Doing the Right Thing Eliminates Overcompensation
Overcompensation comes from over-compensating. Sounds easy like that right?
No, not really.
Certain things give rise to overcompensation, deep-rooted things for that matter. But one of the major things that cause overcompensation is not doing the right thing.
Our experiences and upbringing shape our mode of living. Furthermore, what guides these actions and give rise to our character is our inner belief system which makes up our morality for distinguishing when we do something right and wrong.
Therefore when we feel strongly about a character flaw in execution, it can go a long way to trigger us to want to overcompensate for them.
It works like this:
Compensation describes a situation when we make up for something as it appears. Overcompensation is when we go overboard for seemingly the same flaw. It’s a psychological distress that gets activated and rewards our mind through punishing it first through overcompensating.
The cascade of overcompensation follows thus:
you might be underpaying your staff. You know you’re clearly cheating them. Your moral upbringing shaped your thoughts that cheating is wrong, and so you carry on with it due to other reasons best known to you. The end-result of this said thing causes you to keep being overly nice to them. You buy them gifts or take them to lunch, or exempt them from performing some official duties, some unethical behaviors like that... This is an example of overcompensation.
Which is antithetical to compensation.
Where you might increase their number of days of leave, reducing their responsibilities (formerly), increasing their bonuses.
Or addressing the wrong thing by increasing their salary and paying them what they are due.
This the proper thing to do
This is the proper thing to do to avoid overcompensation. This is also because overcompensation, in conjunction with psychological distress, can give rise to exhaustion — synonymous to a people-pleaser’s ordeal. So you want to avoid feeling uncomfortable each time to assess or access something you believe you’re not doing right.
The scenario above also explains how addressing wrong deeds can eliminate overcompensation. This can be a hazy process due to several blind spots (when you think you’re just being nice for instance). Most times we don’t recognize we’re overcompensating until we pay attention to our daily actions. Other times we may recognize the wrong deed but are unsure how to rid them. Simply evaluating our actions either through intentionality or elimination method until we find out the root cause of why we’re overcompensating is a way we can stop overcompensating. But first, you must be willing to accept you’re overcompensating.
Summing up:
Compensating a lack or wrong deed isn’t unreasonable. It’s the proper thing to do because as humans we can’t always get things right all time. There will be loopholes, blind spots, and some insufficiencies in our character towards ourselves or others. What matters is making amends. The issue arises from overcompensating, which is the ominous type that leaves us psychologically exhausted.
There’re more than one reasons overcompensation could arise, but one of the main reasons people overcompensate a lot is due to an unfair or impartial treatment meted against others, and so instead of correcting it, as hard as it may seem, they settle with overcompensation. Which ends up burning them out.
