There is nothing wrong with having a healthy self-esteem and celebrating your achievements. That’s great! But if you feel that you are turning more to bragging and less to celebrating, it’s necessary to take a look. Bragging can lead to issues with other people and hurt your own view of yourself.
People might envy you
The first reason is that bragging can lead to envy much more than just sharing what you’ve done. When you brag, you might be overplaying the importance or success that you have achieved, and others, who believe it, could feel jealous of it and frustrated because they could not achieve the same.
Of course, they might not know if you are exaggerating the matter, which can increase their frustration.
Sure, some people might feel equally envious in other situations, but bragging sometimes means that you are provoking this emotion or seeking it. By putting a lot of focus on your achievements and embellishing a little, you encourage other people to feel envy, which can hurt your relationships and lead to negative behaviors from these people that might otherwise be avoided.
You get overconfident
Another danger of bragging too much is that you believe your own hype. You start feeling overconfident and lose the caution and doubt that can sometimes contribute to better decision-making.
Overconfidence is not always a problem, but often it will lead to poor choices. You might agree to things you should not do or overestimate your abilities and end up doing worse than you expected.
Overconfidence can lead to a situation where you might eventually lose confidence in yourself. It’s better to find a balance, and bragging can have the unintended consequence of convincing you that you are amazing or can’t make mistakes.
You might focus too much on the material
Bragging can often involve focusing on your possessions and things. You might want to brag about what you have and what you own, rather than worthier things. In turn, it can shift your mindset and encourage you to pursue more things, rather than achievements or growth goals.
It’s fine to value the things you have and talk about them, but if you focus on them too much, it makes you feel that your own worth depends on material objects. It can also make you pursue the wrong thing. Rather than following what fulfills you, you might turn to whatever promises more material objects.
You lose sight of your growth
Another potential issue is that you feel like you’ve made it. If you are bragging, what’s the point of doing better or growing as a person? You might feel like you are on the top, and this mindset is not always great for continued improvement.
Humility helps us recognize what we yet don’t know and pushes us to learn more and do better. But bragging is contrary to humility, and, as such, can blind us to our own flaws and faults. It’s not that you shouldn’t feel satisfied or happy with what you have done, but that you should not treat your achievements as the end of the road.
You damage your relationships
It’s important to share your achievements with the people close to you, but there is a difference between this and bragging. It’s not the same. When you brag, you might do it with a sense of superiority other people might dislike.
Bragging can hurt your relationships, because others can grow tired of hearing such elevated praise of yourself and pull away. It can also have the intended or unintended consequence of making those around you feel inferior, an unpleasant feeling they will want to avoid. Being known as a braggart can also damage your reputation or make people more likely to question what you say or pay less attention to what you are sharing.
Overall, bragging can feel nice while you’re doing it and then lead to unexpected consequences. In the end, bragging does more damage, especially to your relationships and your own sense of achievement and accomplishment.
Focus instead of sharing your successes with humility and with the people who care about you, you might find the effects to be unexpected and very pleasant.
