How
are you supposed to be confident about something when you have nothing
to feel confident about? Like, how are you supposed to be confident in
your new job if you’ve never done this type of work before? Or be confident in social situations when you’ve never made a friend before? Or be confident in your relationship when you’ve never dated anyone before?
Confidence appears to be an area where the rich get richer and the poor stay the losers they are. If you’ve always lost in life,
how could you ever expect to be a winner? And if you never expect to be
a winner, then you’re going to act like a loser. Thus, the cycle of
suckage continues.
This is the confidence conundrum, where in order to be happy or loved or successful, you first need to be confident. But in order to be confident, you first need to be happy or loved or successful.
So it seems like you’re stuck in one of two loops — a happy and confident loop, like this:
Or a loser loop, like this.
And
if you’re in the loser loop, well, it seems damn near impossible to get
out. It’s like a dog chasing its own tail. Or Domino’s ordering its own
pizza.
But maybe we’re going about this all wrong. Maybe the confidence conundrum isn’t really a conundrum at all.
If we pay close attention, we can learn a few things about confidence just by observing people. Let’s break it down:
Just
because somebody has something (tons of friends, a million dollars, a
bitchin’ beach body) doesn’t necessarily mean that person is confident
in it. There are business tycoons who lack confidence in their own wealth,
models who lack confidence in their looks, and celebrities who lack
confidence in their own popularity. So I think the first thing we can
establish is that confidence is not necessarily linked to any external
marker. Rather, our confidence is rooted in our perception of ourselves, regardless of any tangible external reality.
Because our confidence is not necessarily linked to any external, tangible measurement, we can conclude that improving the external, tangible aspects of our lives won’t necessarily build confidence. Chances
are that if you’ve lived more than a couple of decades, you’ve
experienced this in some form or another. Getting a promotion at your
job doesn’t necessarily make you more confident in your professional
abilities. In fact, it can often make you feel less
confident. Dating or sleeping with more people doesn’t necessarily make
you feel more confident about how attractive you are. Moving in with
your partner or getting married doesn’t necessarily make you feel any more confident in your relationship.
Confidence is a feeling. An emotional state and a state of mind. It’s the perception that you lack nothing. That you are equipped with everything you need,
both now and for the future. A person confident in their social life
will feel as though they lack nothing in their social life. A person
with no confidence in their social life believes that they lack the
prerequisite coolness to be invited to anyone’s pizza party. It’s this
perception of lacking something that drives their needy, clingy, and mean behavior.
Therefore,
it might seem the obvious solution to the confidence conundrum is to
simply start believing that you lack nothing. That you already have, or
at least deserve, whatever you feel you would need to make you
confident. But this sort of thinking — believing you’re a raving success
even though your only profitable business venture was selling weed in
high school — leads to the kind of insufferable narcissism that causes people to feel it’s totally okay to carve their name into the Roman Colosseum, because, you know, selfies.
A lot of people soon realize this doesn’t work and so they take a different approach: incremental, external improvement.
They read articles that tell them the top 50 things confident people
do, and then they try to do those things. They start to exercise, dress
better, make more eye contact,
and practice firmer handshakes. This is admittedly a step above simply
believing that you’re already confident and that you don’t belong in the
loser loop. After all, at least you’re doing something about your lack of confidence. And actually, it will work — but only for a little while.
Ultimately,
this type of thinking only focuses on external sources of confidence.
And remember, deriving your self-confidence from the world around you is
short-lived at its best and completely delusional at its worst.
So here’s the real answer: The only way to be truly confident is to simply become comfortable with what you lack.
Read that again.
The
big charade with confidence is that it has nothing to do with being
comfortable in what we achieve and everything to do with being
comfortable in what we don’t achieve.
People who are confident in business are confident because they’re comfortable with failure.
They realize that failure is simply part of learning how their market
works. It’s a reflection of their lack of knowledge, not a reflection of
who they are as a person.
People
who are confident in their social lives are confident because they’re
comfortable with rejection. They’re not afraid of rejection because
they’re comfortable with people not liking them as long as they’re
expressing themselves honestly. People who are confident in their relationships are confident because they’re comfortable with getting hurt. They’re not afraid to be vulnerable and tell someone how they feel and then establish strong boundaries around those feelings, even if it means being uncomfortable (or leaving a bad relationship).
The truth is that the route to the positive runs through the negative. Those among us who are the most comfortable with negative experiences are those who reap the most benefits.
