Six Steps to a Healthy Self-Esteem

Six Steps to a Healthy Self-Esteem
by John Leonard

Are you in control of your life and career, or do you feel trapped in some dead-end job that seems to be sucking the energy out of you? Do you believe you have the power to shape your destiny and call the shots, or do you believe you are forever at the mercy of nameless, faceless forces over which you have no control? The answers to these questions can be very different, depending on your level of self-esteem. As Dr. Nathaniel Brandner points out in his book How to Raise Your Self-Esteem, "How you feel about yourself crucially affects virtually every aspect of your experience."

Self-esteem is the key component that allows you to confront problems, improve and promote yourself, be resilient in the face of apparent failure, and take charge of your life. When your self-esteem is high, problems are not looked upon as roadblocks but as opportunities for success. When your self-esteem is high, you are proactive rather than reactive, you have the confidence to seek out others for their wisdom, and are in turn sought out for your expertise. You have a can-do persona which energizes others and makes them respond to you positively.

If you already have a high level of self-esteem, great; if you don't, how can you develop it? It is not enough merely to have a "wish list" that will make everything happen as if with an uncorked genie. You need a system, a series of steps to effect the self-improvement that will change your entire approach to life.

A couple of weeks ago I was driving back to the East Coast from a football game in Indiana, and I picked up a radio talk show from Atlanta. The guest was Jack Canfield, whose Chicken Soup for the Soul books (written with Mark Victor Hansen) are models of inspiration for people who don't believe they have the power to change their lives. He told two stories--different people, different situations, different areas of the country, but similar modi operandi and similar results. I may have missed some points, but these are the basic stories. First, there was a group of women who wanted out of a ghetto in Chicago. They hadn't even graduated from high school. They traded off baby-sitting responsibilities, took G.E.D. programs, entered community colleges, worked at part-time jobs, earned degrees, went to four-year schools, and ultimately owned houses in the suburbs. Second, there was a chiropractor on the West Coast who desired a practice in Monterey, California. Problem: absolutely no need for another chiropractor in Monterey, which already had one for every eighty-eight people. He surveyed the populace, enclosing a questionnaire with four well-thought-out questions and analyzed the results. He then opened a practice that responded to the needs expressed, and became hugely successful. In both cases, the people had a plan and the conviction to carry it out, despite the nay-sayers and skeptics who told them it was just a pipe dream.

How do we develop self-esteem? What are some of the steps to take to break what Dr. Brandner calls the "cycle of self-defeating behavior generated by a deficient self-esteem"? I would like to offer six suggestions. Try to follow them rigorously so that they become part of your daily routine. Be warned: This is not some Aladdin's Lamp, which when rubbed will result in miraculous change; like physical exercise, it will be hard work. The results should make it all worthwhile.

• Know What You Want
Whether it's a new job, new organization, or career change, what do you want? What is your goal? If you could do or be anything in the world, what would it be? Why do you want to do or be this thing? What's your motivation? What are the jobs or careers that fit the bill? Do they have a common theme? The Seven Stories Exercise, along with some of the other self-assessment techniques used at The Five O'Clock Club, is valuable in helping you get a handle on what you want to do. Even if you can't pinpoint exactly what this "thing" is, it is still helpful to try to describe it to yourself. Then learn to use your very uncertainty to brainstorm ideas and possibilities with others.

If you are entering a negotiation--or even attending any kind of routine meeting--it is critical to know just what you expect as an outcome. I know people who have gone into negotiations with the attitude of "I'll see what they come up with" or "what they have to offer," believing that such flexibility would provide them with the best negotiating posture. Unfortunately, when the offers were tendered, they lost that "edge," because they didn't have any inner standard with which to measure the appropriateness of the offers.

• Use Self-Talk and Imagineering
Write down a list of adjectives that describe you. Put the negative ones on the left, positives on the right. Then draw a line through the negatives, and replace them with their opposites. When you've finished, prioritize the qualities on this list in terms of their relevance and importance to your goal or objective. This list will be like a bible. Take it with you wherever you go, read it--recite it to yourself--first thing in the morning and last thing at night. In their book, CareerTracking, authors Jimmy Calano and Jeff Salzman write that you have to reprogram yourself with these "affirmations." They can be a powerful device in creating change and promoting self-improvement.

