Your
self-esteem is probably the most important part of your personality. It
precedes and predicts your performance in almost everything you do. It
is the energy source 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 high self-esteem are
more positive, more likable and more effective in every part of their
lives.
Everything that
you do or say or think will affect your self-esteem. Your job,
therefore, is to keep your self-esteem high and positive on a
continuing basis.
Probably
the best definition of self-esteem is this: the level to which you
respect and value yourself as an important, worthwhile person. People
with high self-esteem feel terrific about themselves and their lives.
When you feel really good about yourself, you tend to be the very best
person you can possibly be.
To
perform at your best and to feel terrific about yourself, you should be
in a perpetual state of self-esteem building and maintenance. Just as
you take responsibility for your 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
of self-esteem building, and you can use it on a regular basis to
assure maximum performance. This
formula is comprised of six basic elements. They are: goals, standards,
success experiences, comparison with others, recognition, and rewards.
Let's take them one at a time.
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.
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 those goals. Each
progressive step causes your self-esteem to go up and makes you feel
more positive and effective in everything else you do.
The
second element in self-esteem building is having clear standards and
values to which you are committed. Men and women with high self-esteem
are very clear about what they believe in. The higher your values and
ideals are, and the more committed you are to living your life
consistent with those values and ideals, the more you will like and
respect yourself, and the higher your self-esteem will be.
Lasting
self-esteem comes only when your goals and your 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.
Many
people tell me that they are unhappy with their job because they can't
seem to achieve success no matter how hard they try. I always ask them
if they are doing what they really care about and believe in. In many
cases, people realize that they are not happy with their job because it
is the wrong kind of work for them. Once they change jobs and start
doing something that they really enjoy, something that is more
consistent with their innermost convictions, they start to make real
progress and get a lot of satisfaction out of their work.
The
third element in self-esteem building involves having success
experiences. Once you have set your goals and standards, it is
important that you make them measurable so that you can keep score of
your small and large successes along the way. The very act of setting
up a goal, breaking it down into smaller parts, and then completing
those parts makes you feel like a winner and causes your self-esteem to
go up. 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.
The fourth
element of self-esteem is comparison with others. The more you know
about how well the others in your field are doing, and the more
favorably you compare with them, the more you will feel like a winner,
and the higher your self-esteem will be.
Successful
people continually compare themselves with other successful people.
They think about them and read about them and study their performances,
and then they work to surpass them one step at a time. Eventually,
successful people reach the point where they compete only with
themselves and with their past accomplishments. But this comes after
they have moved to the top and left many of their competitors behind.
The
next element for self-esteem is recognition of your accomplishments by
people whom you respect. To feel really great about yourself, you need
the recognition of people you look up to and admire, such as your boss,
your coworkers, your spouse and people in your social circle. Whenever
you are recognized and praised for any accomplishment by someone whose
opinion you hold in high regard, your self-esteem goes up, along with
your eagerness and enthusiasm to do even better on the job.
The
final element of self-esteem involves rewards that are consistent with
your accomplishments. You may work in a field where you receive
financial bonuses, status symbols--larger offices, bigger cars--or even
plaques and trophies for superior achievement. All of those symbols can
have an incredible impact on raising your self-esteem and causing you
to feel terrific about yourself.
If,
however, your existing situation does not offer the tangible or
intangible rewards that are necessary for you to build and maintain
your self-esteem, you must create rewards for yourself. One of the
smartest things you can do is to design a system for giving yourself
rewards for both small and large accomplishments as you move
progressively toward your goals. For example, people who do telephone
prospecting will often treat themselves to a cup of coffee after every
10 calls. After 25 calls, they will reward themselves with a walk
around the building or the block. After 50 calls, they will go out to
lunch. Each of those rewards serves as an incentive that motivates them
to repeat the performance. The end result is success, enthusiasm, and
high self-esteem.
Whether
or not your current environment provides the six elements of
self-esteem building--goals, standards, success experiences, comparison
with others, recognition, and rewards--you need to establish your own
structure and take full responsibility for building yourself up on a
regular basis.
The
only real way for you to absolutely know that you are a valuable and
worthwhile person is for you to make the effort, overcome the obstacles
and pay the price to bring these elements into your life. When you have
that foundation, you will experience a form of mental fitness and
unshakable optimism that will sustain you through failure and propel
you to success.