Think you lack self esteem or confidence, or want to grow on what you already have?
Before we get to the quick guide, allow me to share with you a simple way of looking at self esteem and confidence.
I want you to consider that confidence and self esteem is on a sliding scale. There are the parts of you that feel worthless and lack confidence when you are engaging with things or activities that you don’t like, don’t value, or are not natural at.
And on the flip side, you are completely confident and have high self worth around the things or activities in which you most value and are most talented.
My son for example, thinks he’s a genius and has high self esteem and confidence in his ideas for building different types of swords. I asked him where he is stupid, and he said in trying to figure out musical notes. I said to him great, you are a genius in one area and stupid in another. Do you think there are some kids that are genius in music and stupid in creating ideas for swords? He said, “I would think so.”- My point was to show him that he is a genius with whatever he loves and values most.
You can have a professional athlete that when engaged in a sport has extreme amounts of confidence, then place them on stage for a speaking engagement and have zero confidence in themselves and abilities.
You can take a mathemetician whom has high self esteem and confidence in problem solving with numbers, then ask him or her to babysit a 2 year old and have an emotional meltdown because he can’t handle it.
These are a few examples to show you that you have confidence and you don’t. Self esteem and confidence oscillates depending on what you are doing. You have both sides, both confident and timid, both high and low self esteem.
Here are the three I would pay attention to when growing your confidence and self esteem.
1. Know yourself and what you value; your greatest talents will lead you to your most effortless and greatest self esteem and confidence- are you most talented and value numbers, athletics, teaching, childrearing, business, finances etc.?
2. Do things that are highest on your values; Your low priority is someone else’s high priority. This is the beauty of the world, in that there are more than enough people for everyone to be doing something of greatest value for high self esteem and confidence. Don’t be afraid to delegate (control freaks out there) You are confident, most effective and resilient when practicing things high on your values.
3. Don’t Imitate; It takes courage to be yourself. American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson said “envy is ignorance and immitation is suicide”- because trying to immitate another will plummet your self worth and self esteem. With the internet showing everyone’s life, talents, and skills, you must learn to be extremely mentally and emotionally disciplined to not get sucked into trying to be or emulate someone else. That’s not to say someone can’t be your mentor, just don’t attempt to live fully in their values. That would be a form of suicide. Be yourself and love that person.
So in summary..1) know yourself- where your worth lies 2) do what you value 3) be yourself and don’t immitate others.
Best foot forward,
Dr. Steve
P.S. I invite you to join our tribe of resilience
