The fifth component to a “Success Personality” is to have self-esteem. This is the next part in my series of what is required to have on-going success throughout your life; what personality traits you need to be a lifetime success.
All the ingredients of a success personality include:
A good personality is one which enables you to deal effectively and appropriately with environment and reality, and to gain satisfaction from reaching goals which are important to you.
The fifth component is…
SELF-ESTEEM:
Alas! the fearful Unbelief is unbelief in yourself
Thomas Carlyle, 1795 – 1881, essayist, satirist, historian
Of all the traps and pitfalls in life, self-disesteem is the deadliest, and the hardest to overcome; for it is a pit designed and dug by our own hands, summed up in the phrase, ‘It’s no use—I can’t do it,
The penalty of succumbing to it is heavy—both for the individual in terms of material rewards lost, and for society in gains and progress unachieved.
As a doctor I might also point out that defeatism has still another aspect, a curious one, which is seldom recognized. It is more than possible that the words quoted above are Carlyle’s own confession of the secret that lay behind his own craggy assertiveness, his thunderous temper and waspish voice and his appalling domestic tyranny.
Carlyle, of course, was an extreme case. But isn’t it on those days when we are most, subject to the ‘fearful Unbelief,’ when we most doubt ourselves and feel inadequate to our task—isn’t it precisely then that we are most difficult to get along with?
Maxwell Matz, “Words to Live By” in ‘This Week Magazine’
You simply must get it through your heads that holding a low opinion of yourself, being self-deprecating, is not a virtue, but a vice.
Jealousy, for example, which is the scourge of many a marriage, is nearly always caused by self-doubt.
The person with adequate self-esteem doesn’t feel hostile toward others.
They aren’t out to prove anything. They can see facts more clearly. They aren’t as demanding their his claims on other people.
The woman who feels that a face lift might cause her husband, children, friends and family to appreciate her more, really needed to appreciate herself more.
Middle-age, plus a few wrinkles and a few grey hairs has caused her to lose self-esteem. She then became super-sensitive to innocent remarks and actions.
𝙀𝙭𝙚𝙧𝙘𝙞𝙨𝙚 𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙘𝙧𝙞𝙥𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣:
Stop carrying around a mental picture of yourself as a defeated, worthless person. Stop dramatising yourself as an object of pity and injustice. Use the practice exercises around this blog to build up an adequate self-image. The word “esteem” literally means to appreciate the Worth of.
Why do we stand in awe of the stars, and the moon, the immensity of the sea, the beauty of a flower or a sunset, and at the same time downgrade themselves? Did not the same star dust make humans? Is not humans, themselves the most evolved creature of all?
This appreciation of your own worth is not egotism unless you assume that you made yourself and should take some of the credit. Do not downgrade the product merely because you haven’t used it correctly. Don’t childishly blame the product for your own errors like the schoolchild who said, “This typewriter can’t spell.”
The biggest secret of self-esteem is this: Begin to appreciate other people more; show respect for any human being.
Stop and think when you’re dealing with people. You’re dealing with a unique, individual creature.
Practice treating other people as if they had some value—and surprisingly enough your own self-esteem will go up.
For real self-esteem is not derived from the great things you’ve done, the things you own, the mark you’ve made—but an appreciation of yourself for what you are.
When you come to this realisation, however, you must necessarily conclude that all other people are to be appreciated for the same reason.
Yours optimally,
Scott
This post is inspired by and a modified extract from the book, ‘Psycho-Cybernetics‘ by Maxwell Maltz
