Self-Esteem

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

How would you recognise self esteem in someone else? What does self esteem look like? Understanding how self esteem manifests itself in your behaviours can help you to evaluate your own self esteem and work out where you might need to improve.

When you understand the behaviour of a person with true self esteem rather than false self esteem hiding a deep inner insecurity you will realise that the qualities of self esteem are positive and supportive of mutually beneficial relationships.

The face of self esteem

Someone with high self esteem is really enjoying their life, they take pleasure in being alive and they radiate this joy. After all, they are confident that they deserve to enjoy being alive and they can cope adequately with everything that life throws at them.

If you have high self esteem you will be able to talk about your achievements and successes and also you will be able to easily admit mistakes and failures. You are comfortable with the facts of your circumstances and you know that mistakes and failures are things that happen. You will know that you are not a mistake or a failure.

High self esteem means that you do not need to be defensive when someone criticises you. You can evaluate the criticism in a rational way and decide whether it is just or unjust before responding. When you have high self esteem you are able to learn from past events without the need to distort what happened to protect your self esteem.

If you have high self esteem, you are not at war with yourself internally. Your speech and your movements are free, flowing and spontaneous, reflecting the ease that you feel with yourself.

All your communications with the outside world are consistent with each other. Your words, your tone of voice, your body language and your actions all tell the same story. You have no need to disguise or try to repress anything which means that your non-verbal communications match your verbal communications.

You are not afraid to assert yourself when you need to and you are not initmidated by assertive behaviour in others. You need to distinguish assertive behaviour from aggression. Assertive behavious can be characterised as seeking a win-win results whereas aggressive behaviour is seeking a win-loose result.

High self esteem means that you have the internal security to be curious and explore new ideas, new places, meet new people and form new relationships easily. You can be open to new possibilities and new ideas and you will respond to challenges with flexibility and confidence.

Of course even if you have high self esteem, you will have times when you feel self doubt, intimidation or overwhelm. You are not superman and you will encounter circumstances that you simply can’t cope with. However, with high self esteem you will be able to accept these feelings and deal with them with dignity. You are more likely to rise above them and as a consequence, such negative feelings will not trouble you for too long.

High self esteem is an important part of a successful and fulfilled life. High self esteem frees you to exhibit positive behaviours that reinforce mutually beneficial relationships. Learn the tell-tale signs of high self esteem and use them as a model to aspire to on your journey to a more fulfilling life.

Would you like to learn more about the six pillars of self esteem?

You can get a free e-course the success principle. Visit my website for more resources, articles, and support materials about success and personal growth.

Kevin John has spent many years helping businesses owners, aspiring business owners, and private individuals to develop the understanding and skills needed to achieve the success that they want.

The truth is, self esteem is a mental fabrication. It has no objective existence of its own like might a part of the body or something in the natural environment. We can all agree on a person’s height, weight or even how fast he or she can walk a mile. But, there is no way to measure self esteem that is objective or standardized. That’s actually a good thing because it means any person can make self esteem to be what they choose. But, therein lies the problem as well.

We might think a person who is successful in business, productive and wealthy, has “high” self esteem. Yet, that may not be the case. In fact, it may be that their success is a way of compensating for “low” self esteem. Those who strive for superiority, and may in some ways achieve it, can be attempting to overcome feelings of inferiority. Or, imagine a student who gets straight A’s year after year. Does that indicate high self esteem? Or, does it indicate fear of punishment? Or, does it indicate competitiveness? On the other hand, we might envision a mother of five children, barely able to make ends meet and who yet is happy and relatively unburdened by the amount of stressors in her environment. How does one gauge her self esteem?

Self esteem cannot be gauged by the outer conditions of our situations or circumstances. It can be determined, in part, by how we interact with and respond to our situations and circumstances. Generally, we can say that a person with high self esteem is

* Understanding and supportive of others
* willing to listen to others
* a generous giver
* eager to learn new information
* able to change beliefs and behaviors based on new knowledge

Low self esteem can generally be characterized as

* Overbearing and demanding towards others
* self absorbed and small minded
* a stingy taker
* frightened of risk and challenges
* resistant to change and growth.

