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positive thinking thought #31

SELF-ESTEEM Building a positive self-esteem & image A beggar was sitting at the train station with a bowl full of pencils. A yo...

SELF-ESTEEM

Building a positive self-esteem & image

A beggar was sitting at the train station with a bowl full of pencils. A young executive passed by and dropped a dollar in the bowl. He then boarded the train. Before the doors closed, something came to his mind and he went back to the beggar, grabbed a bunch of pencils, and said, "They are priced right. After all you are a business person and so am I," and he left.

Six months later, the executive attended a party. The beggar was also there in a suit and tie. The beggar recognized the executive, went up to him and said, "You probably don't recognize me but I remember you." He then narrated the incident that happened six months before. The executive said, "Now that you have reminded me, I do recall that you were begging. What are you doing here in your suit and tie?" The beggar replied, "You probably don't know what you did for me that day. You were the first person in my life who gave me back my dignity. You grabbed the bunch of pencils and said, 'They are priced right. After all, you are a business person and so am 1.' After you left, I thought to myself, what am I doing here? Why am I begging? I decided to do something constructive with my life. I packed my bag, started working and here I am. I just want to thank you for giving me back my dignity. That incident changed my life."

What changed in the beggar's life?

What changed was that his self-esteem went up and so did his performance. This is the magic of self-esteem in our lives.

Simply put, self-esteem is how we feel about ourselves. Our opinion of ourselves critically influences everything, from our performance at work, our relationships, and our role as a parent to our accomplishments in life. Self-esteem is a major component in determining success or failure. High self-esteem leads to a happy, gratifying and purposeful life. Unless you perceive yourself as worthwhile, you cannot have high self-esteem. All great world leaders and teachers throughout history have concluded that one must be internally driven in order to be a success.

We transfer our unconscious self-appraisal to others and they respond to us accordingly.

People with high self-esteem grow in conviction, competence and willingness to accept responsibility. They face life with optimism, have better relationships and fulfilling lives. They are motivated and ambitious. They are more sensitive. Their performance and risk-taking ability go up. They are open to new opportunities and challenges. They can give and receive criticism and compliments, tactfully, and with ease.

Self-esteem is a feeling which comes from an awareness of what is good and having done it.

Self-Esteem is Our Self-Concept

There is a story about a farmer who planted pumpkins on his land. For no reason, he put a small pumpkin, hanging by the vine into a glass jar.

At harvest time, he saw that the pumpkin had grown, equivalent only to the shape and size of the jar. Just as the pumpkin could not grow beyond the boundaries restricting it, human beings cannot perform beyond the boundaries of their self-concept, whatever it may be.

SOME ADVANTAGES OF HIGH SELF-ESTEEM

There is a direct relationship between people's feelings and their productivity. High self-esteem is evident in respect for one's self, others, property, law, parents and one's country. The reverse is also true.

Self-esteem :

• Builds strong conviction.
• Creates willingness to accept responsibility.\
• Builds optimistic attitudes.
• Leads to better relationships and fulfilling lives.
• Makes a person more sensitive to others' needs and develop a caring attitude.
• Makes a person self-motivated and ambitious.
• Makes a person open to new opportunities and challenges.
• Improves performance and increases risk-taking ability.
• Helps a person give and receive both criticism and compliments tactfully and easily.

How do we recognize poor self-esteem? What are the behavior patterns of a person with poor self-esteem? The following is a brief list, which is not all inclusive but is indicative.

• They are generally gossip mongers.
• They have a critical nature. They criticize as if there is a contest going on and they have to win a prize.
• They have high egos they are arrogant and believe they know it all.People with low self-esteem are generally difficult to work with and for. They tear down others to get a feeling of superiority.
• They are closed minded and self-centered.
• They constantly make excuses--always justifying failures.
• They never accept responsibility--always blaming others.
• They have a fatalistic attitude no initiative and always waiting for things to happen.
• They are jealous by nature.
• They are unwilling to accept positive criticism. They become defensive.
• They are bored and uncomfortable when alone.
• Poor self-esteem leads to breakdown in decency. People with low self-esteem don't know where to draw the line--where decency stops and vulgarity starts. It is not unusual for people to tell jokes at social get-togethers but with every drink, the jokes get dirtier and dirtier.
• They don't have genuine friends because they are not genuine themselves.
• They make promises they know they are not going to keep. A person with low self-esteem would promise the moon to make a sale. Unkept promises lead to loss of credibility. A person with high self-esteem would prefer loss of business than loss of credibility because they realize that one cannot put a price on one's credibility.
• Their behavior is senseless and erratic. They swing from one end of the pendulum to another. They may be all sugar and honey today but the same people may be out to cut your throat tomorrow. They lack balance.
• They alienate people and tend to be lonely.
• They are touchy in nature--this is called the fragile ego. Anytime something is said, a person with a fragile ego takes it personally and gets hurt. It leads to dejection.

What is the difference between being touchy and being sensitive? Touchiness is the cactus approach; you touch me and I will hurt you. Being sensitive is the positive approach, the caring approach. Many times the two are used interchangeably. People say be careful when talking to so and so, he or she is very sensitive. What they are really saying is that the person is touchy, so be careful.
They have negative expectations of themselves and others and are seldom disappointed.
They lack confidence.

