You Can be Great If You Really Want To

Building high self esteem is one of the key jobs of positive psychology practitioners. In my line of work, I often come across stressed students, erratic employees and burnt out business people. One of the common themes I see in such people is that they are too critical of themselves and frequently judge themselves harshly in comparison to others. I know that building high self esteem in such people will require me to become aware of a range of low self esteem signs such as beliefs of inadequacy and teach them how to overcome fear of failure.

Do you know a person who often feels inadequate in comparison to other people because those other people never have to try as hard as them, and yet they always seem to do better than them? Now let me assume that that person at times is you. Part of these inadequate feelings may be due to your negative perception of yourself and they don’t actually always do better than you. But let’s say for arguments sake that they do. You are completely accurate about this scenario. What is likely to happen? You beat yourself down. You say things like ‘I’m not smart enough’, if I was smarter than I should be able to learn it quicker and produce better results. Some will even go so far as to say I am a failure. Because I didn’t produce a grade or result as high as this person, then I am a failure. And you know what, you’re right. You are a failure! A failure in regards to how you are looking at the situation.

Let’s take a different perspective. You have worked twice as hard as this other person and your grade or result was a little bit less. Now, if you gave everything you got and produced a great result for you, and they didn’t try very hard at all and they obtained a reasonable result in comparison to what they could get, who should be more proud? Who do you respect more in this scenario? And if the person who has to work harder has the right attitude, they will actually enjoy the process more than the other person. While the other person is bored, as you reach your potential you are much more likely to move into states of flow which is where you become enjoyably engrossed in the activity.

Building high self esteem requires developing the correct perspective. I believe that the most important factor in building high self esteem is learning how to focus on your effort, not success. With continued effort, your own individual success will increase. If you are focused on success without a true understanding of effort, then you will fail.

Furthermore, this is only one side of the coin. This person has more ability than you in this particular area, but there are other areas where you will have more ability than them. During my studies, I was surrounded by brilliant people with much greater strengths in certain areas than I. Rather than feel inadequate; I would use the opportunity to learn. Rather than be disdainful of those kind of people, I would be respectful and create friendships so I could learn from them. (Though I do admit, that at times, those kind of people can be very, very annoying, especially if they boast about not needing to try). By learning from them, they would pull me up with them. My results would improve, I wouldn’t go as high as they would, but I would go higher than I could before. I would genuinely ask about their skills (their brilliance) and thank them for sharing some of their insights with me.

That being said, what about the ways I (or you) may have helped others. A lot of the contributions I made did not increase any of my marks. I was good at using metaphors, simplifying ideas and concepts, helping others feel more confident and less burnt out, joking and playing at times. Out of all these things, none of them were assessable or gradable in an objective sense. There was no test telling me how important any of these attributes were! However I know these factors are incredibly important and I know that you too have incredible talents that are not measurable or recognized, but are essential for building high self esteem.

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Leroy was a superstar in the Real Estate business, producing three times the monthly business of his nearest coworker. He was a driven, highly competitive young man who saw his manager as getting in the way of even higher production.

Tension turned to irritability. Yelling and shouting followed. On the day he was fired, he shoved his manager in front of alarmed coworkers who reported his behavior to HR. Anger management classes were required, along with a one month interim, before reinstatement would be considered.

As this case example illustrates, workplace anger is costly to the employee the company, and coworkers. Studies show that up to 42% of employee time is spent engaging in or trying to resolve conflict. This results in wasted employee time, mistakes, stress, lower morale, hampered performance, and reduced profits and or service.

In fact, in 1993 the national Safe Workplace Institute released a study showing that workplace violence costs $4.2 billion ech year, estimating over 111,000 violent incidents. Further, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, about 500,000 victims of violent crime in the workplace lose an estimated 1.8 million workdays each year.

Clearly, poorly handled anger, frustration and resentment sabotage business productivity.
Was Leroy justified in his anger? What skills or tools should he learn to prevent future episodes? What could management have done to better handle the situation?

