Three steps to confidence
“Low self-esteem is a weakly or inadequately fulfilled desire for self worth.”
In media and in the PU community alike people with low self esteem (LSE) are often portrayed as having negative views of themselves. They are shown as people who hate themselves because they feel inadequate. The more I thought about it however, the more it became clear that LSE is a lack of positive views rather than an abundance of negative ones.
People with low self esteem would very much like to succeed, to love and gain the admiration of others. However these goals seem mostly out of reach because the focus of people with LSE is to protect what little self worth they have. Their goal in most situations is to avoid failure, humiliation and rejection.
There are three steps to high self-esteem:
• A clear image of self (identity)
• Nurturing positive beliefs about yourself
• Growing positive expectations
Clear image of self
“I like looking feminine and I enjoy being a role model. I enjoy being a woman. It all comes down to having the confidence to be who you are.” Cathy Freeman
People with LSE lack a clear, consistent understanding of who they are, which leaves them at the mercy of events and changing situations. They life outside of themselves, because what others or events say about them is what defines them.
They favour self-protection over self-improvement, and because of this lean toward low-risk situations. They prefer not to expose themselves to situations which involve risk even if this means giving up opportunities for success and prestige.
So, who are you?
What defines you? What are your core values? What is your reality?
If you are unable (after thinking about it for a sec) to answer these questions it might be good to do some further work on this. A good starting point would be to find out who you are now, do tests like this and then decide who you want to be.
Does who you are now fit in with your goals? - If you haven’t got goals formulated, this is why you should - In what way do you need to change to achieve your goals? What will this take? Read papagaai's post about sticking points, for a good manual on how to set and achieve goals.
Nurturing positive beliefs about yourself
“We all have great inner power. The power is self-faith. There's really an attitude to winning. You have to see yourself winning before you win. And you have to be hungry. You have to want to conquer.” Arnold Schwarzenegger
Like said before, LSE comes mainly from a lack of positive beliefs. When having fewer positive beliefs about your self, to fall back on in times of stress or pressure, you will feel vulnerable and have difficulty coping with adversity. To make things worse; people with LSE tend to over-generalize the importance of failure. In the process losing self esteem is linked to anger, hostility and a lot of other bad emotions. Thus LSE becomes a self-perpetuating circle.
So we can agree it is important to form positive beliefs about your self. This can be done by affirmations (however, they seem kind of artificial to me) or you can change your inner dialogue. Changing the way you think will logically change the way you perceive yourself. Having a good idea of who you are, and want to be, will give you an outline of what thoughts are good to nurture. As a rule every thought that helps you achieve your goals is good, everything that frustrates them is bad.
If the above seems a bit abstract to you, here’s an example from papagaai’s article:
If your goal is to have at least 5 kiss-closes with different chicks, in clubs, within the next 30 days, which come forth out of cold-approaches, so that you can get more comfortable with going for the kiss then thinking of her rejecting you because you’re ugly* is a bad thought.
“Easy to say, hard to do..” I hear you say. The most important thing you can teach yourself here is being conscious of your thought. When you think about what you’re thinking, and you know what bad thoughts are, you can change them.
*Incidentally, the number one predictor of self-esteem is the evaluation of one’s looks. Growing positive beliefs about your looks will dramatically increase your confidence. Do whatever it takes to handle your looks if you are unsatisfied with them. It will pay off.
To conclude, when you have more positive thoughts, positive core beliefs about yourself will be the result. You will feel more confident in situations where you would otherwise be lost in negativity and as a result you will grow positive expectations about your environment:
Growing positive expectations
The power of having positive expectations is a much discussed subject in the community. From Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” to Gunwitch’s “make the ho say no” these are examples of how positive expectations can influence your self and others around you.
Having positive expectations will greatly enhance your chances of achieving your goals. You will grow them by knowing who you are and nurturing positive beliefs about yourself first.
- For this post I used the book “Self Esteem – The Puzzle of Low Self Regard” by Baumeister as a guideline. This book is a collection of academic papers on self esteem and is a very interesting read.