1. They constantly seek approval and validation from others. Seeking approval is different from seeking a second opinion, which really means consultation.
2. Bragging about themselves is also a sign of lack of confidence.
3. Submissive or timid behavior. These are people who constantly apologize for their existence. They are always putting themselves down, which is different from being humble. Humility comes from confidence whereas putting yourself down comes from lack of it.
4. A person who lacks confidence cannot be an effective leader. Others sense this lack of confidence, which results in a lack of respect.
5. Lack of assertiveness. People with low self-esteem are not willing to stand up for their belief. On the other hand, being unduly aggressive is also a sign of poor self-esteem. Being aggressive in situations that require compassion does not amount to assertiveness.
6. A lack of confidence results in conformist behavior. If everybody is doing it, then so should I. Every day we see people giving in to peer pressure, knowing full well what they are doing could be detrimental yet they do it to be accepted. People with low self-esteem go along to get along. They are looking for outside validation because they lack confidence in themselves.
7. Keeping up with the Joneses--pretense When people try to keep up with the Joneses, they spend money they haven't earned, they buy things they don't need, and they try to impress people they don't like.
8. Nonconformist or attention-seeking behavior.

• In order to gain attention, people with poor self-esteem might do senseless things just to stand out and be noticed. They get a kick and a sense of importance from perversion. Some people choose to do wrong and be wrong just to be deferent and gain attention. Examples are people who brag excessively, the classroom clown, etc.
• They are indecisive and do not accept responsibility. Lack of courage and fear of criticism lead to indecisive behavior.
• They rebel against authority. I make a distinction between rebelling out of the courage of one's convictions and rebelling because of poor self-esteem. All the great world leaders, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln, were rebels. They rebel against authority out of the courage of their convictions; a person with low self-esteem rebels against authority just because it is authority, even when the authority is right.
• They are anti-social and may be withdrawn.
• They lack a sense of direction and have an "I don't care" attitude which is reflected in their behavior. They have a hard time giving or receiving compliments. In giving, they feel they might be misconstrued and in receiving they feel they are undeserving. Feeling unworthy is not humility.
• Too much emphasis on material things : People with poor self-esteem judge a person's worth by his possessions, not by who he is. They constantly look at what kind of car you are driving, what kind of home you live in, what kind of clothes and jewellery you wear. They forget that people make things, and not vice versa. People with poor self-esteem place more emphasis on net worth than self worth. Their lives revolve around ads and fads. Designer labels are their status symbols. Take away their things and they will die of shame. They get into a rat race. "The problem with the rat race is that even if you win, you are still a rat."
• Lack of pride in themselves--they are shabbily dressed and uncouth.
• They are takers, not givers.

Low self-esteem could lead to extremes of behavior. A person with high self-esteem could choose identical behavior for different reasons: He may be alone because he prefers solitude, whereas a person with low self-esteem prefers to be alone because he is uncomfortable in groups.

Some characteristics of people with:

High Self-Esteem	Low Self-Esteem
Talk about ideas	Talk about people
Caring attitude	Critical attitude
Humility	Arrogance
Respects authority	Rebels against authority
Courage of conviction	Goes along to get along
Confidence	Confusion
Concerned about character	Concerned about reputation
Assertive	Aggressive
Accepts responsibility	Blames the whole world
Self-interest	Selfish
Optimistic	Fatalistic
Understanding	Greedy
Willing to learn	Know it all
Sensitive	Touchy
Solitude	Lonely
Discuss	Argue
Believes in self-worth	Believes in net worth only
Guided	Misguided
Discipline	Distorted sense of freedom
Internally driven	Externally driven
Respects others	Looks down on others
Enjoys decency	Enjoys vulgarity
Knows limit	Everything goes
Giver	Taker

The objective of this list is to provide a basis for self evaluation rather than produce guilt. It is not necessary to have all the traits. Some characteristics may be present to a greater or lesser degree. So long as we are able to recognize them, we can make an effort to correct ourselves.

THEY PUT ON A MASK

A young executive with poor self-esteem was promoted but he couldn't reconcile himself to his new office and position. There was a knock at his door. To show how important and busy he was, he picked up the phone and then asked the visitor to come in. As the man waited for the executive, the executive kept talking on the phone, nodding and saying, "No problem, I can handle that." After a few minutes he hung up and asked the visitor what he could do for him. The man replied, "Sir, I'm here to connect your phone."

What is the Message?

Why pretend? What are we trying to prove? What do we want to accomplish? Why do we need to lie? Why look for feelings of false importance? All of this comes from insecurity and poor self-esteem.

Why Pretend?

Our character can be judged by everything we do or don't do, like or don't like, such as:

• The kind of movies we enjoy.
• The kind of music we listen to.
• The kind of company we keep or avoid.
• The kind of jokes we tell or laugh at.
• The kind of books we read.

Every action of ours gives us away anyway, so why pretend? I believe that if a person lives with conviction, sensitivity and cooperation, he can move others with his effort. That person becomes worthy of self-respect.

Positive Self-Esteem Negative Self-Esteem

Sr. No.	Positive Self-Esteem	Negative Self-Esteem
1.	self-respect	self-put down
2.	self-confidence	self-doubt
3.	self-worth	self-abuse
4.	self-acceptance	self-denial
5.	self-love	self-centered Ness
6.	self-knowledge	self-deceit
7.	self-discipline	self-indulgence

Self-esteem does not mean having a big ego. Unless a person is at peace with himself, he cannot be at peace with others. Just as we cannot give to others what we don't have. Unless we possess the components of self-esteem, we cannot share it with others. We need to first get in touch with ourselves and put ourselves in orderEven in an aircraft, the safety instructions tell you to put on an oxygen mask on yourself first and then on your child. We are not talking about selfishness.

Self-esteem can be defined as the way we feel about ourselves. Self-image is the way we see ourselves. When we feel good, our productivity goes up.