It was during the NLP Master Practitioner course. Andrew Bryant, our trainer, asked us the question: “On a scale of 1 to 10, what level is your self esteem?”
During the room check, there was one single person with a level 10 self esteem. All the rest of us were lower. And because self esteem equals our sense of personal value and worth, Andrew challenged us further by saying: “all of you who are lower than 10 are on “discount”!”
It was pretty hard for me to comprehend the concept at first. But as the training progressed, I became more and more aware that over time I had learnt to judge and value myself based on external criteria: my achievements, what others thought about me, the jobs I had, etc. Forgetting that my self esteem and value should actually be intrinsic.
And since Andrew wrote a more in depth blog post on the topic, with which I deeply resonate, I thought of sharing it with you:
“How’s your self-esteem today?
Are you feeling super-good about yourself?
Or do you feel like yesterday’s take-out food that has been left out in the rain?
Have you been judging or criticizing yourself? Or have you been considering yourself less ‘worthy’ than someone else?
If you are not feeling super-good about yourself right now, or you know someone suffering from low self-esteem, then read on and discover the keys to building a healthy self-esteem.
When was the last time you touched your self-esteem? What color is it? How much does it weigh? These are ridiculous questions because your self-esteem is not actually a thing, it’s a process and to understand and work with self-esteem we must remember this.
The word ‘esteem’ means ‘value’, and so we can think of this process as self-valuing or valuing self. Also by being aware of the first word ’self’ we come to the realisation that self-esteem can only come from self valuing and not from others valuing you. Seeking our value from others is a common trap that leads to very unsatisfactory results because, by it’s very nature, self-esteem can never be achieved by seeking the approval of others. Paradoxically we get the most approval or regard from others when we are healthily self-valuing.
It’s a funny thing that we can accept a lot of things in life such as a rainy day, when we wanted it to be fine or a friend postponing an appointment, but we have difficulty accepting ourselves.
When was the last time you just accepted yourself for being you? You are unique, nobody can be you, you have nothing more to do to be you – can you accept that? What would it be like to accept yourself unconditionally? You would then be accepted at more places than Mastercard.
Now you may still feel the need to judge or measure yourself by what you do – most of us have been well conditioned to do this by our school system. Stop for a moment and consider a newborn baby. If you have actually been at the birth of your own child then this will be even more powerful. At the moment of birth, what can this new human being do? The answer is nothing, unless you count crying. Having acknowledged that a newborn can do nothing – how much do we value it? Answer – hugely. It is impossible to put a price on how much we value a new baby. Understanding that you were once a newborn and therefore came into this world with inherent value – what has happened that has caused you to devalue yourself?” (Andrew Bryant, director of Self Leadership International)
For the rest of the article, which includes 4 ways of building a Healthy Self Esteem, click here.
So, just wondering, what level is your self esteem?
It was during the NLP Master Practitioner course. Andrew, our trainer, asked us the question: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is your self esteem?”
During the room check, there was one single person with a level 10 self esteem. All the rest of us were lower. And since self esteem equals our sense of personal value and worth, being any other level other than 10 simply means we are on “discount”!
Yes, on discount! It was pretty hard for me to comprehend the concept at first. But then Andrew went on and gave us the example of newly born. As a baby, he doesn’t know much. Maybe just to cry and wet his diapers. But when it comes to his self esteem, would he be a 10? Well, you might argue that he doesn’t even know what that is. Nevertheless, totally unconsciously, the baby has unconditional self esteem. And his value is just intrinsic. It comes with his humanity.
Realising the power of the example, things started to clear up in my mind as well. Because indeed, come to think about it, I must have unconditional self esteem when I was born as well. But somewhere down the line I lost it. I learnt to judge myself based on external criteria like: my achievements, what other people think about me, my possesions, the university I graduated, my job, etc.
And then no wonder I ended up lowering my self esteem. It was not intrinsic anymore. It was dependant on external factors. And did that make my life a party? Not at all. For example, looking back, there have been numerous times when I felt bad because I was not performing up to the standards, because others thought i was not doing good. Especially the opinion of others counted a lot in my self esteem. I used to feel great when I was getting attention from others, my self esteem was really high. But then, most of the times there are moments when I didn’t get it. Maybe other people got more attention than I did. And all of the sudden, I considered myself less valuable. My self esteem was considerably lower.
When after all, I was forgetting one essential right that we are given ever since we are born: the right to be valuable intrinsically. Because each of us is valuable as a unique individual that we are, with our unique qualities and characteristics. Yes, throughout the years of our life we learn things, we make more or less money, we achieve more or less things. But should that affect the way we feel about ourselves as human beings? Should we feel inferior or bad?
And should we accept the fact that we have an intrinsic value, just like a newly born baby. And that we are unique and each of us have talents that we can use.
Which one is better?
. That means packing for next 2 days, which will be pretty much compensated with the 2 weeks on the beach. Good proportion isn’t it?
We arrived in Singapore two days ago. And now that we got over the initial jet lag, I thought of sharing with you my first “second” impressions.
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