Welcome back to Savvy Psychologist. I'm your interim host, Dr. Ellen Hedrickson,

and this is my last episode of Interim Hosting. You'll have a brand new savvy psychologist soon,

and as always, they'll help you face life's challenges with evidence-based approaches, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.

This week, how to know if you did a good job.

In our competitive, ratings-oriented culture, evaluation is everywhere.

We're immersed in reviews, likes, and follows, which makes it hard to escape the

pull of other people's opinions. In this context, to decide if we did well at something,

it's easy to default to asking, did people like it? Did I get approval? For example, did I get

compliments on my presentation? Did people exclaim and delight

over my charcutory board? Did I get a standing ovation at karaoke? Did people like it? Can be a legitimate

part of evaluating your performance. After all, an editor does have to greenlight your work before they publish it.

A coach does have to approve your routine for competition. Plus, getting compliments and

positive feedback feels good. Did people like it can work when we're trying to determine if

what we did was good. However, sometimes, did people like it, emphatically does not work.

There's a term from perfectionism research called over-evaluation, which is when we conflate our

performance with our self-worth. Think striver students defining themselves by their grades,

or investors confusing their net worth with

their self-worth. Forgive my grammar, but it's, I did good, so I am good, or I did bad, so I am bad.

If that wasn't enough, over-evaluation gets supersized if we take other people's judgment of our

performance and turn it into a judgment

of ourselves as a person. Think of athletes or musicians who define themselves by the roar of the

crowd, social media influencers who confuse their self-worth with their number of followers,

...