“Tell me how a person judges his or her self-esteem, and I will tell you how that person operates at work, in love, in sex, in parenting, in every important aspect of existence – and how high he or she is likely to rise. The reputation you have with yourself – your self-esteem – is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life.”

-Nathaniel Branden

Few discussions on Self-Esteem have described the concept so trenchantly – the reputation you have with yourself. In the path to Mahatman, Self-Esteem is a crucial force to energize yourself now and to actualize your potential eventually. Once all the pep talk and self-pampering is over, once that bottle of champagne opened to celebrate your promotion is empty or the pink slip has brought your dream of owning a luxury yacht crashing down, what will remain is Self Esteem – the quiet knowledge that you are born unique, you are meant to achieve great things, and that you can do all of it with the skills you have and are capable of acquiring.

Mahatman points out that Self Esteem is not the same as Self-Confidence. The latter is an attitude towards the task at hand it is made up of words, thoughts, appearances, and actions that tell you that you can do it. Before a long-desired date or a long-coveted interview, you want to appear and feel self-confident. Self-Esteem on the other hand is deeper in effect and wider in scope – it is confidence not just in your words, appearances, and actions but in your ability to learn, make appropriate choices, and respond effectively to change. So Self-Esteem would ensure that you can take on a challenging role when offered in the interview but also say no if a clause goes against your self-respect. Self-Esteem would be mentioning to your date your recent promotion at work but would exclude exaggerating about an exclusive club membership that came as a perk.

Mahatman also warns you not to mistake self-delusion for Self-Esteem. If you believe that you are the best at everything, you never have to strive to learn or succeed, as long as you keep praising yourself, every achievement will fall at your feet – you have not got the first lesson about Self-Esteem – that it is grounded in facts. Indeed, as Branden warns, “Excessive and inappropriate self-absorption is symptomatic of poor Self-Esteem, not high Self-Esteem.”

Self-Esteem on the other hand demands a high orientation towards reality – if you have never won any swimming competitions in your life, Self-Esteem does not allow you to think of yourself as a great swimmer; instead it encourages you to build skills and stamina that will enable you to swim better and faster. Indeed, one of my core tents is that ‘Mahatman begins at the end of your comfort zone’. So Self-Esteem is not about paddling in your backyard pool and thinking that you are a great swimmer; instead it is pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone, it is about training harder every day and then putting yourself out there to translate your goals into real achievements.

Branden goes on to detail two essential components of Self Esteem – self-efficacy and self-respect. Self-Efficacy is an important psychological concept and has been extensively studied by experts like Albert Bandura who defined it as an individual’s belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments. The stronger your belief in your own competence to survive and thrive, the higher your Self-Esteem will be.

The other arm of Self Esteem is self-respect which Branden understood as feeling of being worthy of life, and worthy of efforts to preserve and advance one’s life and happiness. You need to believe that you deserve the best that life, society, and the world has to offer that you have a right to a life of dignity, success, and actualization. Self-Respect also includes self-acceptance since you must accept yourself fully before you can respect yourself. This means accepting and loving your body shape, size, complexion, skills, and abilities. So, whether you are short, or can only shop at the size fourteen rack, or have arrived in this world with two left feet, it does not matter. Accept that you will never be a professional dancer or basketball player and then go on to find out what you are really good at and nurture those skills. The importance of accepting and loving who you are has been thoroughly discussed in the Self-discipline chapter.

Indeed self-efficacy and self-respect feed each other to create a positive loop so that the stronger your belief in your competence to meet and complete tasks, the higher will be your success rate in actual task completion which in turn will further enhance the belief that you deserve the best from this world. Together they can do wonders for your Self-Esteem.

Mahatman points out that Self-Esteem is not the same as Self-Confidence. The latter is an attitude towards the task at hand it is made up of words, thoughts, appearance, and actions that tell you that you can do it. Before a long-desired date or a long-coveted interview, you want to appear and feel self-confident.  Self-Esteem on the other hand is deeper in effect and wider in scope – it is confidence not just in your words, appearance and actions but in your ability to learn, make appropriate choices and respond effectively to change. So Self-Esteem would ensure that you can take on a challenging role when offered in the interview but also say no if a clause goes against your self-respect. Self-Esteem would be mentioning to your date your recent promotion at work but would exclude exaggerating about an exclusive club membership that came as a perk.

Mahatman also warns you not to mistake self-delusion for Self-Esteem. if you believe that you are the best at everything, you never have to strive to learn or succeed, that as long as you as you keep praising yourself, every achievement will fall at your feet – you have not got the first lesson about Self-Esteem – that it is grounded in facts. Indeed as Branden warns, “Excessive and inappropriate self-absorption is symptomatic of poor self-esteem, not high self-esteem”.

