How can I build my self-esteem and my self-confidence?

Well, first of all, I pretty sure we all agree that feeling good is good. Feeling powerful and in control, appropriately, is good. We like the feeling of contentedness and for most people we do not like to be uncomfortable! Pain is no bueno, and confusion and sadness are hard to live with. What is is it like to BE in the moment and BE whole and complete? To love not only who we are but what we are about? What is it like to enjoy our lives and enjoy our own company?? Have you ever enjoyed a moment in time? What was that like?

Do You Know What it is Like to Love Yourself?

Have you ever had such confidence that it seems natural? 

Remember learning to drive a car, and now it was so hard and you had to concentrate so hard? It was scary for sure. So much to think about at the same time. I remember thinking my big sister was SO cool because she could do it. And she did is so fast and so well. It was natural to her. What the heck? How did she do that so easily and with such confidence? Gee, when things are natural, they just exist  and then we can go to the next thing. We can focus on other things and other people. When I don’t have to think about how to drive my car, I can naturally then, think about where I am am going and what I am going to do when I get there. Confidence and self- honor help us BE, then we can focus on doing. 

Is it OK to Love You?

Having self-satisfaction is NOT just SO easy. It is not natural to most of us. That is why I have taken the time to create this Self-Esteem exercise and taken the time to write this BLOG. It is not so intuitive, there needs to be steps. The first step is, to know that the answer is YES. It is SO OK to have self respect and love. All the prophets of old and all the honored and revered leaders love themselves. Self love is mandatory. Yes, self-love is mandatory to progress to actualization in this life. It is mandatory to be our best and highest good It is mandatory to love others.

How? 

As we look around at people all over the place, we notice that the typical default setting happens to be low self-worth, right? Think about all the people you know. It seems to be the normal thing that people have kind of low self-esteem and tend to dis on themselves, people are usually just not so nice to themselves. Hmm. Yet the default setting for a three-year-old is definitely high self love, and as life gets a hold of us, oops there goes our confidence, so oh dear. Okay well, that's the way it is. So what do we do about it?

What would Great Self-Esteem look like?

First of all, what would it look like if you had really great self-worth, what would it be like? The best way to know what something looks like, is to look around at all the people your respect. Think about someone that you idolize or strive to be like. It’s easy to see when someone does not like themselves. Thy seem to stand out. They seem to spread their feel-bad all over the room. It is easy to see when someone is depressed or ornery or negative. Oh boy, here they come, here comes their stuff! Here comes the feel bad. It is almost like a black hole and all the good that was once around you, gets sucked out. Whoosh!  Out it goes, now everyone in the room will tend to feel bad too!

But What Happens when People Around You are Happy?

But what is it like when someone regards themselves highly? When you are around someone positive, the same thing happens. The emotional light is lit in the room. The term EMOTIONAL CONTAGION, a term in my communication textbooks, apples. Here. The emotion is contagious and spreads all over the room. Do you know someone who lights up a room? Do you light up a room or do you suck the energy out? Which one??

Who are the Cool People? Really?

It is helpful to think of real life people, but you may also want to look at fictitious characters, maybe the Avengers, ha. 

Super Man and Bugs Bunny have it Going On!

How do Superman or Bugs Bunny have self esteem? Maybe it is because they are super talented, and strong. But wait, Bugs doesn't seem to have many skills except extreme confidence. How cool is he? When is the last time you watched a show with Bugs Bunny in it? Maybe go to Youtube and watch an episode to refresh your memory. He is the bomb. And that confidence gets him anything he wants! People respect him, people obey him, people stay out of his way or they want to follow him around. He commands the ultimate respect.

You! 

Walking around, going to work, working out with your family, your friends. What's it like if you really had High self respect, right NOW? Hmm, interesting. How would you behave? How would you stand? What would you focus on? The definition of self-worth is feeling like you are a good person who deserves to be treated with respect. It's a sense of one's value or worth as a person.

Rate Yourself

So on a scale from 1 to 10, where would you say your self-esteem is at right now? Let’s say a 10 would be Jesus Christ, Dalai Lama, or those that we respect and we know as our teachers and philosophers and prophets. So where are you 1 to 10 right now?

Your Baseline

Where you think you are, right now, on a scale from 1-10, is your baseline. Keep in mind, just by the way for the sake of this podcast is there are some that argue that there's a differentiation between the definition of worth and esteem. Meaning self-worth is kind of an inherent thing and self-esteem as an external thing. And that's kind of the definition in the industry. And there's a distinction yet for today. I don't really care which word we use because we're going to fix it anyway. So the words are interchangeable for me for today,

Self Esteem Exercise. Meet my friends, Ellen and Cindy.

I want to start by telling you about two of my metaphorical friends. Okay. And we're going to, we're going to pretend that we're going to go to a cabin. You and me and some friends, a bunch of people. It's going to be so much fun. There's going to be water skiing at this lake. It's so beautiful. And we're going to have food and just hang out and have a really great time and each one of us gets to bring one other person. So I was going to ask you if you wanted me to bring Cindy or Ellen and I just want to tell you a little bit about each one of them so you can tell me which friend you'd like me to bring to hang out for the weekend.

Here’s Cindy

Let me tell you about my friend Cindy. Can I just tell you how cute she is? Okay. Cute is like you don't know whether you say beautiful or cute like it's kind of ridiculous when you look at her, she's like perfect. And she's super rich. Like she has so much money and runs corporations and businesses like an entrepreneur and it's just like, oh my gosh, her car is so cool. Like she has this really cool convertible and we could go popping around in that thing and oh, her legs are saw muscular, but they're thin at the same time, that slim fit thing like, okay, fine, whatever. She doesn't live in a gym, but she looks like.

