I’m seeing mixed reports about Lady Gaga.  Is she looking to overcome low self-esteem?.

Twitter and gather . com report:

• Lady Gaga suffers from low self-esteem regarding her looks – and want [sic] to fix this with surgical operations; including everything from cheek implants, boob job to thigh and ass lift. Allegedly she spends hours every day in front of the mirror – and is very depressed because of this. Reports say she never slows down – even when she relaxes – and people are worried about her.

Metrolyrics . com reports form a year ago:

• She said: “You know I am totally confident about my talent, I am totally confident that I am an incredible artist and performer. I have complete faith in myself in so many ways, absolutely.”  She added to Britain’s more! magazine: “I love the way I look, I am extremely confident about my body, the way I dress, the way I want to look. But I have no confidence when it comes to men.

They don’t seem consistent.  Does she suffer from Bad Romance or are the Paparazzi telling us stories with a Poker Face?

So it’s not clear to me what the truth is and I’m left with the question: If you aren’t feeling great about how things are going for you, should you opt for plastc surgery?

Let’s break all that down a bit.  What exactly isn’t going well?

• there may be a part of the cycle where you look in the mirror;
• a part where you think certain negative thoughts about what you see;
• you remember unkind things said about you;
• you predict things won’t work out well with men (or women);
• you have annoyed or anxious feelings; and
• you feel bad about having those feelings.
• you are self-critical about yourself (low self-esteem)

Now if you have all these things, that may be a hard cycle to get out of.   An important point is that there is more going on here than skin blemishes.   Your memories, predictions, thoughts and feelings are coming into play.  Will plastic surgery fix those?

There are physical and medical risks and there are also risks to it not fixing the confidence cycle.  If someone or you yourself picks on the most negative thing about you, then after surgery, you’ll still hear the most negative thing about you.  if you don’t know what the cycle is, you’ll go around that loop for a long time.
The following introduction is designed to help you understand the cycle and address it.  As a guy, I don’t understand make-up.  I see the end result, whether it’s in a champagne bar on a Friday night or Lady Gaga on tour.  I don’t understand the process of different layers, brushes and powders.  You know it all happens in steps, however many they are.  I can’t tell you the steps to applying make-up, but I can work with you to slow down and understand the self-esteem and confidence cycle. By looking at each part, it’s easier to say, “is this what I choose to happen now”?  By catching yourself doing things, it’s possible to think, feel and discover what happens at each stage in the cycle.

Don’t go gaga, contact me and overcome low self-esteem.

WWW.OVERCOMING-LOW-SELF-ESTEEM.COM

Here are comments from clients and other people I have coached.

“Emotionally, something moved, rearranged. Before I felt invisible. Now I feel I bring sunshine into the room and am capable of brightening up a girl’s life.” (Paraphrased)

Student, Lancashire.

How does low self esteem affect the lives of people on Twitter?  I’ve been paying some attention to that and was wide eyed at the results.  Even over a few days trends seem to be emerging.  Look at these tweets:

Anonymous Tweets

• Doesn’t your self-esteem take a hit when an attractive person tells you they look bad today, yet they still look better than you?
• why do us girls have to have low self esteem even beyonce doesnt think she is hot lol
• watching britains next top model does little for self esteem when feeling like 5 lots of s***
• #BeforeWeGetMarried ima [I'm going to need you to]  need you to lose all yo low self esteem friends..
• I am the girl that is born with low self esteem
• For some reason, all artists have self-esteem issues. -Whoopi Goldberg
• My self-esteem too… I feel like no one cares. Emo!!!
• Dont Get How People Let Others Lower There Self-Esteem ! !
• People with low self-esteem degrade others to make themselves feel better.
• My new hair is totally different from my usual “thang” but already has two good reviews. Self esteem is on the rise!
• The foundation of lasting self-confidence and self esteem is excellence, mastery of your work. ~Brian Tracy (see my other blog message for my coments on this one).
• A woman with self esteem is dynamic, attractive, and inviting. Men love women who are confident and secure.

It seems to affect relationships, career, finances, friends, beauty and the fundamental way people see themselves.  It’s not just a feeling, a passing bad thought.

What kind of issue is low self-esteem for you?  Why not take a moment to consider that.  ….So if that’s the way it is, what happens next?  When you start to notice that you have low self-esteem, what usually happens next?