Self-Esteem on the other hand demands a high orientation towards reality – if you have never won any swimming competition in your life, Self Esteem does not allow you to think of yourself as a great swimmer; instead it encourages you to build skills and stamina that will enable you to swim better and faster. Indeed one of my core tents is that ‘Mahatman begins at the end of your comfort zone’.  So Self-Esteem is not about paddling in your backyard pool and thinking that you are a great swimmer; instead it is pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone, it is about training harder every day and then putting yourself out there to translate your goals into real achievement

Before you think that all this talk of Self-Esteem is based on mere “feel-good” self-talk, here is what science has to say about it; Research has shown that people with high self-esteem enjoy a higher reported sense of well-being while low-esteem correlates with higher levels of anxiety and depression. A Longitudinal study of 1,824 individuals from ages 16 to 97 years and conducted across a 12-year period indicated that “Self-Esteem is best modelled as a cause rather than a consequence of life’s outcomes and… that self-esteem has medium-sized effects on life-span trajectories of affect and depression, small to medium-sized effects on trajectories of relationship and job satisfaction.” In other words, Self-Esteem is the cause rather than the consequence of what you feel about your life, especially your emotions, relationships, and jobs. Branden suggests elsewhere that you “Think of self-esteem as the immune system of consciousness. If you have high self-esteem, you might still know times of emotional suffering, but less often and with a faster recovery-your resilience is greater. A well-developed sense of self is necessary but not a sufficient condition of your well-being. Its presence does not guarantee fulfilment, but its absence guarantees some measure of anxiety, frustration, and despair.”

More recent research into the brain science behind Self-Esteem has even identified the hippocampus as “The core area of Self-Esteem” and even found positive correlation between high Self Esteem and better physical health. A 2018 study found that individuals with higher levels of self-esteem had better self-reported physical health and that this connection was mediated by the hippocampus in the brain. The researchers found evidence that prolonged stress which triggers the over release of glucocorticoids caused by the atrophy of the hippocampus. On the other hand, high self-esteem can help individuals to take effective coping strategies that buffers physiological responses to stressors. In other words, this protective action of Self-Esteem protects the hippocampus and a better-preserved hippocampus in turn …can guard against the disorders of neuroendocrine and immune systems, and ultimately promotes physical health.

No matter how much science proves the empowering effects of Self-Esteem, Mahatman recognizes the strong pull of cultural conditioning. Cultural beliefs and mores across time and space have held up sacrifice as a noble action. According to such proponents when you put ahead a cause or an ideal above your own self, it is the purest deed. But right here, right now Mahatman says sacrifice is actually suicide. Putting yourself first, protecting your own interests, and well-being is the core of Mahatman philosophy, which has been discussed in length in the first chapter of Realize. Cultural proponents really play on the vulnerability of some people when they preach the idea of sacrifice. And the surest way to shrug off this vulnerability is to develop your Self-Esteem. See the worth of your own existence, the validity of your dreams and ambitions as well as the greatness that you are meant to actualize – throwing all this away is a crime against your very own self and by extension a crime against humanity for what can you give others if you do not possess anything first? This generosity which lies at the heart of the Great Wealth pillar of Mahatman can only be put in action after you use Self-Esteem to actualize your own potential.

Those people who most exploit others are actually devoid of Self-Esteem. Patriarchs, self-styled god-men, and dictators may thunder and lash about, but their very bluster and violence indicate that they do not possess an iota of true self-worth. People who are assured of their worth and have a clear concept of how to actualize their potential into rewarding and meaningful success will get on with the job. They will not exploit and harangue others to do their bidding. You can see such people as despots ruling countries, patriarchs stifling the existence of women and children in their families, and self-proclaimed godmen emotionally enslaving followers. You can only be free of such exploitation when you develop your Self-Esteem and realize that you are meant to be a leader and not anybody’s follower.

The other kind of people with extreme lack of Self-Esteem ends up as master manipulators. Often these are the exploited victims of the despots we discussed above. Such victims – like women in cloistered patriarchal systems or subjects of a dictatorial regime cannot say no to injustice and oppression openly. They cannot put forward their own needs and realize their goals in a direct, open manner so that they look for surreptitious ways to get what they want and, in the process, end up manipulating others. This kind of perpetual secretive underhand methods ultimately ends up making them as toxic as the exploiters of the system. The way to escape this vicious cycle is again to cultivate Self-Esteem. No matter how exploitive the system, if you can keep reminding yourself of your self-worth and self-efficacy, no one else will be able to break you. Indeed, the more oppressive the system, the greater your need for Self-Esteem.

Self-Esteem is a long-term disposition to life. It is not a transient pick-me-up or a momentary feel-good gesture. It can only come from prolonged and conscious nurturing of your self-worth and self-efficacy. But the rewards are unbelievable – you not only acquire greater psychological and physical well-being as proven by science, but prime yourself to actualize your deepest potential and achieve the Greatness that you deserve.

Summary:

• Self-Esteem is believing that you can be the best version of yourself
• Self-Worth and Self-Efficacy are two components of Self-Esteem
• Science shows Self-Esteem correlates with psychological and physical health
• Self-Esteem protects against vulnerability and negativity
• Self-Esteem can be strengthened with practice

 

References:

Orth, Ulrich & Robins, Richard & Widaman, Keith. (2012). Life-span development of self-esteem and its effects on important life outcomes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 102. 1271-1288.

 

Lu H, Li X, Wang Y, Song Y and Liu J. (2018). The hippocampus underlies the association between self-esteem and physical health. Scientific Reports, 8:17141. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-34793-x