Self Esteem

“Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand brake on.” — Maxwell Maltz

Nobody is born with limitless self-confidence. If someone seems to have incredible self-confidence, it’s because he or she has worked on building it for years. Self-confidence is something that you learn to build up because the challenging world of business, and life in general, can deflate it.

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An , a request for a refund from a customer or a flat rejection from investors can all cause our self-confidence to dwindle. Well-meaning but sometimes unkind comments from those closest to us can also hit us hard.

On top of this, we have to deal with our inner critic of self-doubt that constantly tells us that we are not good enough. When bombarded by so many elements that threaten our self-confidence, we need to take charge of building it up for ourselves.

As we teach at , building a successful business requires a thick skin and unshakable confidence in your ability to overcome obstacles. Here are 10 things you can do to build up your self-confidence.

1. Visualize yourself as you want to be.

“What the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.” — Napoleon Hill

Visualization is the technique of seeing an image of yourself that you are proud of, in your own mind. When we struggle with low self-confidence, we have a poor perception of ourselves that is often inaccurate. Practice visualizing a fantastic version of yourself, achieving your goals.

2. Affirm yourself.

“Affirmations are a powerful tool to deliberately install desired beliefs about yourself.” — Nikki Carnevale 

We tend to behave in accordance with our own self-image. The trick to making lasting change is to change how you view yourself.

are positive and uplifting statements that we say to ourselves. These are normally more effective if said out loud so that you can hear yourself say it. We tend to believe whatever we tell ourselves constantly. For example, if you hate your own physical appearance, practice saying something that you appreciate or like about yourself when you next look in the mirror.

To get your brain to accept your positive statements more quickly, phrase your affirmations as questions like, “Why am I so good in making deals?” instead of “I am so good at making deals.” Our brains are biologically wired to seek answers to questions, without analyzing whether the question is valid or not.

3. Do one thing that scares you every day.

“If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.” — 

The best way to overcome fear is to face it head-on. By doing something that scares you every day and gaining confidence from every experience, you will see your self-confidence soar. So, get out of your comfort zone and face your fears!

4. Question your inner critic.

“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” — Louise L. Hay

Some of the harshest comments that we get come from ourselves, via the “voice of the inner critic.” If you struggle with low self-confidence, there is a possibility that your inner critic has become overactive and inaccurate.

Strategies like cognitive behavioral therapy help you to question your inner critic, and look for evidence to support or deny the things that your inner critic is saying to you. For example, if you think that you are a failure, ask yourself, “What evidence is there to support the thought that I am a failure?” and “What evidence is there that doesn’t support the thought that I am a failure?”

Find opportunities to congratulate, compliment and reward yourself, even for the smallest successes. As Mark Twain said, “[A] man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”

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5. Take the 100 days of rejection challenge.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

has become famous for recording his experience of “busting fear” by purposefully making crazy requests of people in order to be rejected over 100 days. His purpose was to desensitize himself to rejection, after he became more upset than he expected over rejection from a potential investor. Busting fear isn’t easy to do, but if you want to have fun while building up your self-confidence, this is a powerful way to do it.

6. Set yourself up to win.

“To establish true self-confidence, we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives.” — Denis Waitley

Too many people are discouraged about their abilities because they set themselves goals that are too difficult to achieve. Start by setting yourself small goals that you can win easily.

Once you have built a stream of successes that make you feel good about yourself, you can then move on to harder goals. Make sure that you also keep a list of all your achievements, both large and small, to remind yourself of the times that you have done well.

Instead of focusing only on “to-do” lists, I like to spend time reflecting on “did-it” lists. Reflecting on the major milestones, projects and goals you’ve achieved is a great way to reinforce confidence in your skills.

7. Help someone else.

often enables us to forget about ourselves and to feel grateful for what we have. It also feels good when you are able to make a difference for someone else.

Instead of focusing on your own weaknesses, volunteer to mentor, practically assist or teach another, and you’ll see your self-confidence grow automatically in the process.

8. Care for yourself.

“Self-care is never a selfish act — it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.” — Parker Palmer

Self-confidence depends on a combination of good physical health, emotional health and social health. It is hard to feel good about yourself if you hate your physique or constantly have low energy.

Make time to cultivate great exercise, eating and sleep habits. In addition, dress the way you want to feel. You have heard the saying that “clothes make the man.” Build your self-confidence by making the effort to look after your own needs.

9. Create personal boundaries.

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself.”– Harvey Fierstein

Learn to say no. Teach others to respect your personal boundaries. If necessary, take classes on how to be more assertive and learn to ask for what you want. The more control and say that you have over your own life, the greater will be your self-confidence.

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10. Shift to an equality mentality.