Oh, she's so smart. She knows everything. Oh. And her hair is so beautiful and her kids are perfect. She has I think like a bunch of kids and they're just all educated and oh my gosh, her husband is so good looking too. So that's Cindy, she's really cool.

Here’s Ellen

So then I have Ellen and so let me tell you about her and see what you think. If I had one friend to go to with a problem, it would be Ellen. She's the one that I talked to and she listens. She totally like listens to me. She gives me feedback. She's truly a faithful friend. She's super honest. I can always depend on her to be there for me. There's never been a time that I've needed anything that I didn't call and she wasn't there physically or emotionally or mentally for me.She's average looking. She's just real, real, real, real. And I could go on because she has every quality I can think of that's just great and truly easy to be around. So anyway, that's Cindy and Ellen. And which one do you want me to invite now?

Which one should I invite to the Cabin?

Alright, you men, there are some of you men that might want Cindy to come just because she's HOT, but I'm not talking to you. LOL, Okay, let's start over. I'm just talking to my girlfriends and we're going to have a girls trip and we're starting over. And which friend would you like to have come? Usually, when I teach workshops, it's unanimous. Everyone wants Ellen. Nobody wants Cindy. And the punchline is why?

WHY?

Why is it that most of us to get our self-esteem and self-worth up, want to be like Cindy and be the person nobody likes.

Oh my gosh, I am guilty of that. I am. So we've gotta rethink this.

The Punch Line

Every day We're trying so hard to be the person no one really likes! What??

Let's rethink this because if we're going to do that and be the person, no one likes and we're all perfect, well maybe that sucks. Apparently, we still have low self-worth. Dang it.

Next exercise

Okay. Then let's do another  assessment. Sound good? Let's get busy and fix this. I want you to answer the following question? "I have good self-esteem when....? If you're sitting there, get a pencil and paper out. If you're driving, think about it. I have good self-esteem when...? When What? Think about it.

Write down 15 positive qualities about yourself

I want you to write down 15 positive qualities that you have. I do this with my college students each quarter and with all my clients and in most cases, people struggle to come up with them. I had one student email me yesterday, "I just couldn't come up with 15 I got to 10 but after about two days I kept thinking about it and I finally got my 15." That's awesome. So write down your 15 positive qualities. Dun, Dun, Dun Dun.

Next Step

Now go back to that list and put an E or I next to every item on the list. E is external. I have good self-esteem When my kids look wonderful. I have good self-esteem and I can brag about my grandkids. I have good self-esteem When I can brag about anything. I have good self-esteem When I look really good. Internal(I) would be I have good self-esteem When I feel connected to spirit. I have really good self-esteem When I feel like there's flowing relationships and I can add to a relationship. I have good self-esteem when I'm in control of my body and what I eat and how I exercise. I have good self-esteem when I'm knowledgeable, I have good self-esteem when I'm giving when I am of service. So on your list, how many E's, how many I do you have in the very, very best way to have really, really bad self-esteem is have all external things that you base your self-esteem on. Oops, oops. So if you have all E's, let's fix that too. So now we're going to fix that.

Did you write down 15 positive qualities about yourself?

You can pause for a minute if you need to think. No battle, I will wait for you to think of 15. Want are 15 things that are good about you or that you do well? Well my college students seem to have a hard time with this. They can usually think of about 8 and then they pause. But if we wait long enough, they all come up with 15 things. If you need to dig deep, OK just say you are good at getting dressed or tying your shoe. Or I know you are good at taking care of a pet, or being a good friend. Everyone has millions of good things about them and can do millions of things well. So can you. I didn't ask you if you were a famous singer or millionaire. Just what are you good at? Making our bed? Planning a fun event? Getting up on time? Write them down, 15 of them and move on to the next step.

You Can Do It

Now, this is a little bit different than external and internal, so it's kind of the same but different. So you can go ahead and actually put external things on this list. Like I really cook really super well. It's just a positive thing about me? I don't really base my self-esteem on it. It's just something that is a positive thing about me. Now what I'd like you to do is circle two of those positive qualities that you're not so good at lately and/or two of those internal qualities that you're not so good at lately. So look at the two lists and think of two of them that you're just not that good at lately.

Internal and External Qualities

And as you're thinking about that, realize that there are some topics that can be internal and also external. Why did you get a degree? So people would think I'm cool is external, internal is so I can help my clients best and learn more. That's internal. So sometimes some of the items on your lists are both.

There it is!

You have your internal and external list. You have your 15 positive qualities, they kind of overlap a little bit and you're going to circle two from either list - one list or the other that you need to work on. It may be that I'm not as loving as I have been in the past. Circle it. What do we do with this now? We have a day timer. If on your day timer, every single day you said, I'm going to practice the violin, and every day you did, would you get better? Yep. I'm going to practice the piano every day. Would you get better?

Practice

So whatever you practice every single day you're going to get better at. So you've got these positive qualities or internal attributes that you've written down. I'm going to work on love today. Then I'm going to go get stamps. (Who has stamps anyway? Ha) Just got to have them in the queue somewhere, once in a while I need them. And then I'm going to work on faith or I'm really going to focus on service today or being helpful or listening better and you can practice them. And then next week you put two more and next week, two more.

I Promise You!

I am looking you in the eye and I'm promising you if you put two things on your to-do list, those internal qualities or positive qualities that you're just not that good at lately and you practice them. Especially the internal qualities and you practice and you practice your internal qualities, your self-love baby, will increase by far and away.

Keep it up!

Now I have lots of self-sustaining, building activities. Lots of confidence building activities, tips on how to turn off the Negative Thoughts in your head and at this point, as you practice what I've shared with you so far, notice how you start to have more control of your life. Your life is more flourishing and you're living the life you want. You know, feeling good, is good. It is good. Have a great day. Thanks for joining. And we'll talk soon.