Defining Self Esteem
9 January 2007Self Esteem is not Confidence – it is a component of it. The term “self esteem†is usually synonymous with confidence, and while it’s an important part, it’s not the be all and end all.
Really, self esteem is how valuable or worthy you perceive yourself to be.
A lot of dictionary definitions and other confidence sources place esteem alongside respect and admiration. I think esteem differs from these because respect has to do with how well you take care of yourself and admiration is a measure of how proud you are of yourself and your accomplishments.
The simplest and most often used measure, then, of self esteem would be monetary – how much you earn and how much you’ve saved.
According to Brian Tracy, we live in a meritocracy: that is, we get rewarded based on our contribution to society. The more valuable your contribution to society, the more you’ll be rewarded financially.
But the people who are millionaires are the ones who believe they’re rich long before they actually possess a million dollars. People who believe they are worth more tend to earn more. This isn’t any sort of whinging where someone complains that they are worth more and should be paid more – that’s simply victim speak. High self esteem eventually leads to high income. High income alone does not guarantee the emotion of high self esteem.
There’s an element of Self Respect that I’ll touch on here with regards earning potential. Some could argue that you can’t respect yourself if you work for a low salary (whatever a low salary is) or in bad conditions. The only self respect problem would be if you yourself felt that you were compromising yourself or your integrity by accepting a low salary or work conditions.
If you don’t place much weight on salary and material earnings (and it’s okay whichever stance you take) your income isn’t a self respect issue.
But monetary value is only one aspect of one’s esteem. Depending on where you are in your life, it could be quite a small aspect of who you are at the moment. In fact, I’d wager that most people only think of monetary value as being a component of social value.
Your social value is who you deem yourself worthy of talking to, taking orders from, giving orders to, or being in a relationship with. From an internal perspective, your social value is predominantly determined by your personal value – how valuable you see yourself to be.
By the way, I don’t see people with higher monetary value, higher organisational value, more personal development, higher coaching qualifications, better looking, etc as being higher value internally. Any value you place on another person as a result of their position, income, looks or demeanour is creating by you. Either you created their perceived value or allowed societal pressure to influence how you see someone. This is why you can get nervous when you are told someone you’re about to meet is famous or important. You accept the societal pressure that that person is of higher value than you and feel unworthy of their presence.
So what is value, then? Value is the ability to fulfil a perceived need. While some people have value in that they can provide discounts on services, entry to clubs, a meeting with a prospective client, the majority of value you provide throughout your life is just by being you – and not in your actions or your connections.
Your very presence is what draws people towards you and provides the most value to them, (that is, emotional value).
The simplest affirmations fro developing your self esteem are
“I’m good enoughâ€
“I am enoughâ€
“I am worthyâ€
“I am worthwhileâ€
“I feel worthyâ€
“I am/feel worthy of …[insert whatever you want/desire here]â€
“I am valuableâ€
“I feel valuableâ€
“I have high self esteem”
Simple affirmations work so well because they work at the level of beliefs, the core level. These then permeate outwards and into all the areas of your life, so you don’t have to invest energy into affirmations for each area of you life (money, family, relationships, career, sports).
Note that I’m not saying that you can’t have specific affirmations for your different areas of your life. It’s just that by working on the core area of beliefs and reality, we get a lot more results for a lot less effort.
I’d like to close by saying that no one is more valuable than you, intrinsically. Maybe, to perform some task, someone is more apt and considered more valuable, but as a person, no one is more valuable than you.
2 Responses to “Defining Self Esteem”
January 20th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
[…] Defining Self Esteem […]
January 21st, 2007 at 3:20 am
I like how you point out that self-esteem is a component of confidence. Each of us learns a lot once we learn to step outside our field of view to better understand why we think the way we do.
When we judge our circumstances as being good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable, our points of reference and influences are often outside ourselves. If you base self-respect on how much money you earn, or where you work, this could be conditioned. Yet, you may not yet realize that self-respect is a quality that is grounded in your character. A garbage man can have self respect and so can a king. The quality of being worthy of esteem or respect by others is somethign else. If its beneath a person’s dignity to cheat, he or she may show true dignity when under pressure.