• Do you dismiss the thought , telling yourself  you can’t do anything about it?
• Do you throw yourself into your next task of the day?
• Do you tidy your room, check your hair or just distract yourself?

I’m not trying to be mean or unhelpful by reminding you of awkward thoughts and feelings.  My message to you is that this is a choice; your choice.  When you realise you have low self-esteem, you choose what happens next.

You could:

• do nothing.  If you fall in a puddle, you have the right to sit and stay in the puddle.  If I was coaching you, all I’d say to you is “You’re in a puddle, what happens next?”.  It’s worth noting my question.  No agenda, no rescuing you.  You can act as a child, adult, hero, victim or whatever.  But sooner or later you’ll realise what you’re doing and you’ll face the question “If that’s what you are doing, what would you like to do?”.  Yes, most people move to the next option.
• accept your situation.  This is the “I accept I’m the puddle and I won’t complain about it”.  Again, I’d let you sit there, but I’ll ask you about what’s around the puddle and you’ll realise what other things you can do that are more rewarding/ fun/ satisfying.  I don’t sound that helpful do I?  If we sing “If you’re happy and you know it, clap you’re hands”, you might hit me or skip to the end of the street.  If I tune in to what’s happening to you and all your choices, it can take a bit more time, but we’ll discover some sort of solution for every problem.
• deal with it yourself.  This might work and yet be realistic with yourself.  Has it worked before or does everything go around in a loop?
• read some self-improvement books, get some CDs etc.  They can be inspiring, educational and give some tools.  They are also easily avoided and may miss the mark.  How many books do you have that you haven’t read? Is it just SHELF -improvement?
• take up a hobby, relax more etc.  This can help your environment and the context.  That may be enough for you.  If it’s not, you’re back to a choice on which of these options to take.
• ask friends and family for help.  This option has a whole range of possibilities.  You may have someone who cares and is skilled.  It may be getting you down that they are neither caring nor skilled at helping you.  It can help a relationship to support each other and it can lead to frustration on both sides.  I’m pretty demanding if I do ask for help, and if I ask for too much, I then end up thinking about the feeling of the other person, which defeats the original point of the exercise.
• ask for help from a skilled person; a coach, a therapist, a priest etc.  Someone trained to listen, hold the space and help you get to solutions if and when you want to.  Careful here too, because they may be skilled but have their own agenda (religious), their own assumptions (people need daily achievements or deep enlightenment) and methods (focus on breathing, improve your environment).  NLP and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can offer useful models to understand what might be going on.  Their structured approach can feel a bit restrictive and won’t flex to match what’s happening for you at each moment.  Someone once asked me to tell her 100 options for what I could do in a situation.  We had a fight when I refuse to produce more than 30 pointless options.  She thought it’d be creative and then I asked her how she knew how my creativity worked?  Her assumptions and rigid structure got in the way of my support.

• ask for help from a skilled person who will work with your unique patterns, your sequences of thoughts and feelings and use metaphors to work with some of the things that may be hard to express.  I’m proud to say this is what I do.  I’ll keep with you as you discover your situation and the associated feelings, thoughts, bodily sensations and metaphors.  We’ll discover blocks, impasses and then new experiences, hidden help and resources.  For me, when I get coached in this work, the end result is like a weight being lifted, walls being broken down, being a giant or having unlimited energy like the sun.  I love the metaphors and the feelings associated with them.  I’m certified in this technique, attend practice groups and get supervised to continually build my skill.  Clients have talked about entering a new garden, shining sunshine where there was cold shadow and a beautiful calm lake.  You’ll discover your own metaphors.  All I’ll assume is that you’d like something new to happen and that’s it’s okay to work with simple questions so I can follow what’s going on for you.  We will agree how to work together and how not to; what my role needs to be and what you need to be like.  It all begins with “What would you like to have happen?”.

Please contact me to move a step closer to what you’d like to have happen.

Brian Birch
My phone numbers are 020 8816 7343 or 07703 176167 (UK)
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I’ve just tried CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) on myself for a problem that was getting me down; not severe enough to count as low self-esteem, but similar temporary feelings.  It felt like being stuck in a hole and I couldn’t see a way out.  I was annoyed at myself for not being able to get out.