It’s
counterintuitive, but it’s also true. We often worry that if we become
comfortable in our failures — that if we accept failure as an inevitable
part of living — that we will become failures.
But it doesn’t work that way.
Comfort
in our failures allows us to act without fear, to engage without
judgment, to love without conditions. It’s the dog that lets the tail
go, realizing that it’s already a part of himself. It’s the Domino’s
that cancels its own order, realizing it already has the pizza it
wanted. Or something. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to publish this
article, comfortable with the fact that some people will probably hate
it. And then go eat some pizza.
Author
of #1 NYTimes Bestseller ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck’. OG
Blogger. Psychology Nerd. I enjoy cats and whiskey. But not at the same
time.
It’s all too easy to doubt yourself when others underestimate you, but with a bit of awareness you can retain your confidence.
By
Vivian Manning-Schaffel
Mar 31, 2021
So many of us feel underestimated all day, every
day. Either through subtle shade or overt obnoxiousness, it’s a sobering
smack in the face when someone makes it clear they don’t expect much
from you. It can play out in so many scenarios, both personally and
professionally. You’re excellent at your work, but the gatekeepers
refuse to crack open the door for you, pay you your worth, or
acknowledge your potential. Your own parents can’t believe you got your
act together and made the dean’s List. Some of your friends seem
genuinely surprised when you meet someone great or when you get
promoted.
This kind of microaggression could be
triggered by racism, gender, age, socioeconomic circumstances,
personality differences, competitive nonsense, or all of the above, but,
regardless of one’s motivation, it is painful to receive such messages.
When
people underestimate us, they saddle us with negative assumptions that
can be destabilizing and can make us question our own abilities, says Michelle Golland,
a clinical psychologist based in New York and Los Angeles. “It’s
traumatic to be underestimated — it’s a trauma to self-identity. It’s
like being told or shown you’re not legitimate.”
As a Black woman pursuing her postdoctorate degree at Harvard Medical School, Monica O’Neal,
a clinical psychologist and relationship expert based in Boston, says
she sometimes felt underestimated. “I performed very well, much to the
chagrin of some of my classmates who couldn’t understand why I was
performing so well. They were like, ‘Exactly how did you get that?’ It
was terribly painful. But I was also aware of how racist it was. I think
the thing that allowed me to get through, to still be successful and
not take my foot off the gas, is because I had a sense of purpose, and I
was passionate about what it was that I wanted to do.”
She
mentions decades of studies that show how implicit bias, and the
feeling of being underestimated due to race, negatively impacted the
performance of children in school. For example, a recent study led by Harvard researcher Mark Chin revealed how teachers’ implicit bias led to unequal student outcomes.
A strong sense of purpose is also what drove Arlan
Hamilton, founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital, a
venture-capital company that invests solely in female-identifying,
People of Color, and LGBTQ+ founders (she’s all three) to bust through
the many obstacles she faced when launching Backstage while homeless.
She knows what it means to be underestimated — she even wrote a book
called It’s About Damn Time: How to Turn Being Underestimated Into Your Greatest Asset to inspire others who want to succeed in spite of what they’re being shown or told about themselves.
“The only difference between the people who
have become millionaires and billionaires with their tech companies, who
are mostly white men, and the rest of us is in marketing, basically,”
Hamilton explains. “They were told that they were Superman at 3 years
old. We were not.”
Whether we realize it or not,
a perceived lack of faith from those who know us, teach us, or pay us
can seep deeply into our state of mind and can be difficult to detach
from. But there are some tools that can help.
Shake off what others put on you
O’Neal
says, when being underestimated, it’s important to recognize that the
reality of the situation has nothing to do with your internal
capabilities. “Sometimes, it is about your race or your gender,
and having that be a clear part of the narrative frees you up from
internalizing because you’re not the one falling short. Everyone’s
expectation of you is falling short. If you can be aware and say to
yourself, ‘I feel some insecurity because I feel like other people might
judge me based on my race (or age or gender),’ that can help you not be
as impacted by it,” she says.
Connect with your sense of purpose
Hamilton
says sometimes, even if she doesn’t close the deal, just getting into
the room to vie for the deal reaffirms her sense of purpose. “The thing
that helps me, especially if I know I may not get the yes on something,
if I’m the only one in the room, is to think about who it could
help — does my being in that room make it easier for the next person to
be in that room who looks like me?” Hamilton says. “I call it loosening
the pickle jar. I go into the room; I ask for a promotion. If I don’t
get the promotion, maybe, just maybe, I made it a little bit easier for
that next person who is going to come in, who is five years younger than
I am, or who is five years older than I am, and looks like me.”
