idisagreecompletely

Lessons in self-esteem.

Esteem: To consider good or important; value highly. Self-esteem would then be to regard oneself in this way.

What do you think? You think we need a little bit more of this in ourselves and others? I sure do.

I’m not famous, I’m not published and I’m not someone who has a book to sell or a workshop or CD’s anything else to sell you. Hell, I didn’t even go to college so I don’t have any fancy degrees.

But I’ve been working with people my entire life and I’ve noticed a subtle but important change in people over the years and it startled me.

People in general don’t seem to like themselves very much. I see this in so many ways:

1)       Feeling inferior or uncertain.

2)       Scared about failure so not even taking one step towards something they want.

3)       Sleeping with anyone that comes along that has a pulse.

4)       Obsession with one’s looks.

5)       Obsession with one’s weight.

6)       Convinced they must have someone (boyfriend/girlfriend) in their lives to feel value.

7)       Staying in an abusive relationship because they are afraid to be alone.

8)       Looking to others for self-esteem.

9)       Thinking what people think of them is more important than their opinion of themselves.

10)   Feeling unworthy.

And my favorite sign of lack of self-esteem:

11)   Insisting and enforcing their viewpoint that they have it. This is almost always done in a hostile tone.

This list goes on, but you get my point.

I decided to put together all of my experiences in this subject along with what I have found has worked for me and for others. My intent is to open this up to anyone that has an interest in improving their own sense of value and hope that it helps you.

In any course you take it is best approached step-by-step. Do one thing really well and then go onto the next thing. There are a couple of key things that I am going to start with because without them you won’t be as successful.

The most important thing to know about self-esteem is this: If you don’t have it, it’s because you gave it away. No one took it from you. You wrapped it up in a pretty little package and gave it away. Everyone does this for a different reason and none of those reasons are relevant or important.

Why? Because you’re going to get it back, all by yourself, and I don’t care why you gave it away  in the first place. Getting back one’s self-esteem has nothing to do with what happened in the past and has everything to do with today and tomorrow.

So your first step is to DECIDE you are going to get it back.

Remember when you were a child and life was fun? You were anyone you wanted to be and it was real. You could fly, dance, sing and in your mind you went to wonderful places and met fun people. Maybe you actually did go there and meet those people. You knew no one was better than you. You had your dreams and they were real and alive and you KNEW it.

Take a moment and think back to a time when you were happy. Find the happiest moment you can and don’t read further until you have that moment back.

Take your time and enjoy it. I’ll wait….

That moment when you were your happiest is still there and it’s real. OK, I get that it’s buried a bit or maybe a lot, but it’s there, right? That’s what you want back. There’s only one thing we really want and that’s to be happy.

But you can’t be happy if you don’t like yourself anymore.

And believe me no one will ever love you like you love yourself. It’s not possible. So if you don’t like yourself much then what you get back is more of the same. If you don’t respect yourself, no one else will.

We’ve all heard that cliché that I just typed and I was going to apologize for it, but in this case it happens to be true.

So the first step is deciding that you are worth the effort, that you want it back and then some (it’s always a good idea to have some in reserve for when life smack you upside your head) and that you are going to do it.

Now a word of caution; the second you make this decision, you might feel a backlash come in. This can come from previous failures or remembering times when you hated yourself or something bad that you had done. You might feel anything from shame, blame, regret or anger. Negative emotions will come in.

Ignore it. Ignore it. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It doesn’t matter what you have done up to this minute. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve done or not done. Shove it aside and keep doing that. Just keep repeating the decision to yourself.

In other words DISAGREE with anything negative you feel or think about yourself. Just disagree.

This is your first lesson. There will be more to come as this is a gradient approach and it is unique and personal to each person. We all have our problems and none of us are perfect, but at least we are standing at the plate and swinging.

More lessons to come, so if you want to receive them, please subscribe to this blog. If you find this helpful, please tell others to come on board. I would really like your feedback on how it’s going as we walk down this path together. Whoever you are, I know you are valuable. I just want to make sure you know that too.

I am more than happy to help anyone one-on-one, so if you would like to do that, subscribe and then follow me on GooglePlus and send me an email. I am also on Twitter.