Write down what you have to do in order to realize the positive attributes or descriptives you have substituted on the problem side of the ledger. Do you smoke, but wish to give it up? If you're overweight, what do you want to look like? How are you going to accomplish these objectives? Denis Waitley recommends a technique called "imagineering," while others, including Calano and Salzman term it "visualization." Basically, it involves imagining yourself as if the improvement has already occurred. Sports figures and business leaders are legendary devotees of visualization techniques. Derrick Mayes, the All-American wide receiver for Notre Dame, said he visualizes himself going down the field, eluding the defense, and jumping up in the air to make the catch. Furthermore, he "sees" specific obstacles in his way, and makes the mental adjustment so that when the real-life situation occurs, he can respond within a split-second.

After you visualize the desired outcome, figure out what you have to do to get there. If your objective is a new career, what experience or education is prerequisite? What must you do to reposition yourself to fit the picture?

• Change Your Perspective
In The Double Win, author Waitley writes of a woman in one of his seminars. When asked if she was attending the seminar alone, she replied, "No, I'm divorced." Pursuing it, he asked how long she'd been single. She answered, "I'm divorced two years now." He said, "Then you are single now!" Obviously this woman needed to change her thinking to reflect her present status in a more positive way. I know job hunters who get stuck by focusing on their failures, not their successes. They only see what experience they lack, not what extraordinary qualifications they present. Negative labels, mistakes, and failures carry forward. It is useful to be able to view the same situation from another vantage point. To accomplish this, many suggest a change in one's routine, from as simple an activity as going to work a different way to developing an appreciation for the arts, or taking up a new sport.

One of the best things you can do is help others. The possibilities here are limitless: work at a soup kitchen for the homeless; deliver meals to the sick or elderly; read to the sensory impaired; work with AIDS patients, or even join a community or religious organization that lends its space to people providing counsel for the out-of-work. In addition to the obvious benefit of helping the needy, you get an entirely new perspective on your own life.

• Get a Mentor
In The Aladdin Factor, authors Canfield and Hansen provide numerous examples of people who got ahead simply by going to people who had succeeded in that field. One story cited is that of Bob Richards, the record-setting Olympic pole vaulter of the 1950's. He confessed that before his triumphs, he felt sure he had gone as high as he could go in his quest to beat the world record. He had suffered failure upon failure, without moving one inch higher. Finally, he called the world record-holder, who agreed to see him. After observing Richards, the record-holder made some suggestions to improve his technique. Based on getting that advice, Richards went eight inches higher in his next meet. Canfield and Hansen, among others, strongly advocate that anyone trying to achieve something should "talk to the experts."Those who watch golf tournaments will note that the commentators frequently speak of "going to school on the other person's golf shots." It's the same in any endeavor; an expert usually loves to talk to others about how he or she succeeded. The value of such a mentor is incalculable.

• "Build in" Successes
To elevate your self-esteem, it may be necessary to "stack the deck." A successful job hunter once reported that the last call of the day and week determined the mood of his evenings and weekends, respectively. When I was a kid, playing basketball in the playgrounds, I realized that a bad day often carries over to the next one. I decided, therefore, that I needed some measure of success at the end of a day that would allow me to forget the failures. I made it a rule never to "leave the court on a miss." I forced myself to hit five difficult shots in a row before quitting. Many times I'd hit four, or three, but miss the next, so by the time I eventually finished, I might have had a pretty good "hit" percentage working, and I wasn't shackled so much with the earlier failures. We all need to "build in" successes--anything that will allow us to forget what didn't work previously.

• Avoid the Nay-Sayers
In CareerTracking, Calano and Salzman urge people to "associate with positive people." There are folks who just seem to find the negative in everything. They're down, and they bring everyone around them down too. Avoid these people at all costs. I subscribe to a college football publication, and I frequently call the paper to get the "latest scoop." One person there is always negative--"Well, you can't win every year," etc. It drags me down, so I get off the phone as fast as possible. Of course, I know you can't win them all, but I still want to believe at the outset that you can win. Another man sometimes talks about my favorite team in a hopeful way, so I'd much rather speak with him. In staying away from the nay-sayers, you keep a positive attitude. This, in turn, will prompt people to seek you out.

As I said at the beginning, these steps aren't easy, but they are do-able. The six steps must become habits. I believe we can all develop a vastly improved self-esteem if we incorporate the tips outlined above into our daily lives. It is especially important for job hunters and career changers to have a high level of self-esteem to see them through periods of discouragement. Then you will have the power to shape your own destiny and call the shots.

posted by Robert Heard at 12:22 PM