Extrinsic motivated to do personal development

[korbes]

I have always been different, my entire life.

I've been called weird a few times, but mostly, I just try to go under the radar, so I can fit in and be "normal" and accepted.

As I was contemplating today, I found out, that my entire identity and ego is revolving around being better than others. And I figured out that I wanted to be better than all my friends, old friends, and all the people from my elementary school class incl. their parents. I want so bad to be better than them, in terms of personal development, to be more evolved than them, so that I can "prove them wrong" in a way, and show them, that there was never anything wrong with my "weirdness", I've just been a creative and clever kid.

I believe I am doing a lot of personal development (mostly just buying books, reading them and posting them on Goodreads, but also meditating a little etc.) just for the sake of proving people wrong, so I can become better than them, and they can look up to me and envy me and all the work I've done. That's my egos fantasy.

Now, luckily I know that this is a dangerous path to go on, and I have never ever in the last couple of months, felt so sad, so hopeless and lost, probably because I am not living for me, I am living to get acceptance from others, so they can see how good I am.

The problem is, I am also intrinsically motivated to do personal development, but not enough, I really want to live a better life, be a lot more conscious, have much more self-acceptance, self-love etc. But I don't know how to flip this current extrinsic motivation to something intrinsically, so it comes from a deep desire within, instead of a desire to be better than others. Do you guys have any idea, on how to reframe my ego/identity so it's not about becoming better than others, and also, to reframe my motivation, so it's coming from the inside, rather than outside?

[Espaim]

Have you read this thread? It may be useful.

[nistake]

Since awareness alone is curative (check out Leo's video about it if you haven't already), I think you're halfway there.

Build a strong and consistent meditation habit and maybe start journaling. You may be need to contemplate this issue a few times, but if you give it enough time, hopefully this whole thing will turn around and your motivations will also change.