Consider what you can control
Karen
Palmer, a leadership coach based in Brooklyn, says we can’t control how
others think and behave, so when you’re feeling underestimated, it
helps to focus on what you can control within yourself.
“Take
that deep breath and acknowledge what you already know to be good about
yourself, because we so often look for external validation,” Palmer
says. “If we can start examining our own values, look at what’s
important, and how we’re showing up in our own lives, we can realize how
we show up for that also affects what gets attracted to us.”
Expand your social circle
Palmer
says when you’re feeling underestimated professionally, breaking away
from insular social circles and reaching beyond your job or industry to
connect with others in new ways can help set you on a more positive path
in a new (even if virtual) atmosphere.
“Even in our crazy Covid Zoom lives, it helps to join in some kind of intellectual group that is not
connected to your job, so you can have a different way of relating to
people that actually demonstrates you have something else to offer,” she
says. “If you are only looking through the lens of the people who have
already found you wanting, all that does is fight your own perception of
yourself.”
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Rally strategic support
O’Neal
agrees it helps to align yourself with supportive people who are also
working diligently toward similar goals. “Think about being around other
women who are driven, who are wanting to do more, who are competitive
in a way that propels one another forward — not competitive because
they’re insecure about their own ability to achieve,” she explains. “You
need to have friends who say, ‘You know what? You can do it. I know you
can do it. I have faith in you. I’m sure it’ll be hard, but I’ll be
here to give you a Gatorade break — keep running forward.’”
Make sure you surround yourself with people who support you.
MaskotGetty Images
Play the long game
Devoted
to her goal of starting Backstage, Hamilton pressed on toward her dream
in spite of the naysayers. “I found myself sleeping at an airport and
going to meetings during the day, and that same year I got my first
investor to take me seriously,” she says. “I always said if I can get
one person on my side, I can do this. I just needed that one ‘yes.’”
That yes and a lot of drive led Hamilton to the cover of Fast Company.
Though
the process felt like “pushing a hill up a hill,” Hamilton committed to
a long view for her vision. “Because I think of things in decades — not
months or weeks or years — I was ready for that, and I am ready for it.
That’s not to say that I think that things can casually get better. I
don’t like to stand by and watch things casually find their way,” she
says.
Don’t underestimate your value
“Impostor
syndrome is something that has been put on us to gaslight us,” Hamilton
says. “They can send it to you, but don’t sign for it. We know so many
people who are supposed to be where they are, and they’re doing just
fine. For Black women specifically, whatever you’re being paid, it’s a
discount. Whatever the amount. When you think about readjusting where
you fit in, or where you’re placed, you have to be the first person to
put yourself in the right place — to say, ‘I’m supposed to be up here. I
just happen to be down here.’ I think that’s a good start.”
Be angry
“Anger,
redemption, and revenge are very good motivators when you’re
underestimated. They’re healthy parts of ourselves,” says Golland. “Once
you realize that person is trying to shame, gaslight, or humiliate you
(by underestimating you), once you know that, it’s very easy.” She adds
turning the tables in the moment can check the underestimating offender
right into place.
“Actually say, ‘Huh, that’s
interesting.’ Or ‘We’re going to have to agree to disagree.’ It makes
them uncomfortable because you’re not caretaking their assumption about
you,” she says.
In the end, Hamilton says,
success is the best naysayer payback. “Sometimes, I don’t even want to
knock them out when they’re down because it’s the same people,” she
says. “You may have been looking up to them, and they may have been
looking down on you, and a couple of years go by, and they’re exactly
the same place they were doing the same thing to people who are less
fortunate.” Just think, once you’ve lapped your naysayers, you can watch
their karma play out with some popcorn.
Vivian Manning-Schaffel is a multifaceted storyteller whose work has been featured in The Cut, NBC News Better, Time Out New York, Medium and The Week. Follow her on Twitter @soapboxdirty.
Treating yourself with a little kindness. How hard can it be?
Harder than we think. Still, it’s just about the most important thing
we can do. That’s the message from professor and self-compassion
researcher Kristin Neff and psychotherapist Christopher Germer, co-developers of a program for strengthening this crucial skill.