In media and in the PU community alike people with low self esteem (LSE) are often portrayed as having negative views of themselves. They are shown as people who hate themselves because they feel inadequate. The more I thought about it however, the more it became clear that LSE is a lack of positive views rather than an abundance of negative ones.
People with low self esteem would very much like to succeed, to love and gain the admiration of others. However these goals seem mostly out of reach because the focus of people with LSE is to protect what little self worth they have. Their goal in most situations is to avoid failure, humiliation and rejection.
There are three steps to high self-esteem:
• A clear image of self (identity)
• Nurturing positive beliefs about yourself
• Growing positive expectations
Clear image of self
“I like looking feminine and I enjoy being a role model. I enjoy being a woman. It all comes down to having the confidence to be who you are.” Cathy Freeman
People with LSE lack a clear, consistent understanding of who they are, which leaves them at the mercy of events and changing situations. They life outside of themselves, because what others or events say about them is what defines them.
They favour self-protection over self-improvement, and because of this lean toward low-risk situations. They prefer not to expose themselves to situations which involve risk even if this means giving up opportunities for success and prestige.
So, who are you?
What defines you? What are your core values? What is your reality?
If you are unable (after thinking about it for a sec) to answer these questions it might be good to do some further work on this. A good starting point would be to find out who you are now, do tests like this and then decide who you want to be.
Does who you are now fit in with your goals? - If you haven’t got goals formulated, this is why you should - In what way do you need to change to achieve your goals? What will this take? Read papagaai's post about sticking points, for a good manual on how to set and achieve goals.
Nurturing positive beliefs about yourself
“We all have great inner power. The power is self-faith. There's really an attitude to winning. You have to see yourself winning before you win. And you have to be hungry. You have to want to conquer.” Arnold Schwarzenegger
Like said before, LSE comes mainly from a lack of positive beliefs. When having fewer positive beliefs about your self, to fall back on in times of stress or pressure, you will feel vulnerable and have difficulty coping with adversity. To make things worse; people with LSE tend to over-generalize the importance of failure. In the process losing self esteem is linked to anger, hostility and a lot of other bad emotions. Thus LSE becomes a self-perpetuating circle.
So we can agree it is important to form positive beliefs about your self. This can be done by affirmations (however, they seem kind of artificial to me) or you can change your inner dialogue. Changing the way you think will logically change the way you perceive yourself. Having a good idea of who you are, and want to be, will give you an outline of what thoughts are good to nurture. As a rule every thought that helps you achieve your goals is good, everything that frustrates them is bad.
If the above seems a bit abstract to you, here’s an example from papagaai’s article:
If your goal is to have at least 5 kiss-closes with different chicks, in clubs, within the next 30 days, which come forth out of cold-approaches, so that you can get more comfortable with going for the kiss then thinking of her rejecting you because you’re ugly* is a bad thought.
“Easy to say, hard to do..” I hear you say. The most important thing you can teach yourself here is being conscious of your thought. When you think about what you’re thinking, and you know what bad thoughts are, you can change them.
*Incidentally, the number one predictor of self-esteem is the evaluation of one’s looks. Growing positive beliefs about your looks will dramatically increase your confidence. Do whatever it takes to handle your looks if you are unsatisfied with them. It will pay off.
To conclude, when you have more positive thoughts, positive core beliefs about yourself will be the result. You will feel more confident in situations where you would otherwise be lost in negativity and as a result you will grow positive expectations about your environment:
Growing positive expectations
The power of having positive expectations is a much discussed subject in the community. From Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” to Gunwitch’s “make the ho say no” these are examples of how positive expectations can influence your self and others around you.
Having positive expectations will greatly enhance your chances of achieving your goals. You will grow them by knowing who you are and nurturing positive beliefs about yourself first.
- For this post I used the book “Self Esteem – The Puzzle of Low Self Regard” by Baumeister as a guideline. This book is a collection of academic papers on self esteem and is a very interesting read.
posted by xmlenigma at 12:54 AM
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