Have a Great Self Esteem

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Sen Shan, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

Self esteem is such an essential factor in our life. It determines our happiness quotient, the quality of relationships and our ability to achieve set goals. Self esteem determines our personality, character and behaviours. Our flamboyance, style, and assertiveness are because of how we feel about ourselves deep within. Our Self esteem also determines how our friends, peers and society treat us. How we see ourselves is how the world would perceive us. The world would only respect to the extent we respect our own self. That’s good news. You only have to change the way we evaluate ourselves. So if we lie to ourselves saying we are great would that work? No, the bad news is you hear the loudest when you lie to yourself. And that does no good to your self esteem.

Let us quickly understand what self esteem is before we jump to improving Self esteem because that gives you the power to work on just few essential areas of your life and ignore the rest. Self esteem is self evaluation of one’s adequacy in handling situations or capability to perform or personality to belong vis-a-vis a pseudo benchmark set by society, peer and community. It is pseudo because the benchmarks are subjective and relative from society to society, peer to peer. It is subject to change within the same society. What is seen as good value today need not be tomorrow. What can be revered in one society can be despised in another and mocked in yet another. So the pride that you have about your self-worth can be a shame in some other part of the world. Being seen rich in some part of the world can boost your self-worthiness but can make you unloved elsewhere. Speaking casually to the opposite sex can be seen as friendly in one part and as a derogatory act somewhere else. What is fashionable in our society today can be an embarrassing faux pas tomorrow. The pseudo benchmark of the society gets further distorted at varying degrees from group to group, community to community. Even within a family the way each would evaluate self worth would vary. An adolescent might find it cool while the parent may find it embarrassing. Realizing this reality allows us to just focus on few areas that you truly think is imperative in your life. You know the fallacy of the benchmark but if setting right what you truly value can make you happy then you should. If you have not truly understood the fallacies of it contemplate on it before you continue reading.

Next let us understand what causes low and high self esteem. That is pretty simple if we fall short of meeting the benchmark we will feel inadequate and incapable. If we have surpassed what is expected then we feel superior. We feel we have got the hang of things. We all would have faced miserable being inadequate in life. There is something in the other that seems not in you. The opposite sex seem attracted to someone else. We would have given our best but the work is so mediocre. We could have been so shy that we didn’t muster courage to voice an important opinion. We would have tolerated abuse because we didn’t want to blow up issues. We weren’t sure how others would perceive our act. We could have tolerated the cheating behaviour of our partner. We could feel guilty and ashamed of certain behaviours of our own. We could have been unfairly treated by our boss. We could be seething helplessly in anger. The list could be endless but remember if you are feeling bad and low for what you had done or not done it is because of low self esteem.

Okay that is enough on the basics of self esteem. Let us look at how to bring about a great feeling of self worth and esteem. Assuming you have identified few areas that are important to you and dropped many others let us understand how to enhance self esteem of those picked.

1. Don’t compare

There is no point comparing your uniqueness with someone else’s. It will never match and you don’t need to end up mimicking as an impostor. You could be truly authentic, original and classier being yourself. Focus on your strengths.

2. Be Genuine

Be true to yourself. Look within and know what is missing. Accept it. Denying only prolong your low self esteem. Nobody is perfect and the fact that you know a little bit more about yourself should be used to heal.

3. Respect Yourself

The extent you respect yourself is the extent to which the world would respect you. For example, if you don’t give much importance to the way you look, carry and conduct yourself the world would never treat you important. Similarly if you lack respect to your talents you would end up telling the world through your subtle body language that you don’t see yourself important and that they too need not see you as important.

4. Overcome Shortcomings

Use your low self esteem to your advantage. It is a communication from within telling you to course correct your life. Don’t fight it as an aggressor nor surrender to it as a victim but instead listen what your heart is yearning for. The more you know about yourself the better the chance to overcome those shortcomings.

5. Self Love

Self love is imperative is for healing. If you can’t love your own self why would anybody else. Self love quickens healing. You have done everything to the best of your knowledge and ability but if things have gone wrong don’t abuse yourself. Be compassionate to yourself and don’t trouble yourself with further regrets. Let go for things happen for good.

6. Be Aware

Being aware of who you really are deep within and how you have created your ideas and values about life and your worthiness can bring about great transformation in your personality and character. Be aware of what your mind is up to so you wouldn’t jump into a self destructive mode. Every time you are aware of the self destruction stop it.

7. Be Gentle

Be gentle to yourself. It will take time to heal and set it right. Just the knowledge is not good enough but it needs to be applied. Be patient to your progress. Take help from friends, family and people who would be truly interested in your growth and well being.

Please leave your comment, feedback and questions to be answered to senshan@mykeytolife.com