Feeling proud is one of the best feeling in the world. When you are proud, you feel satisfied with yourself. What you’ve done is totally awesome and you know it. And your achievement deserves to be celebrated. Your accomplishments, both major and minor should be honored. 

However, pride is usually taken in a very negative way. 

But very few know that if used in a proper way, pride is good for mental well-being.

Yes, it may sound wired but trust me, pride is important to your mental health.

Positive Impact Of Feeling Proud

In psychology, pride is considered as positive emotion. Pride is the joy you feel due to a personal or collective achievement, qualities or possessions. 

It is a feeling of self-respect or pleasure in something by which you measure your self-worth, or being a reason for pride. It could be an ability for displaying great dignity or nobility. With this feeling, you feel confident and accomplished. 

Pride is the joy of knowing that you have accomplished something you consider significant. Allowing yourself to feel pride boosts self-esteem, motivation and hopefulness. All three are crucial to your desire to lead a better life.

This feeling of pleasure and satisfaction indicates that you have done or got something good either for self or for people. 

Pride is a positive self-conscious and social emotion, characterized by self-worth and self-inflation.

Reflecting on your achievements and improvements makes you feel better about yourself. This little internal love brings along with it a whole basket of positive emotions like self-love, self-respect, happiness, feelings of accomplishment, confidence, and self-assurance. 

When you celebrate your accomplishments, you will always feel fulfilled. It will motivate you to move forward and increase your feeling of contentment.

When your mind feel good, your body feels good. You might feel like the world is a little bit brighter today. You’re probably feeling super good that helps to improve energy levels, better sleep, increased self-esteem, boost productivity and increase resilience.

In this way, feeling proud is an amazing and enriching experience. It is a wonderful way to stay motivated.  

Therefore, it’s absolutely okay to take pride in yourself. You’re simply celebrating yourself at every stage of growth and for every win.

Pride and self-esteem

Of course, pride and self-esteem are closely related. In essence, you can experience a high degree of self-esteem when you first experience momentary pride.

People who are more talented or smart or successful have higher self-esteem because of their positive attributes and accomplishments.

Evolutionary, pride would serve the function of boosting your self-confidence. This is clearly important in cases of achieving goals and pursuing purpose. Once you have feelings of pride, you are likely to give your best because you feel that you deserve to win anyway.

When you feel proud of an achievement, you subsequently form a desire to recapture it. This helps you create personal ladder of success. E.g. when you write one good article, you feel motivate to write more better articles in the future. This improves your self-efficacy, or the sense of your own abilities.

Feeling pride produces an outward behavior change that communicates your success to others and make you more attractive to others. 

Think this way :  you set out to do a task, you successfully accomplish it. That makes you feel good. You feel happy and you smile. Even if you say nothing to others, you behave differently. You may be more outgoing, cheerful, generous and confident. This encourages the repetition of successful behavior and feedback loop. So, pride is part of your preprogrammed strategy for survival.

A life with pride i.e. living to enjoy the success is more meaningful and worthy to live.

Don’t you think that feeling proud of yourself is something you should all aim to practice?

Embracing feeling of being proud

To increase your significance in your perspective, you must admire who you are, what you do and appreciate where you are in your life.

You should not only be proud of the major steps you’ve taken, but every step forward is valuable and worthy of acknowledgment.

You need to praise yourself when you clearly deserve it because you’re worthy. It’s a time to cheer for the great things you’ve done in your life. 

There are numerous reasons to feel pride about self especially when your dream come true, people respect your work, you feel special in people’s eyes, people understand you. 

Be proud of yourself for how far you’ve come and pushing to be the best you can be. Be proud that your intentions are good. Be proud of the fact that you are trying. Be proud of yourself because you have your priorities in order.

Be proud of yourself if you are responsible, reliable, persistent, and take your job and education seriously. Be proud of yourself when you do keep going. Allow yourself to be proud for all the progress you’ve made, especially that no one else can see. It’s about being proud of who you are, being proud of your situation and just being stoked that things are always going to get better and that’s such a great thing.

It is always good to accept positive recognition and admiration of  progress. Recognition of our own strengths make us feel empowered in our life path. 

However, pride, in excess can be dangerous too. Excessive pride may lead to arrogance that strain relationships. It can blind individuals to their own faults and hinder personal growth. 

In conclusion, pride, when healthy, can be a powerful tool for cultivating positive mental health and fostering overall well-being.

Disclaimer 

Mediclin Brain Health’s content is for informational and educational purposes only. Our website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.