TOOL #1-RESPOND INSTEAD OF REACT
Using the tool of “respond instead of react,” Leroy can clearly learn to control his behavior and communicate needs in a socially acceptable manner without disruptions to work and morale. The issue here is not if he was justified in being angry; it is how to best deal with normal angry feelings. A key ingredient to managing anger is learning to change “self-talk”—that internal dialog that creates or intensify angry feelings.

From a management perspective, proper anger management skills can enhance conflict resolution, promote personal growth in the employee, reduce employee stress and promote increased workplace harmony.

TOOL #2-STRESS MANAGEMENT
Leroy was clearly under a great deal of stress, much of which was self-imposed. Stress often triggers anger responses. Learning to effective deal with stress can help prevent anger outbursts, as well as reducing employee “burnout” and hampered performance. Managers should be alert to stressed employees and recommend help, before things get out of hand. In many companies, HR or EAP (employee assistance professionals) can provide you with resources and referrals.

TOOL #3- EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Popularized by psychologist Daniel Goleman, much research shows that increasing “EQ” is correlated with emotional control and increased workplace effectiveness.

What is “EQ” exactly? According to Goleman, it is “the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.”

Fortunately, skills to improve your emotional intelligence can be learned by both employees and management. The benefit is increased understanding of yourself and others which directly relates to increased productivity and workplace harmony.

TOOL #4- ASSERTIVE COMMUNICATION Communication problems frequently lead to misunderstandings, conflicts with coworkers and hurt feelings which may hamper concentration and work performance.

Assertiveness is not aggression, but a way to communicate so that others clearly understand your needs, concerns, and feelings. It starts with the familiar advice to use “I” statements instead of “you” statements which can sound accusatory, and may lead to defensiveness instead of cooperation.

Other communication improvements include acknowledging the concerns and feelings of others in your interaction with them. And, being more sensitive to what others are saying to you “beneath the surface.”

TOOL #6-ACCEPTANCE
While sometimes workplace anger is manifest in “exploding,” other times it is born of grievances held by employees over any number of workplace issues. Much research shows that learning to accept and let go of the wrongs done to you can release your anger and resentment. This, in turn, may improve your health, and help you focus on your job instead of your negative feelings.

Is “acceptance” easy? Of course not. Nor does it mean that you think that whatever happened to you was right, or that you have to like the offending person. What it does mean is “letting go” of the negative feelings you now experience when you remember a negative experience or you encounter the offending person, so that it no longer affects you.

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What is the real meaning of Self Esteem?Self-esteem is a term used in psychology to reflect a person’s overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. So it is something decided by oneself and not by others. It is a self evaluated feeling. So how good is your self esteem? Most of the time a person having a low self esteem never realizes that but it is very important to hold a high level of self esteem to succeed in any area of one’s life. 

So how can you improve your self esteem and keep yourself out of danger? Here are few tips which if put into practice along with the tips I gave in my previous article “How to Be a Tree of Confidence”, you will find yourself in the right path. You can read about that article at http://sanojjose79.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-to-become-tree-of-confidence.html 

Do things that you enjoy. Everyday take some time to do those small small things that you really enjoy doing. This makes you happy and satisfied and this is very important in raising your self esteem.
Understand and accept your limitations and concentrate on your strengths. You should ignore your limitations, if it cannot be solved and if it can be solved, take necessary steps to work on it and improve that area in your life.
Meditate on your abilities and talents and work on it to improve it. Apply it everyday in your life and you will feel good about it.
Ignore your failures and never give up. Remember that failures are the stepping stones to success, the more you fail the more you learn and the more you learn, the better you know how to get it done next time.
Aim high and make a lost of your ambitions, Write it down somewhere and read it everyday. Work on it one by one and be patient. Never ignore or give up your personal ambitions. It’s your dream and you want to achieve it.
Appreciate yourself when you accomplish even small things. Congratulate yourself and tell it to others who care for you. Do something special like Wish you all the best and please let me know your comments.
Read more on this article free at http://sanojjose79.blogspot.com/2010/01/carry-yourself-with-high-self-esteem.html

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