Why is this so? Because the higher one’s self esteem, the less dependent one is on any given external structure which might define the self. Low self esteem is based almost entirely on external structures such as rules and regulations, codes of behavior, rewards and punishments. As such, external structures, including other people, can threaten the self, limit the self, manipulate the self and even damage the self. Individuals with low self esteem believe they can “win” by overpowering external structures as opposed to cooperating with external structures. Our western culture’s dominance over the external natural world, in contrast to indigenous cultures which are symbiotically cooperative, suggests our western culture has a low opinion of itself. Even the remarkable technological advances put forth by western civilization is not in itself evidence of a high collective cultural self esteem and can be viewed as a way of compensating for a variety of social deficits including slavery, racism, bigotry, prejudice and corruption. The history of brutality and violence exhibited in western society is certainly indicative of low cultural self esteem as it is excessively overbearing, to say the least.

What we often refer to as high self esteem comes about by understanding that the self is not dependent on the external world of people, places and things for its status. Self esteem is something which exists within one’s own mind and something which can be enriched and enhanced or degraded and demeaned only by one’s own mind. As such, there is no reason to fear external structures such as rules and regulations, new information, strange beliefs, different cultures and certainly people with different colored skin. All such external objects have no real bearing on the self other than what the mind gives it. High self esteem comes from a mind that knows the self to be essentially fluid, malleable and flexible which is required for growth and development. The self is understood to be a process, not a static entity. By way of analogy, consider the self to be like water. It can be solid, liquid or gas. The solid state of water, as in ice, is the self when awake. The liquid is the self when dreaming and the gas when asleep. But, even ice can change its shape. It can be melted and reshaped without losing any of its quality or quantity.

Many modern teachers will suggest a variety of exercises in affirmative positive thinking to build self esteem. Although positive, constructive thinking has it’s place and can be a part of building self esteem, all the positive thinking in the world will be for nothing until one believes, knows, that the self, no matter how frozen, can be reshaped without fear of losing the self. The very first step towards changing self esteem, or changing any aspect of the self, is the realization of its adaptable, pliable nature and its underlying reality as a mental fabrication. Neuroscientists refer to this capacity of mental adaptability as “plasticity.” And, ultimately, since the self is a mental fabrication, it arises out of a vast array of neural interconnections in the brain, which has this capacity of plasticity. Once this solvent nature of the mind is fully accepted, then positive, constructive thinking can be effective. But, positive thinking alone is not enough. There must also be heat to melt the old frozen lower level self esteem models and a new mold in which to shape the new higher level self esteem beliefs. It is said that new wine must be put into new wine skin. Positive thoughts must be contained within a new belief system which understands the self to be a fabrication of its own making – what one might call a framework of “self-responsibility.”

Ken Fields is owner and principle counselor at Open Mind Counseling, http://www.openmindcounseling.com He is a nationally certified licensed mental health counselor with over 25 years of experience in working with individuals, couples, families and groups. He has been a crisis intervention counselor, has taught at university and has been an administrator in a human service agency. He has taught public classes in stress and anger management, mediation, communication and negotiation, self image psychology, motivation and goal setting and crisis prevention. Mr. Fields now offers online communication coaching and counseling specializing in cognitive behavior and family systems therapy.

The Law of Stuart Smalley

Genuinely strong self-eteem has nothing to do with the Stuart Smalley character on “Saturday Night Live.” Smalley was played by talk-show host A1 Franken who looked in the mirror to tell himself “You’re good enough,you’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like you.” This is not the kind of namby-pamby-feel-good self-esteem we’re talking about.

The Law of Definition

Self-esteem is one of those frequently used terms that we believe we know the meaning of until we are asked to define it. Most folks define it as the way you feel about yourself. The problem is feelings can, and often do, change. The definition I have found most useful of self-esteem is: the strength and power of your belief in your self.

