You can have the best shipping cruise in the whole world but without a captain this will just drift. We’ve already talked about the importance of a goal, a purpose and today we’re going to talk about how important self-esteem really is. You’re not going to get a sensational article, where everything is at superlative. No, that’s not what this is about. We’re going to have an actual talk, with real people.
You can have the best shipping cruise in the whole world but without a captain this will just drift. The same happens with our lives given that we can have the best conditions but unless we’re the captains of our own lives, we’re simply going to drift. And if we’re not building our own future, we’re bound to build the future of others. And what does that bring or add to our own future? Well, not very much.
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali was famous not merely due to his extraordinary boxing performances but for the amazing self-esteem he had. An absolutely spotless self-esteem, a man that was determined to tear down any mountain that would stand in his way.
But we’re not Muhammad Ali. Neither do we have to be. As a matter of fact, we’re never going to be Muhammad Ali because only Muhammad Ali himself is Muhammad Ali. Just as you are a unique person.
You are a unique, irreplaceable person and that makes you special
This is the first lesson towards increasing your self-esteem: you shouldn’t compare yourself with anyone else and see yourself in your true colors instead. You are a unique person, all your qualities and less pleasant sides included but you are you and nobody else can be that. The sole fact of becoming aware of who you truly are, of what you do and what your qualities and accomplishments are up to the present moment should increase your self-esteem and bring it to a new level.
More than that, you’re on the blog of Digital Life Solutions, reading this very article, in search of information and knowledge. You’re someone who wants more from life, someone who wishes to evolve and that’s a great thing. This only means that you’re following the natural course of life: you are born, you grow up and then die. Have you ever seen a tree that just stops growing? Not really, it either grows or it dies. That’s why many people die at 25 but the papers are signed only at 65. But not you, who chose to let yourself grow and follow a life path that separates you from the rest and keeps your precious uniqueness.
Never compare yourself with others. We all have our own path through life.
One of the most efficient methods of ruining our self-esteem is by comparing ourselves with the others. And this happens because of various reasons:
- We have the tendency of comparing our chapter number 3 with somebody else’s chapter number 20. In other words, in case we are beginners in a certain field and we compare ourselves with others who are more advanced, we’re bound to lose. But what if we compared ourselves, as beginners, with that person when he or she was at the same beginner’s stage? That might be a more balanced comparison.
- The moment we compare ourselves with someone else, we’re doomed to lose. That’s because in that other person we’re always going to see the advantages whereas in ourselves we spot the disadvantages. It’s never going to be equal.
- The moment we compare we have the tendency of seeing merely the success of a person. But there’s no way of knowing all the difficulties that person went through in order to finally get to success. We can’t see the difficulties, the failures, the tears that person might have cried, and all we see are the accomplishments. It’s just that in order to have success in life, you have to have your share of failures. But about this we’re going to talk in a different article.
As a conclusion, a very efficient method of raising our self-esteem is to stop comparing ourselves with the others.
The actions and their results are going to increase the self-esteem.
We’ve tackled the basics of increasing self-esteem and now we’re going to move on to more advanced things.
However, in order to keep the introductory air of this article, we’re going to discuss one more method of increasing self-esteem: results.
Regardless of how many books you might read, how many seminars you might attend, how many motivational quotes you might read, nothing will increase your self-esteem the way results might.
That moment when you finished a project or you see the positive effects of an activity. That moment when you had success (be it a small or a huge one) regardless of what you did. The energy is the same, only the amount differs.
When was the last time you enjoyed success? When was the last time you had some cool results and you enjoyed it? Isn’t it that you felt better and your self-esteem increased?
We’re going to end with a practical exercise: we invite you to pursue an activity, today, that you will also finalize. One you’re done, write down the feelings and your state of mind, once you have the results. In order to experiment an increased self-esteem.
This is a good exercise to begin with, because we’re only at the first part of our article. When we started, we promised to have a real chat, with real people, without using superlatives. We welcome you to the comments’ section to let us know if we kept our word and if we came with accurate information that helped you increase your self-esteem.