This is my answer to a Yahoo Answers forum question:
I’m a self-esteem life coach and I find it an interesting question.
Let’s first answer it
Not all girls feel like Angelina Jolie and not all guys feel like Brad Pitt. Expectations can be out of control.
Guys may like feeling less judged or they might take advantage. They might find vulnerability makes them feel strong or they might want someone who is more sure of themselves. I think it’s best if there is awareness and honesty in who we are, what we want and what we offer.
Now, this is the bit I find interesting. I’ll assume you are the girl and you’re asking about yourself.
Is the most important thing what guys think? Some of them you haven’t even met.
Is the only worthwhile way of rating yourself the way guys rate you?
Is it as simple as turn on and turn off? Are there only two categories to fit into?
If you live your life this way, there are multiple problems.
- a guy you don’t know can say something that puts you in the wrong category;
- your rating and category can change without your control and quickly; and
- you may never really knw what all the criteria are; how they rate you.
We’re told “we’re worth it” only if we buy L’Oriel products and live up to impossible celebrity lifestyles.
If you build your self esteem, you’ll be able to say
- I’m enough as I am
- I’m doing everything I realistically can and that’s okay.
- I’m doing what I can to build the relationships I want to and that’s enough
- I know what I want in life or am in the process of figuring it out
- I can tell the difference between my feelings, people’s intentions and what I should do.
- I trust my own decisions
- I am or am doing my best to become who I want to be and I respect myself.
- What people say to me and how they treat me is not directly related to what I’m worth because I decide that, not them.
- As I become who I want to be, I will offer more in relationships and become more attractive and find someone that I want, not just someone who wants me.
Isn’t the big question:
Does a girl with low self esteem want to raise her self-esteem?
What is self-esteem? This definition is from Nathaniel Branden and his book “The six pillars of self-esteem”. It is the book I recommend when I’m helping people who are overcoming low self esteem. Here are the main ideas from the book.
- Self-esteem has two interrelated components. One is a sense of basic confidence in the face of life’s challenges; self-efficacy. The other is a sense of being worthy of happiness: self-respect. (page 27)
- Self-efficacy is not the conviction that we can never make an error. It is the conviction that we are able to think, to judge, to know – and to correct our errors. It is trust in our mental processes and abilities. (page 34)
Self-respect entails the expectation of friendship, love and happiness as natural, as a result to who we are and what we do. (page 37)
Here are the Six Pillars of Self Esteem from the book by Nathaniel Branden, used in overcoming low self-esteem. The Six pillars are Personal Integrity, Living Consciously, Self-Responsibility, Self-Acceptance, Self-Assertiveness, Living Purposefully.
A brief expansion of these pillars for overcoming low self-esteem is:
Personal Integrity: Live according to your beliefs and values
Living Consciously: Be realistic, have an active mind rather than passive, be willing to see and correct mistakes.
Self-Responsibility: accept that “no one owes me fulfilment of my wishes” (page 107)
Self-Acceptance: When we fight a block it grows stronger. When we acknowledge, experience and accept it, it begins to melt. (page 99)
Self-Assertiveness: My life does not belong to others and I am not here on earth to live up to someone else’s expectations. (page 121)
Living Purposefully: When we behave in ways that conflict with our judgement of what is appropriate, we lose face in out own eyes. (page 144)
Quotes from Nathaniel Branden and his book “The six pillars of self-esteem”.
- No, it is not [possible to have too much self-esteem]; no more than it is possible to have too much physical health or too powerful an immune system. Sometimes self-esteem is confused with boasting or bragging or arrogance; but such traits reflect not too much self-esteem, but too little; the reflect a lack of self-esteem. (page 19)
- It would be hard to name a more certain sign of poor self-esteem than the need to perceive some other group as inferior. (page 12)
- High-self-esteem people can surely be knocked down by an excess of troubles, but they are quicker to pick themselves up again. (page 18)
- If my aim is to prove I am “enough”, the project goes on to infinity – because the battle was already lost on the day I conceded the issue was debatable.
- When we live consciously we do not imagine that our feelings are an infallible guide to truth. (page 71)
No tags for this post.