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.” — Marilyn Monroe

People with low self-confidence see others as better or more deserving than themselves. Instead of carrying this perception, see yourself as being equal to everyone. They are no better or more deserving than you. Make a mental shift to an equality mentality and you will automatically see an improvement in your self-confidence.

Self-verification is a social psychological theory that asserts people want to be known and understood by others according to their firmly held beliefs and feelings about themselves, that is self-views (including self-concepts and self-esteem). Because chronic self-concepts and self-esteem play an important role in understanding the world, providing a sense of coherence, and guiding action, people become motivated to maintain them through self-verification. Such strivings provide stability to people’s lives, making their experiences more coherent, orderly, and comprehensible than they would be otherwise.

Self-verification processes are also adaptive for groups, groups of diverse backgrounds and the larger society, in that they make people predictable to one another thus serve to facilitate social interaction. To this end, people engage in a variety of activities that are designed to obtain self-verifying information. According to self-verification, people prefer feedback that is consistent with their self-concept even when that feedback is unflattering. They will not accept feedback that is at odds with their self-concept.In our hypothesis, men who chose to use urinals for urination are meant to be more confident and have a stronger self-esteem than those who chose to use toilet bowls. They have a stronger self-concept and hence stronger self-verification. They would consider that they did a good job and deserved a more positive feedback.

Therefore, a more positive feedback would increase their motivation and performance. If less positive feedback is given to this group of people, they would not receive this feedback as the less positive feedback did not match with their self-concept.For those chose to use toilet bowl, which showed that they had less confidence and lower self-concept, a less positive feedback would cause a higher motivation and performance since they think they deserved less positive feedback. They would accept it and hence it satisfied their self-esteem. Once their self-esteem is satisfied, they would promote to a higher hierarchy: self-actualization. P. s.

I dun know when to use self-concept, self-esteem, self-verification these suck words. Since I only got the fucking old both without these suck words and definitions.

The need to affiliate with others and to be accepted by them is hypothesized to be as basic to our psychological well being as hunger and thirst are to our physical well being (Raviester and Leary, 1995). (Meeting, Liking, and Becoming Acquainted, SPT Reader P. 50) One doesn’t begin to realize how important social interaction is until it is gone. Each individual seeks some sort of relationship throughout his or her lives, even as an infant. Relationships are looked as a bond between two individuals, but it is not limited between those two.

People all have the need to affiliate, but not all people are the same and differ in the strength of their need for affiliation. When meeting new people in a small group experience you are faced with many different emotions, situations, and many thoughts racing through your mind. If I viewed my small group experience through the concept of symbolic interaction theory, founded by Tom Shibutani, you begin to gain knowledge and an understanding of what is going on. The symbolic interaction theory is that people act on symbolic meanings that they find in situations.

Immersing yourself into the small group allows one to create different relationships around oneself. The challenge is to then create shared and similar meanings. The meanings are then personalized by an interpretive process, and after being processed one looks to others to externally view our modifications. When doing this you develop your own self-concept of one another. When we sat down as a group we each introduced ourselves. It was awkward at first, but then we all shared a similar thought and started to interact with each other to avoid awkward silence and situation.

The definition of the situation is the reactions to the shared agreements between one another and each member of the group expected one another to participate in the activity and share ideas together. Once established, we discussed the best way to meet people, what we found attractive, and how to start a conversation. Realizing how easy it is to be uneasy of one’s self-esteem, I started to question my self and internalizing the judgments and body gestures from my small group members. When sharing my self -image and personal experiences made me realize the similarities and differences amongst the group and myself.

By engaging in a conversation of diverse issues and topics, I began to realize whom I relate to. Each member of the group, only aware of one similarity, attending the same class, seemed very shy and distanced from one another. At the start of the activity we were all conservative and shy of one another. Since not one member of the group took initiative to choose an engaging topic to talk about, it was difficult to create a conversation. It was awkward up until one person decided to pick a topic.

When we shared the same views and interest towards that one particular topic, the group became more alive and aware of the other members in the group. Since acting timid at the start of the group, I began to gain confidence and more stability in my own self-esteem, once the group became vivid and energetic. Being timid leads to defense, since starting the small group in my defense up it was hard to become acquainted with other members of the group. Once we proceeded and broke the initial barrier of awkwardness, I began to feel more at ease and calm when approached by another member.

According to Horney’s theory, one consists of two selves; a real self and an idealized self. The “idealized self” is very similar to an “impossible self”. The “real self” is similar to a more “possible self”. When each individual were on similar energy levels, the group looked to be in sync with one another. Each individual in the group had a realistic view of themselves because of the lack of random behavior. I believe that not one of the group members was attempting to over achieve or be distant from the group.

