The Importance of Self-esteem

Self-esteem is the overall evaluation of your worth as a person. If you feel basically good about yourself, you probably have high self esteem. The problem is the ups and downs of daily life can produce short-term fluctuations in self-esteem. For example, when a good-looking person at work asked you out you probably felt good about yourself, but do you recall the distress you experience when you saw that C grade starring back at you on your last calculus exam?

The truth is sometimes we can have a stable self-esteem; that means if your self-esteem is high today you are likely to have high self-esteem in six months or two years from now. The problem is that many people are extremely responsive to feedback from others— they are more moved by praise and more sensitive to criticism. As a result, their self-esteem fluctuates in response to daily experiences.

Furthermore, you have to carry your own self-image, not someone else's. Your worth is determined by you and does not require you to justify it to anyone. Start by respecting yourself and liking yourself. Get to know the real you. Don't downgrade your abilities or assets, or dwell on your failures; learn to see yourself as you really are, at your best moments.

It is worth noting that people with low self-esteem not only have strong negative views about themselves, but also have confused self-views. In other words, this means that individuals with low self-esteem don’t know themselves well enough—their personal attributes and strengths and as a result they don’t feel good about themselves and are constantly feeling inferior in the midst of others.

To solve this problem, take time to determine your five chief qualities. Are you thoughtful, hard working, disciplined, punctual, interested in people, etc? If you need help with this activity, or if you need an honest opinion about yourself, you can enroll the help of an objective friend, your spouse, colleague or teacher.

Then, under each quality or asset, write down the names of two people you know who have achieved substantial success but, but who do not have this asset or quality to as great degree as you do. You will find that you outrank many successful people on at least one quality or asset. You will find that people who have already accomplished what you want to accomplish are no different. One day they decided to do it.

In addition, people who lack clarity about their abilities are less confident of success and more likely to set lower goals for themselves, compared to those with high self-esteem. On the contrary, individuals with high self-esteem persist longer in the face of failure. If your self-esteem is low you need to know is that anything that can be accomplished by someone else can be accomplished by you.

The Bottom Line

Self–esteem affects not only the present but also the future. Too many people short-circuit their chances for success by having a low self-image, restricting their perception of what they can do by self-imposed limitations caused by all the conditioning around them. The good news is that self-esteem can be built, and one way to do that is by telling yourself how much you like yourself.

To Your Success,

Gerard Ndzebir