's window. **In this episode:** - Why losing a role can feel like losing yourself - What the pursuit of self-esteem actually costs you - Rigid persistence, and why trying harder is not the same as trying well - What stress does to the part of your brain that makes decisions - Why affirmations backfire for the people who need them most - The open tab, and why unfinished things drain you - Two things that give you your capacity back **The research referenced:** - Jennifer Crocker and Connie Wolfe, Contingencies of Self-Worth, Psychological Review, 2001 - Jennifer Crocker and Lora Park, The Costly Pursuit of Self-Esteem, Psychological Bulletin, 2004 - Robert Vallerand and colleagues, on harmonious and obsessive passion, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003 - Amy Arnsten, Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2009 - Joanne Wood, Elaine Perunovic and John Lee, Positive self-statements: power for some, peril for others, Psychological Science, 2009 - Kitty Klein and Adriel Boals, Expressive writing can increase working memory capacity, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2001 - Gabriel Radvansky and David Copeland, Walking through doorways causes forgetting, Memory and Cognition, 2006 - Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz, Give your ideas some legs, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2014 **Find out where you are being held back.** The quiz takes three minutes: [amenkaur.com/quiz](amenkaur.com/quiz) If this episode landed, rating the show is the single most useful thing you can do to help someone else find it.