What exactly is self esteem, and why would I want to learn how to build self esteem?
The dictionary definition of self esteem is:
1) A realistic respect for or favorable impression of ones self.
2) a person’s respect for himself
It sounds pretty simple…right??? So what’s up with all of the hoopla and media attention about “low self esteeem”?
From my perspective self esteem (whether it be high or low) is caused by the way that a person thinks about themselves.For example if someone thinks that they are “smart” there is a good chance that they will be “smart” in different areas of their life. And the opposite also applies. If someone has heard, or been told that they are “stupid” (or pick any other negative word) and they hear it enough times that they buy into “stupid”, guess what they will experience?
See our brains are like a computer. Especially when we are young. There is a lot of stuff which get’s “programmed” onto our brains. Including how we view and think about ourselves, and the world.This can become an issue, when these programs which are running constantly in the background, sabotage our life.
Here’s what I mean. Have you ever wondered why you constantly have the same type of person in your personal relationships? Or you always seem to have the same type of micro- managing ,over-bearing boss? Has this ever happened to you… or someone you know?
The reason is because somewhere in your life, you had an experience which “programmed” this onto your subconcious brain. And now the same thing keeps on happening in your life. It just happens with different people. This is exactly why you can quit a job, start a new job at a new company, and have the exact type of boss as from your old job. Because the program in your brain was never modified. And this is why you can have the same type of experiences over and over again, until you work on some of these “programs”. And we will talk more about changing this programming, as we explore how to build self esteem.
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