I rated my feelings, named my thoughts and came up with alternatives.

So was the process useful?  I have four rules; like, learn,use, benefit.  Let me explain.

Did I like the technique? No, it felt like an annoying teacher who poked me to get a reaction when I just want to be left alone.  At one point I felt isolated.

Did I learn something? I wouldn’t rate it as learning, but I certainly worked through some thoughts.

Will I use it again? Maybe, it felt like the cognitive equivalent of going for a walk to calm down.  It was reasonable quick, but neutral rather than positive.

Did I benefit? Well I ended up feeling numb, and still stuck in the hole.  So I’m not annoyed at myself, but I don’t have a solution.  Still stuck in the hole, but not annoyed at it.   I don’t rate that all that highly.  After a fourth technique, I can list good qualities, but with about as much feeling as I can list bus routes I know.  When re-writing rules, the only option I can think of is talking myself out of being ambitious, as some sort of practical option.  It’s like teaching you how to tidy up rather than to make something new in the kitchen.  We’ve come full circle to “I want to succeed and don’t know how to solve this particular problem.”  The last exercise isn’t appropriate.

I still have a problem and have run out of CBT exercises.  Does anyone have any more?  I think I’ll go back to my open, flexible questions and search for a powerful metaphor.  Something to do with a hole, a teacher or a kitchen I suspect.  It might help me raise today’s self-esteem?

Someone on twitter says:
The foundation of lasting self-confidence and self esteem is excellence, mastery of your work. ~Brian Tracy

Brian says:

So if someone feels they lack the self-esteem to do well at work, Brian Tracy doesn’t give them many options to succeed.

He places them in a bind.  At first they can’t succeed due to low self esteem.   He’s telling them they can’t get self esteem because you need to master your work to get it.   Need self-esteem to succeed but can’t get it because I need it to succeed.  Being in a circular bind like this can make people feel more helpless.

Brian is well respected, but taken on its own, this sort of quote can do more harm than good.

Evaluate your helpers like you would anything else you buy or take.  Is the help you’re getting working for you?

So you like it?  Probably, Brian Tracy is personable.

Do you learn from it?  Full of tips.

Do you use it?  If you start off not being able to do well at work due to low self esteem, this advice could make you feel worse.

Do you benefit from it?  Not if you don’t use it or it makes you feel worse.

So I hear you say, “What would you do smarty-pants?”, if anybody still uses that phrase.

Email me or call me and I’ll tell you what I’d do to get out of the bind or help you be fully productive despite it. It’s all about asking the right questions.
Brian Birch
My phone numbers are 020 8816 7343 or 07703 176167 (UK)

Melanie Fennell, in her book “Overcoming low self-esteem” provides a useful diagram on the sequence of thoughts, beliefs and emotions of self-esteem.

The diagram talks about how early childhood experiences may lead on to an assessment of our own value. We may then have guidelines to live by and experience situations that trigger negative feelings. Then there may be a cycle of negative predictions, anxiety, unhelpful behaviour, depression, self-critical thoughts and confirmation of our low self-worth.

Now I had some challenges setting up this coaching business, so I’d like to use those to try out this diagram.

I can find a trigger point when I couldn’t get the video to appear on the blog. And some rules for living that I could improve – not just settling for one result when I know I can do better.

But I don’t think I have a fundamentally poor view of myself; in fact I can always distinguish between things not going well and me being pathetic.
I’m missing a part of the model. So does that mean I’ve broken the CBT model? What if I don’t work that way? Am I not normal?

Stepping back from that, I like to coach people by finding out the model that exists for them. Listen to the beat of their drum if you like, rather than the tune they are being told to play.

I do this by asking open questions that help the client and I both discover the dance movements, the rhythm and the flow. We find out what the current situation is, what the client wants and how to get that. If we worked together, you’d never have to look for a piece of a jigsaw I was giving you; there is only what you notice and what you want.

So in my example, by expressing the difficulties of website and business, it allowed me to get if off my chest and then notice the good things. Like spring cleaning, I was able to wipe away the dust and let my enthusiasm come out. And that’s a useful metaphor for me to explore further some time.

Do you know of any metaphors you use in overcoming low self-esteem?

Contact Brian Birch on phone number is 020 8816 7343 or 07703 176167 (UK).