The Law of Ends vs. Means

While working on increasing your self-esteem, remember it’s just a means to an end, not the end in and of itself. I’ve known lots of unsuccessful people, and even people who continually do the wrong thing, and yet they feel good about themselves. Self-esteem is merely a means to the end if increasing the quality of life, for yourself and those around you.

The Law of Company

Self-esteem is strongly influenced by the company you keep. Hang around people with weak self-esteem and yours is likely to be weak as well. And guess what? Hang around people with strong self-esteem, and yours is likely to strengthen as well.

The Law of Blame and Accuse

I’ve heard so many people say “My self-esteem is low because I’m too this/that, I grew up without this/that and this/that has happened to me.” Which usually leads me to wonder what does a person who is too this/that, grew up without this/that, and has had this/that happen to them, DO WITH THE REST OF HIS OR HER LIFE?

The Law of Action

You can learn about self-esteem, read about it, go to seminars, etc., and nothing will change if you don’t do something with what you learn. In order to change something, you simply must TAKE ACTION!

The law of NWBG

While NWBG may sound like the name of a rock group, it’s really a fast and easy way to measure and mprove your self-esteem. In vertical order, write the letters NWBG, vhich stand for Now-Worst-Best-Goal. Now, on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 is the worst and 10 is the best) rate your self-esteem the way it is Now, the Worst it has ever been, the Best it has ever been, and the Goal you would like it to be. This gives you a number next to each of the letters NWBG. If you are like most folks, Now is higher the Worst. This gives us some important information:

How did you get from the worst to where you are now? The answers can be key for further strengthening your selfesteem.

The Law of Higher Math

Now we will do a little higher math in order to strengthen your self-esteem. Take the number for your Goal (let’s say 10) and subtract from it the number for now (let’s say 4), so it’s 6. So that’s six levels of selfesteem to travel, which is too big a chunk all at once.

Let’s make it manageable by taking one level at a time. What small, simple steps can you begin to take immediately to move you from a four to a five? And then a 5 to a 6, a 6 to a 7, and so on. In this way you can measure your progress as you go, and rather quickly strengthen your self-esteem.

How’s that for progress?

Visit The Internet Article Guy for more leading edge tips and tools for writing articles that bring you prospects, publicity and profits. You can also subscirbe to our monthly Article Empire Tips Newsletter. You are also invited to visit my Express-Start Article Writing Program for more information on the next article writing tele-seminar.

A number of years ago I worked for one of the UK’s top IT companies — a global player. We were meeting to discuss a major bid, and the room was filled with people who didn’t meet often — the most senior managers from a number of divisions. There were very few middle tier managers in the room, almost exclusively senior managers who were accustomed to being ‘top dog’. The atmosphere in that room was almost tangible. I wanted to bottle the air and analyse it later — I had never experienced such naked power, and it dawned on me in that moment that we are almost blind to the status signals we transmit.

That meeting was an epiphany, and led to me becoming a hypnotherapist with a particular interest in researching confidence and self esteem. Because what I discovered in that company, and in many companies I have assisted subsequently, was the startling fact that an individual’s self-esteem is a reliable indicator of how far they will progress in the organisation. Some technical geniuses can buck the trend, but they are very rare. For most of us, our ability to influence decision-making is precisely limited by our self esteem.

Why does this matter? It matters because the person with the greatest self esteem is not necessarily the right person to be making the key decisions. We have all suffered foolish bosses. Perhaps we have all wondered how on earth they reached such positions of seniority, given their obvious shortcomings. If you will excuse the bluntness: that incompetent boss is there because you haven’t yet been sufficiently convincing. Your performance is perhaps the least important aspect on which you will be judged; what matters is your status in the group.

