The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
Nathaniel Branden
Nathaniel Branden's The Six Pillars Of
Self-Esteem is an essential
read for anyone with a personal or professional interest in self-esteem. The
book explains why self-esteem is basic to psychological health, achievement,
personal happiness, and positive relationships.
Branden introduces the six pillars that provide
the foundation for self-esteem-and explores its central importance in five
areas: the workplace, parenting, education, psychotherapy, and the culture at
large. It shows why in today's chaotic and competitive world self-esteem is
fundamental.
Self-esteem
is the immune system of consciousness; it provides strength, resistance, and
the ability to regenerate. Just like our immune system, self-esteem is native,
and we need it to handle life’s difficulties.
The author has also compared self-esteem to calcium. Just like calcium strengthens our teeth and bones and is essential for a healthy body, self-esteem is vital for strong psychological development.
We don’t
need self esteem to survive, but we cannot live a full life without it. Why?
It’s the way our self-esteem works – by creating certain expectations about what we are capable of. These expectations influence our behavior in a way which turns them into reality.
Self-esteem
is about fighting for your right to happiness and facing challenges with
confidence.
Self-esteem comes down to the fact that we all have a right to be happy. From this, it follows that high self-esteem sees us assert this right and take steps to achieve it. Low self esteem means the vice-versa.
Low
self-esteem manifests itself when we make choices which allow our negative
beliefs about others to become reality.
Conversely, if we have high self-esteem, we’re less likely to create problems for ourselves, and also we’re better at persevering in difficult situations.
How do we harness our self esteem?
The first
pillar is the mind-set and practice of living consciously.
It begins with a shift in mind-set. Living consciously means being willing to differentiate between three aspects of perception: facts, interpretation, and emotion.
However, living consciously isn’t just a mind-set – it’s also a practice. We’ve to keep searching for information from our environment, and adjust our actions accordingly.
The second
and third pillars of self-esteem teach us to accept ourselves and take charge
of our own happiness.
Self-acceptance, self-responsibility and self-esteem seem to have little difference. But the identifying difference is quite simple. Self-acceptance and self-responsibility are things we do so that we can increase our self-esteem.
When we choose to value ourselves, we’re practicing self-acceptance, the second pillar of self-esteem.
If we don’t accept ourselves as we are now, we’ll never find the drive to improve, as we’ll spend all our energy worrying over our inadequacies.
Self-acceptance goes hand in hand with taking responsibility for ourselves. The practice of self-responsibility is the third pillar of self-esteem. It involves taking control of our existence, and our happiness by being solution-oriented.
The fourth
pillar of self-esteem is self-assertiveness – this entails standing up for
yourself, which is more difficult than you might think.
The subtle fear of asserting our rights is quite normal. It is
because of the instinctive thought processes: “If I express myself, I may
provoke disapproval,” or “If I affirm myself, I may provoke resentment.” This
mind-set is a direct obstacle to building our confidence.
To be self-assertive is to simply be who you are. To practice self-assertiveness, we need the certainty that our beliefs are important. Stating our opinion is practicing self-assertiveness.
Each time you express yourself or stand up for your values, you strengthen up your sense of self-esteem.
The fifth
and sixth pillars are living purposefully and practicing personal integrity.
As we build our confidence, it’s important that we take responsibility for our goals. By asking - what we want and where we want to go, we start living purposefully. But we also have to continuously monitor our progress.
It also means making our behaviour match our words, or having
personal integrity. Sometimes, personal integrity can be the most difficult
pillar to practice, but it is really essential for a healthy self-esteem.
Parents and
teachers have a central role in nurturing a child’s self-esteem.
There’s another factor that can hugely influence our self-esteem – the people that have been with us from the beginning of our lives, our parents. Parents can make it both easier and harder for a child to develop self-esteem.
What creates a positive relationship between parent and child has several aspects to it:
First, parents need to be accepting of their child’s thoughts
and feelings.
Second, parents themselves should demonstrate their own high
levels of self-esteem so that children can learn from them as role models.
Third, parents should set clear boundaries for their child, to
create a firm sense of security.
Children who haven’t developed a healthy self-esteem in their
early years often find a second chance at school. A teacher that builds
confidence in a child can have an incredible, positive influence.
Successful companies foster high self-esteem in their employees.
To give employees feedback that builds on their strengths makes
them feel good about themselves and more confident about facing challenges.
Leaders also play a big part in nurturing high self-esteem of self esteem by either appraising them or constantly finding new ways to stimulate innovation and creativity in them.
Self-esteem and its six pillars aren’t just something which can help individuals, they can also help organizations grow and thrive.
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