How to be a co-living person? I have the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality— I seek no help and I am calculative on what I give, without meaning to. It just doesn’t occur to me to ask for help even in hardest times, and offering anything more than required takes a hard conscious effort. How do I change my mindset? This is harming my love life, friendship, prof network, etc.

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It might be worth digging into where that mindset comes from and what influences it. Chatting with a therapist might be a good start. One thing that comes to mind for me is the framework of “scarcity mindset” versus “abundance mindset” - is recommend googling these concepts. Having an abundance mindset makes it easier to want to offer and receive help. 

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Yea you definitely could use some therapy and somebody to talk to help delve deeper. I can definitely see how this negatively impacts your career and personal relationships.

I think you’ve identified where it comes from. It does make sense. But I think a therapist will help you delve into it more. It seems that way of thinking has limited your ability to empathize with others. I think empathy is key to connecting with others and honestly to leading a fulfilled life. The most fulfilled I ever feel in my life is when I’m helping someone else - just small things like a kind note to a coworker or listening to their venting about a hard and deep work thing or personal thing fo make me personally feel good and more connected in the world. And bigger things like bringing my coworkers coffee and surprise breakfast or mentoring teenagers are like the best things ever. But to feel that fulfillment and connection you need to have the empathy.

My mom has this “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality and I’ve analyzed it a lot. I think for her, a big core piece of that is honestly believing the American myth of solo achievement. She worked her way up and had achieved a lot but believes she’s done that on her own. I think examining that myth and where you have had support, privledge or advantage makes you realize that you didn’t bootstrap it 100%. I believe no one does - everyone has advantages of some kind even when we think we make it on our own merits alone. For you, even though you obviously worked very hard and came from a tough spot when young, I assume your parents had some type of community to support them either here when they immigrated or abroad. They also did financially earn over time, and you had two parents not one or zero. I assume they were smart and valued education and helped you go to the best schools you could. Certainly your hard work builds on all those things but they are still part of your story and how you got to where you are. Our parents are by far the biggest factor in our success but we often think we got somewhere based on US and our own hard work. I think if you get honest with yourself about that bootstrap mentality and realize that you didn’t do it all on your own but you’re instead standing on the contributions of many from your family, community, teachers etc, then it will help you empathize with others who know they need help and aren’t afraid to ask for it sometimes. When we realize we aren’t individually as strong as we tell ourselves we are, it helps us ask for and receive help from others as well as feel generous to give it.

Hmm this is interesting but not very relatable. My therapist tells me I’m too harsh on myself, that I’m always not giving credit to myself. I remember in college we had to write down what helped us get here, and I was shocked that everyone else wrote down their hard work, intelligence etc— my list was full of what my others did and sacrificed for me, and nothing attributed to myself. I always feel like I did nothing.

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