Status is a fascinating topic. We communicate our status constantly, primarily through body language and voice tone. This communication is unconscious; it is felt rather than known or consciously controlled. The way in which you behave reflects your self perception of status. This is either accepted or challenged by the people around you. A dominant person (relative to you) will cause you to back off from a challenge. A submissive person (again, relative to your own status) will make it easy for you to project your will. For a fuller discussion of this topic, please visit http://www.confidenceclub.net/content/statusconfidence.php.

And so we come to the nub. We should all seek to develop our self esteem, not because of the personal benefits which will flow from this personal growth — career enhancement, improved love life etc — but because we have a duty to ourselves and our communities. Until and unless we step up to the plate, our communities will remain vulnerable to an almost random process of leader selection. So ask yourself: ‘Am I allowing less talented people to make decisions on my behalf?’ If the answer is ‘yes’, then perhaps you should consider stepping up to the plate yourself. The first step in this process is building up your own self confidence and self esteem. Don’t be bashful; there’s nothing selfish about developing your own qualities. A community with a rich selection of potential leaders is, in my view, a secure community.

Jim Sullivan is a hypnotherapist specialising in confidence development and stress management. He may be contacted via his Confidence Club website http://www.confidenceclub.net

Striving to improve our self esteem is on everybody’s mind. It doesn’t matter if you actively pursue this goal or you subconsciously working on improving your self esteem. The problem with this is that you really don’t know exactly what you want to improve. You’re acting intuitively on external signals.

Do you know how to improve your self esteem? Probably not. To make it a little bit easier for you and to achieve your goals quicker I put together 10 tips that you can utilize right away.

1. Build up your self-esteem. You must take an inventory. What do you want to improve or change about the way you interact with others? Try to make only one change at a time. Always check you progress before making another change.

2. Celebrate your journey, not your destination. Learn to always feel good about where you are now, and to exude self-confidence about anywhere you might find yourself tomorrow.

3. Set clear goals for yourself before every interaction. Know what you want. Think about how the people you will be meeting can help you reach those goals. Then decide how to approach each person accordingly. Apply this regularly and you will notice a difference.

4. Be proactive. Take the initiative. Be decisive. Let the other person know exactly how he or she can help you. Proactive people tent to be more successful in their career.

5. Treat each person you meet as if she or he is truly important. (You’ll be amazed how this works.)

6. Give a firm handshake; look the other person straight in the eye. Practice both of these. Your handshake should be just right. Not too firm and not too loose. Train yourself to notice something you like or find attractive in the person.

7. Listen! Listen! Listen! Teach yourself to develop good listening skills. Learn a way to remember the other person’s name. If in doubt simply ask for the name again 2 or 3 sentences into the conversation.

8. Visibly respond to the other person. Smile, nod agreement, and address him or her by name. Apply all you listening skills to visibly respond. The body language is the most important part of a conversation. Practice, practice, practice…

9. Pay more attention to the other person than to yourself. Are you responding to what may be going on in his or her life? Don’t filter out bad news. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Be caring.

10. Stay “in the moment.” Don’t mentally cut off the other person. Don’t reload while he or she is speaking. What this means is that you need to focus on the other person 100% during a conversation. Anything less is considered rude.

Next time you meet somebody new look out for these behaviors. Put a mental checkmark on the each of the 10 tips and see how well this person scored. Chances are that the person scored very high if you tent to like her/him. On the contraire the person probably scored low if you don’t seem to connect.

The more you practice the more likely you will create a positive aura which is commonly known as charisma. To step up to become a charismatic personality it takes more than just these 10 tips.

Creating a positive aura will benefit you in every thing you do. You will create a warmer ambience with your family. You will be more successful in your career. Even while trying to meet a partner of the opposite sex you will notice a difference on how people perceive you.

Unfortunately a small article can’t do justice on the wide spectrum of creating a positive aura and developing a charismatic personality. You will get the complete picture and step by step explanations in Race Kale’s new book “The Power of Charisma”.

Peter Dobler is an active real estate investor and a successful home business entrepreneur. Learn how to become a charismatic personality in this new book. http://www.powerofcharismabook.com