Enhance your self-worth

Many times, we offer our shoulders for friends and family to cry on when they experience mishaps or failures. We console them using encouraging and motivational words to spur them on and help them look beyond their present misfortune. Why then do many of us, when faced with similar situations bring condemnation upon ourselves and […]

Many times, we offer our shoulders for friends and family to cry on when they experience mishaps or failures. We console them using encouraging and motivational words to spur them on and help them look beyond their present misfortune. Why then do many of us, when faced with similar situations bring condemnation upon ourselves and write ourselves off as worthless. How is it that we fail, to show ourselves the same measure of love, respect and consideration that we extend to others? Why are we always in need of other people’s approval of us before we feel good and gain confidence in ourselves? Is it because of low self-esteem or we have no worth at all for ourselves?

To distinguish the fact that building self-esteem and worth is not an ego trip but something positive, the author of Total Self-Confidence, Dr. Robert Anthony, groups self esteem under positive and negative categories. He defines positive self-esteem as not being the intellectual acceptance of one’s talents or accomplishments. It is personal self-acceptance. “Developing positive self-esteem is not an ego trip. You are not in love without yourself in an egotistical sense. You simply realize that you are a truly unique and worthy individual; one who does not need to impress others with achievements or material possessions. In fact, the person who constantly brags and boasts has one of the classic symptoms of negative self-esteem.”

We need to place premium on our self-worth because it is as essential to our existence as food, breath and sleep are. Nathaniel Branden, in The Six Pillars of Self-esteem, states that, “the level of our self-esteem has profound consequences for every aspect of our existence—how we operate in the workplace, how we deal with people, how high we are likely to rise, how much we are likely to achieve.” Branden further explains self-esteem as the disposition of experiencing oneself as competent in coping with the basic challenges of life and as being worthy of happiness.

According to him, “healthy self-esteem correlates with rationality, realism, intuitiveness, creativity, independence, flexibility, ability to manage change, willingness to admit (and correct) mistakes, benevolence and cooperation. Poor self-esteem correlates with irrationality, blindness to reality, rigidity, fear of the new and unfamiliar, inappropriate conformity or inappropriate rebelliousness, defensiveness, an overly compliant or controlling behavior and fear or hostility towards others.”

In building our self-worth and esteem, it is important to associate self-love and acceptance of who we are and enjoying the liberty of being that as well as building a positive self-image, as a crucial element of the enhancement process.

Our self-esteem is a connector to other areas of our lives. It influences the kind of decisions we take and general relations we go through. It is in this light that The Six Pillars of Self-esteem  explains that self-esteem is the disposition to experience oneself as competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and as being worthy of happiness as Branden explains the components of self-efficacy and self-respect as fundamental to achieving the process of building self-esteem.

Self-efficacy he says is, “confidence in the functioning of my mind, in my ability to think, understand, learn, choose and make decisions; confidence in my ability to understand the facts of reality that fall within the sphere of my interests and needs; self-trust, self-reliance.”

Self-respect means assurance of your value; an affirmative attitude towards my right to live and be happy; comfort in appropriately asserting your thoughts, wants and needs; the feeling that joy and fulfillment are your natural birthrights. Branden goes on to break these down into six groups.

• Living consciously: This is an active mind rather than a passive one, being in the moment, with a concern to know external and internal reality. Says he: to live consciously means to be aware of everything that bears on our actions, purposes, values and goals to the best of our ability and to behave in accordance with that which we see and know.

• Self-acceptance: This means accepting all feelings, thoughts and acts and being compassionate towards oneself. Self-acceptance entails our willingness to experience—that is, to make real to ourselves without denial or evasion—that we think what we think, feel what we feel, desire what we desire, have done what we have done, and are what we are.

• Self-responsibility: This includes being responsible for the achievement of desires, for the level of consciousness; our behavior with other people; for prioritizing time and for personal happiness. “In taking responsibility for our own existence we implicitly recognise that other human beings are not our servants and do not exist merely to satisfy our needs.

• Self-assertiveness: It is your right to exist as you are. It is the acceptance that your life does not belong to others and that you are not here to live up to someone else’s expectations.

• Purposeful living: To live purposefully is to use our power for the attainment of goals we have selected; the goal of studying, of raising a family, of earning a living.

• Personal integrity: When our behavior is congruent with our professed values, when ideals and practice match, we have integrity.