Wrong motivations on why I like to help others

I wonder why I like to help others so much as in to postpone my own activities and immediately give help. It turns out that I have wrong motivations for doing that.

First, helping others for something that I can help have less emotional burden. This means that I am free from the high expectation of myself since I know I can do it and anyway the result is not measured against me but to the person whom I help. This is in contrast to if I do my own job where my perfectionism may kick in that the emotional pressure for doing that is much higher. How do I know this? There are two situations which reveals this wrong motivation of mine. The first situation is when the problem is too difficult for me. In this case, I will feel helpless and hate why I know this problem in the first place, an indication that I want to run away from high emotional burden. The second situation is when I am asked to help where my name will be put or there is a possibility of having others reviewing me. For example, I feel stressed when asked to write testimonial letter and when trying to help to lead a prayer meeting. This is because I am afraid that I wrote poorly or lead poorly and creates emotional burden.

Second, I prefer helping others to myself as I have external rewards such as praises from others. Inside, somehow I can also appreciate better when I help others. There is a feeling good created after helping others. In short, there is reward from helping others. This is in contrast when I just do my job. Since it is my job, most probably there is less praises from others. It is fine when we have a system to reward ourselves. Unfortunately I have not developed a habit and compassion to reward myself when I do my own tasks. Usually I will give excuse that I do not know what I like. But to be honest, this is not true. I know that I like praises but it is very difficult to give encouragement to myself.

By identifying these wrong motivations, I hope that I can help myself more. Also, when I help others, hopefully I have the right motivations based on care for others and not for relieving my emotional burden or getting the rewards that I seldom give to myself.