I acted shy at first approaching the situation in “defense mode”, and may have shown a lack of self-confidence, or the evaluation of my own self. I had a defense barrier when entering this small group experience exercise, but towards the middle of the conversation, I realized that my barrier was down and I was engaging in conversations as if I knew these individuals for years. Then I realized we all had similar opinions and set similar goals. Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needsbegin with Physiological needs like food, water, etc.

Then “Safety”, “Belonging”, “Esteem”, and finally, “Self-actualization”, self-actualization is similar to self-fulfillment. If one cannot satisfy those basic needs you become susceptible to feelings and emotions of unhappiness. The personal need of mine in the group experience was to ask my peers a series of questions to gain information and to introduce myself to new individuals. I also wanted to feel like I accomplished my goals and feel like I did my part in this small group experience, these feelings lead to my “self-esteem” and my “self-image”.

Having all shared the same feeling of fulfilling ones need amongst the group, brought the group together and helped me recognize my role. Each had their own interpersonal needs; the need to feel “apart” of the group, and the need to control. This helped the group to the meaning to how and why we interacted in the first place. I believe once we finished he exercise that my won personal needs were met and so were that of the other individual. The needs that were fulfilled creating a sense of accomplishment and joy, we then exchanged email addresses and went separate ways.

In conclusion to this “experiment” or “experience”, it was that of our basic and interpersonal needs that brought the group together. One looks for similar characteristics in others to fulfill our own wants and needs. Consciously and subconsciously one tries to satisfy ones own persons needs. The choices are made that decide who one wishes to surround themselves with based upon our judgments. Judgments decide a lot but most important it decides if one needs the person, then ultimately lead to one interacting or not.

Bibliography Society and Personality Tamotsu Shibutani, 1961 Sociology 104 Reader Meloy and Mitchell

By definition, security refers to ease and trust. C] People you can rely on & know what is expected in the future (or vice versa) 0 Have a better feeling of comfort and safety (or vice versa) e. G. More engagement In social / group activities 0 More trustworthy Friends; Family Relationship Secondly, another esteem builder Is Selfless. By definition, selfless means self-concept. D Acquire self-knowledge & a feeling of Individuality with accurate and realistic self-description C] e. G. Assistance to build up a better self- Image, Like exercise to build up a sharper boy shape; Explore uniqueness & talents

Thirdly, another esteem builder is Affiliation. Affiliation refers to belonging & connectedness. D Feeling approved of, appreciated, and respected by others C] Sense of belongingness and acceptance, particularly in relationships that are considered important L e. G. Communication skills for making friendships 0 Sense of acceptance; Assistance to integrate into community Fourthly, another esteem builder is Competence. Competence refers to Feeling of Success. C] Being aware of one’s own strengths, being able to accept personal weakness 0 Have a sense of success and accomplishment D e. G.

Assistance to find a suitable Job; Give positive comments & achievements; engagement In social & charitable activities Fifthly, last esteem builder is Mission. Mission refers to Purpose and Responsibility. D Set realistic and achievable goals and willing to take responsibility 0 Feeling of purpose and motivation in life 0 e. G. Assistance to set up achievable short term and long term goals 2. Measles Hierarchy of Needs proposed by Ram Moscow (Related to Module 5 Public Health) Hierarchy means arrangement of Items, so dissatisfaction of lower level hinders satisfaction of higher levels.

So dissatisfaction of lower level needs hinders recognition & satisfaction of higher level needs. The farther up the hierarchy one goes, the more individuality, humanness and psychological health one achieve. Level E. G. Food, drink, oxygen, sex, sleep, exercise, homeostasis(stable internal environment), excretion Level two is the safety and security needs. It refers to needs for long-term survival and stability. E. G. Property, health, family, resources, employment, law and order, predictability, body, structure, stability, freedom from threatening forces such as illness, fear and chaos

Level three is the belongingness and love needs. It refers to affiliation and acceptance. E. G. Friendship, family, sexual intimacy, affectionate relations with others. Level Four is the Self-esteem needs. It refers to achievement and recognition. E. G. Desire for competence, confidence, achievement, independence, freedom, and respect from others, like desire for prestige, recognition, reputation, status, appreciation and acceptance. Level Five is the self-actualization. It refers to full development of one’s potentials.

E. G. Morality, creativity, spontaneity, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts, problems- loving Elaboration: (More like the effects or impact of something) Issue 0 Physiological needs, the lowest level not satisfied 0 Principle of Hierarchy: Dissatisfaction of low level hinder satisfaction of higher level 0 Cannot reach higher level of needs, namely the 4 higher levels 0 Mention the highest level 0 Less individuality, humanness and psychological health [Commonly seen in Less Developed Countries, like Africa.