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A Simple Trick for Higher Self-Esteem

Permanent Linkby sunshineNrainbows on Wed Dec 21, 2016 4:25 pm

It’s not the moments where our lives are going well which shape our self-esteem; it’s how we respond to setbacks. Psychologists break down self-esteem as how we generally feel about ourselves as a whole. If we go and see a movie and someone asks us about how the movie was, we’ll answer this question the same way we determine our self-esteem. We’ll say it was good, bad, scary, funny, inspiring, etc. When people ask us questions about something as a whole, we address it as a whole. When we think of ourselves as a whole, we’re determining our self-esteem. However, just like how most people don’t judge movies the same way, we don’t all create our self-esteem the same ways either. What I’m going to demonstrate is how we determine our self-esteem has a huge impact on whether it will be higher or lower. After that, I’m going to tell you exactly how this understanding can be put to use for living a happier life.

When it comes to movies, people have different preferences. Some people prefer more action and others more dialogue. Some people want to laugh during a movie and others want to cry. Some want our movies to take us to a magical, far-away place while others want gritty realism. Although we offer similar answers about movies, such as thinking the movies we like are good and those we dislike are bad, we come to these conclusions very differently. Similarly, we don’t assess ourselves the same way either and we determine our self-esteem in very different ways. The simple trick for higher self-esteem starts with something simple and incredible based on the differences in the ways we determine self-esteem.

What are some ways we determine our self-esteem? Just as our preferences for movies can vary, we can like and think well of ourselves for a large number of reasons too. For example, we can think well of ourselves for being seen as attractive, winning competitions against others, having learned variety of skills, being supported by friends and family, being loved by God, and/or believing we’re good people. How do you determine your self-esteem right now? Well, when you experience something good in your life which makes other problems seem less serious, what happened to cause this? Did you make someone laugh? Did someone you find attractive smile at you and make you feel desirable and attractive? Whatever it was, it was one of the many parts of life contributing to our self-esteem.

Although there are so many ways for us to feel good and bad, they all fall into two categories. The first category is the ways we can feel good about ourselves which depend on other people to help us feel that way. If we need to be seen as attractive, amusing, intelligent, etc. in order to feel good, we need other people to confirm and remind us we have these qualities. We need them to tell us we’re attractive. We need them to laugh. We need people to react to what we say as though it’s really smart. If we’re competing against others and we need to win, we need them to be less capable and prepared than we are. These ways of determining our self-esteem are dependent on other people.

There are other ways, however, which do not depend on other people to help us feel good about ourselves. If we’re religious and we believe God loves us, this doesn’t depend on any other person than ourselves and our own belief. If we have other ethical standards for believing we’re a good person, such as by being generally honest, helping those in need, being kind for the sake of being kind, or being charitable when we can, this doesn’t depend on anyone other than ourselves acting on those beliefs. What’s incredible about self-esteem is those who determine their self-esteem based on following ethical standards and depend on other people generally have higher self-esteems than those who don’t.

People with higher self-esteems also respond to setbacks in a similar way. When we experience set-backs and failure, we remind ourselves of what we’re good at. If someone doesn’t laugh at our jokes, we might remind ourselves of all the other areas in life where things have gone better. Bad grade or other bad evaluation? It’s no big deal. We’ve got so much else going for us! However, when our reminders are dependent on other people, this system we have for making ourselves continue to feel good about ourselves can fall apart. If I minimize someone not finding me attractive by focusing on how funny I am, this works as long as people continue to find me amusing. If I minimize people not finding me funny by focusing on my appearance, this works as long as other people find me attractive. Even those who have accidentally learned this trick of focusing on the positive aren’t safe from sabotaging our self-esteem… unless we do it in a specific way.

People with the highest self-esteems of all respond to failure by focusing on positives which DON'T depend on other people - by focusing on how we're still good and moral. That’s it. That’s the trick. If we lose a competition, it can be disappointing, but are we any less good or less ethical? If we experience disapproval from our friends and family, this hurts, but does it make us less ethical and less good? If no one laughs at our jokes or finds us attractive, it can sting, but does that impact how good and ethical we can be? The answer is “No way.” We can stumble, fail, bumble, lose, and be the butt of every joke from now until the end of time and our self-esteem can overcome these negative experiences. We can overcome these experiences simply by believing being good and ethical is the most important aspect of life and we are in fact good and ethical. If we’re looking to getting more from our self-esteem, this is accomplished by setting ethical standards for ourselves, making those standards what we’re about more than anything else, and sticking by those standards. When we experience life’s numerous setbacks and potential harm to our self-esteem, these experiences can be used to increase our self-esteem with a simple trick: by reminding ourselves it’s okay because we’re still good people.

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Re: A Simple Trick for Higher Self-Esteem

Permanent Linkby sunshineNrainbows on Fri Dec 23, 2016 5:47 pm

Whoops, this sentence is backwards:

"What’s incredible about self-esteem is those who determine their self-esteem based on following ethical standards and depend on other people generally have higher self-esteems than those who don’t."

It should say:

"What’s incredible about self-esteem is those who determine their self-esteem based on following ethical standards and depend less on other people for our self-esteem generally have higher self-esteems than those who depend more on others."
sunshineNrainbows
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