The Importance Of Self Esteem
When is the last time you stopped and thought how important self-esteem is? It plays a factor in your life nearly every second of every day. Self-esteem also is connected to self image which we will cover later.
Self esteem can be defined as an individual’s self assessment of their strengths and weaknesses. However, I believe that self-esteem goes even deeper than that description. A crucial piece of information is that self-esteem can be improved no matter how great or how terrible you feel about yourself.
Take an honest assessment of your current self-esteem.
What are some of your strengths?
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What do you FEEL are some of your weaknesses?
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Now you’ve came up with strengths and weaknesses, which was easier for you to identify? Was it your strengths or weaknesses?
That last question is a key component that contributes to your overall self-esteem. If it is easier for you to come up with weaknesses rather than strengths, don’t panic, it doesn’t mean that you are forever locked into negative self talk.
In my opinion, it is far easier to have poor self-esteem than to have positive or good self-esteem. It is easier to complain about all the things we don’t like about ourselves or events that didn’t go our way: over and over… and OVER. For example: “My hair is stupid, and I don’t like how all my pants fit! My mother thinks that I need to quit my job! I deserved that job I applied for, I nailed that interview and didn’t even get a call back to tell me I wasn’t good enough.”
Again, take a second to think about how petty and deconstructive those statements are. By letting your brain only focus on the negative, what do you think your attitude is going to reflect?
Let me give you a hint: YOU’RE GOING TO FEEL MISERABLE! So stop it!
Individuals that don’t feel good about themselves can be spotted across the room without having to be watched for long. There are ways that individuals are able to discover how you another person is feeling, examples are: how a person sits in a chair, are their arms crossed, aggressively rocking in their chair, eye contact or lack of, the way an individual dresses, where they sit in a room: front row or hiding in the back, ( doesn’t matter if it is the classroom or an office meeting) how they walk (fast, slow or appearing to be carrying the weight of the world) head up or down, posture can be a sign of what is really going on in said person’s mind. Again, the basic premise I keep coming back to is, body language can be a dead giveaway on how an individual is feeling about themselves.
Remember, this is your life!
The negative or toxic people in your life DON’T CONTROL YOU, NO ONE CAN MAKE YOU BELIEVE OR DO ANYTHING! (REMEMBER THAT!!!!!) You need to remind yourself that as many times as you have to, it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person if every day you say “I will not hang out with James because he triggers me to think poorly of myself.”
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Down here now!
Remind yourself again and again! As you can see as I am typing this I have already forgot how many times I have tried to remind myself/you to think positively and cut the negative people out of your life. Sometimes it is impossible to completely remove a person from your life, but you can stop yourself from having the same argument, over, and over, AND… Yup, you guessed it… OVER!
If you have old friends that constantly treat you like you aren’t worth their time unless you use or abuse a substance or they force you to believe that you must be used or abused you: then what are those “old friends?” It sounds an awful lot like a terrible relationship that needs to be erased, or cleaned from your life. In other words they are not a true friend. A true friend can look at you and known that something is wrong. They know you well enough to probe when it is important to absolutely let the fear or problem GO. Some of those toxic friends have made you feel great and they may not even realized how damaging the relationship was becoming, but when there is a relationship not built on having each others’ best interest there is a massive possibility for an abusive relationship to take shape or blossom into a living nightmare. As time goes and you are able to respect yourself those decisions begin to look as clear as an azure sky.
The urge of positive feedback, reassurance and love with always be a crucial part of a person’s psyche, but don’t let it consume you! Remember who you are and what you like about yourself. By letting yourself get consumed in a circular cycle of blame is extremely dangerous. It becomes more hazardous when you’re looking for what you need or desire in all the wrong places. It is like a highly confused Ferris Wheel with a disgruntle carnival worker who is spending his time texting while eating ten to fifteen pounds of cotton candy. Perhaps it is me, but I would have to wager that could possibly lead to a fairly frightening outcome. My guess is it would go something like this: people are laughing and smiling at the view enjoying the company of the person they are riding with and suddenly, without a hint of impending doom, with absolutely no warning the worker and ride simultaneously go haywire! Causing the ride to accelerate or dump passengers at height or speed directly off in to the big sleep. It may be me, but that sounds like the worst rollercoaster I have ever heard.
Your conceived problem(s) can last a whole life time particularly if you let them. It could be as phony as the scenario I discussed before or it could be stranger than fiction (real life) that we never ever want to relive again. That’s the joy of forgiveness and starting over.
Sorry, but, back to my redundancies.
When cleaning the same problem over and over your effort is stunted by the attempt to NEVER let anyone know the real you. There are a lot of different situations that you can fall into. Like, you’ve been told how big of a problem you have been all of your life or every time you have a moment of weakness someone comes out of nowhere and tells you that you’re no problem, I will take the blame for you. Again, confusion grows, guilt, resentment of yourself and isolation come out of hiding. And all the channels created to assist you in fixing or alleviating some your problem(s) become rearranged madness. The fear to tell the one person you know you need to tell becomes a larger issue than need be because admission of your problem, how big or how small allows a sliver, a crack a moment of weakness or inadequacy: and as humans, no one wants to feel small, accidental or unimportant.
I believe that after that rant it is important to discover people that have made a difference in your life without there being a concrete reward. It could be anyone, but please keep it clean and positive.
List at least three individuals that made a conscientious effort to help those in need without a guaranteed reward.
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Remember that because the people you chose above made an effort to help as many under privileged people around the world doesn’t mean that they never took time to care for themselves. I do believe it is important to note that by choosing the above people, there is great admiration toward them. I have a pretty good idea that one of the people you chose above was not Charles Manson.
Do this: look around the room (in the mirror when you have a chance to be alone) to realize just how lucky and great you are! So do it! Look around the room with a legitimate smile. Go a step farther, say “Hello.” Want to feel even better? Stand up, shake a person’s hand. I bet you will feel better about yourself. This not only helps you, it helps everyone else in the room. Don’t be afraid to let yourself laugh: that’s good medicine.
Again an important factor to consider is how important it is to understand what self-esteem means to you. After you discover and can put into practice what it means to you: there are a lot of ways to boost your self-esteem. Remember to stay positive!
However, if you are struggling with your self-esteem, don’t kid yourself! It is better to be honest with yourself, locate what you are struggling with and eventually realize how you can improve your self-esteem over time. It is not going to be an over-night fix.
I believe that it is very important to describe in your own words what self-esteem means to you.
Like I mentioned before it may be difficult to describe what self-esteem means to you. If you are struggling with coming up with positive self-esteem self talk ask yourself what would you suggest to yourself as a pick me up? I would suggest thinking of a person that you respect or believe to have high self-esteem and write down some words that describe them.
Positive self talk leads to positive self esteem.
The following are some examples to find what self esteem means to you.
We are not looking for any specific words, just words that mean something to you about that person.
“I like myself because I go out of my way to help people. I feel confident in my ability to be a great parent/son/daughter/cousin and so on.”
I know I am sounding like a broken record, but it is important to hammer home some of these messages, so on that note. Now you’ve done the above: in your own words define what self-esteem means to you?
Now you have focused on your self-esteem there is always more thoughts and ways to improve self-esteem.
More Ways To Improve Self Esteem
http://www.discoveryeducation.com/teachers/free-lesson-plans/self-esteem.cfm
http://www.selfempoweringtips.com/self-esteem/Self-Esteem-Lesson-Plans.html
http://www.selfempoweringtips.com/self-esteem/Activities-That-Promote-Self-Esteem.html
http://www.self-esteem-nase.org/rate.php
Gleaned by: JAM/Dictated, but not read well by Sanskrit Grumpay
