“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope or confidence” ~ Helen Keller.
Your self-esteem is probably the most important part of your personality.
It is the source of energy or the reactor core of your personality, and how much self-esteem you have determines your levels of vitality, enthusiasm, and personal magnetism.
People with a high self-esteem are more positive, more likable, and more effective in most part of their lives.
Everything that you do, say, or think affects your self-esteem. It is important, therefore, that you guard your self-esteem jealously by having the right frame of mind on a continuous basis.
Probably the best definition of self-esteem is “the level to which you respect and value yourself as an important, worthwhile person.”
How much value do you put on yourself? The value will usually be determined by the kind of life you lead. It is your level of mental fitness. The more positive-minded you are the higher your self-esteem.
To be at your best and feel terrific about yourself, you should be in a perpetual state of self-esteem building and maintenance.
Just as you take responsibility for the level of physical fitness, you need to take complete responsibility for the content and quality of your mind.
I have developed a simple formula that contains all the critical elements for self-esteem building, and you can use it on a regular basis to ensure maximum performance.
The formula is comprised of six basic elements. They are goals, principles, success experiences, comparison with others, recognition, and rewards.
Goals
“Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor.” How much you like and respect yourself is directly affected by your goals.
The very act of setting big, challenging goals for yourself and making written plans of action to achieve them actually raises your self-esteem, which causes you to feel much better about yourself.
It is important to set goals for your life. Imagine how nice it would be like to play a video of your life and you being the main character achieving your goals one at a time.
Self-esteem is a condition you experience when you are moving step-by-step toward the accomplishment of something that is important to you.
For that reason, it’s really important to have clear goals for each part of your life and to continually work toward achieving them.
Each progressive step you take causes your self-esteem to go up and makes you feel even more positive and effective in everything else you do.
Principles
The second element in self-esteem building is having clear principles and values to which you are committed. We all or rather most normal thinking people have their own set of principles.
These are the driving force of each and every one of us. The difference is the level of commitment. Men and women with high self-esteem are very clear about what they believe in.
The more you hold onto your values and beliefs, and the more you strive to live by them, the more you will appreciate and respect yourself. This commitment will boost your self-esteem.
Lasting self-esteem comes only when your goals and values are congruent, that is, when they fit into each other like a hand into a glove.
Much of the stress that people experience comes from believing one thing and trying to do another.
But when your goals and values are in harmony with each other, you feel a wonderful surge of energy and well-being, and that’s when you start to make real progress.
Success Experiences
“My definition of success is to live your life in a way that causes you to feel a ton of pleasure and very little pain – and because of your lifestyle, have the people around you feel a lot more pleasure than they do pain” ~ Tony Robins.
The third vital element in improving self-esteem involves actively pursuing and achieving success experiences.
Once you have set your goals and principles, it is important that you make them measurable so that you can keep a score of your small and large successes along the way.
Setting up a goal is the first step towards achieving greatness. When you break that goal down into smaller, manageable parts, you empower yourself to tackle each piece with confidence.
Completing those parts not only propels you closer to your ultimate aim but also boosts your self-esteem, making you feel like a true champion. Embrace the journey and celebrate each milestone—you are capable of incredible things!
But remember that you can’t hit a target you can’t see. You can’t feel like a winner unless you clearly lay out the standards by which you are going to measure your success and then achieve those standards.
Let’s say that you set a goal to sell a x-amount of money or earn a certain amount of money in a given year. If you break that down into monthly and weekly goals, and then you achieve the first of those goals, you will feel great about yourself.
Every time you reach another milestone, your self-esteem and ability to perform will increase, and you will feel encouraged and enthusiastic about the next challenge.
The key is to keep encouraging yourself with tangible results. The more tangible results you can see the more self-esteem you buildup.
Conclusion
This is a two-part article and I thought to end here. In the final article am talking about the remaining elements that is a comparison with others; recognition and rewards.
There is more you can do to improve your self-esteem. Having a high self-esteem is the gateway to a better life and living. It does not matter who you are, or what you have, when you put on high self-esteem you can move mountains.