“You need self-compassion to stay friendly with other people in the
long term,” says Germer. “When all you do is give and give, you get
burned out.”
Many people are skeptical when they first hear the term
“self-compassion,” because it sounds like just sitting around feeling
sorry for yourself, or maybe even acting selfishly. But Neff and Germer
assure me that’s not what it’s about. In fact, quite the opposite. Their
Mindful Self-Compassion method cultivates self-acceptance, inner strength, and personal growth.
In the interview below, they tell me about their mission to make the
world happier—and explain, with great patience, the subtle differences
between self-compassion, self-confidence, and self-esteem, as well as
the importance of kindness, mindfulness, and a sense of our common
humanity.
Bianca Bartels: Why do we need mindful self-compassion?
Kristin Neff and Chris Germer
Kristin Neff: Because we’re not kind
and supportive to ourselves. We’re much nicer to other people. When
you’re self-critical all the time, the inner voice in your head is
always cutting you down. That undermines your ability to be happy.
But in fact, we already know how to respond to failure with kindness.
Imagine a friend calls you up in tears because her partner just broke
up with her. Would you say, “Well, to be honest, it’s probably because
you’re old, ugly, and boring, and because you make a needy, pushy
impression on other people. And you’re at least 20 pounds overweight. I
don’t know why you keep trying. After all, you have a snowball’s chance
in hell of running into someone who really loves you. You just don’t
deserve it.”
Of course you wouldn’t say something like that to someone you care
about. But we do have this type of conversation with ourselves all the
time in similar situations. At least two thirds of people do this, and
the percentage is even higher among women. Everyone needs
self-compassion in order to cope with their own pain, however slight or
severe it may be. Fortunately, we can learn to have greater compassion
for ourselves.
Chris Germer: You also need self-compassion to stay
friendly with other people in the long term. When all you do is give and
give, you get burned out.
BB: Still, many people think that self-compassion is basically self-pity and makes you passive and lazy.
CG: Those are just preconceived ideas. In reality,
self-compassion is an antidote to self-pity. Someone who feels self-pity
is always saying “poor me”; a person with self-compassion learns that
life isn’t easy for anyone. Self-compassion does have the word “self” in
it, but people with self-compassion are actually less self-centered.
They feel connected to others and know that everyone struggles, that we
all make mistakes. In contrast, when someone with self-pity says, “I’ve
failed,” the focus is very much on the “self.”
Self-compassion also helps you to worry less and put things into
perspective. You see yourself from the outside, so to speak, so your
view of the situation is more objective. You take your suffering less
personally. Instead of thinking, “I’m suffering, and I’m the only one,”
you think, “Yes, there’s suffering. I didn’t ask for it, but there it
is.” Compassion isn’t egotistical either. Research shows that when we
have compassion for ourselves, it’s easier for us to have compassion for
others. We actually become more caring and more helpful.
KN: It won’t make you lazy, either. Compassion
involves a focus on long-term health, instead of satisfying cravings in
the here and now. It’s like the way a compassionate mother doesn’t let
her children eat ice cream all day but gives them vegetables.
BB: We often think we won’t achieve our goals unless we’re very critical of ourselves.
KN: Self-criticism undermines self-confidence and
leads to fear of failure. Self-compassion, on the other hand, is a very
reliable source of inner strength. People with self-compassion still
want to achieve the same goals. Not because we’ll think less of
ourselves if we don’t, but because we care about ourselves and want to
get the most out of ourselves. So the bar is just as high. The only
difference is that you don’t run yourself down if you make a mistake, so
you’re less afraid to fail.
Mindful Self-Compassion Core Skills Training (Feb. 16-26, 2021)
Learn essential tools for treating yourself in a kind, compassionate way
BB: And that’s good for your self-esteem?
KN: Well, self-esteem
involves evaluation, and that’s not what you want. Self-esteem means
there’s a kind of inner judge telling you you’re a good person—or the
opposite. That often goes together with perfectionism and the idea that
nothing you do is ever good enough. Self-compassion is not about judging
whether you’re a good person or not. It’s really just a way of being
kind and supportive to yourself. You acknowledge that everyone is
imperfect, and that includes you. So you can always feel
self-compassion, but self-esteem requires success—whether in your own
judgment or someone else’s.
CG: Some people say compassion isn’t good enough for
them, but “the curious paradox,” as psychologist Carl Rogers put it,
“is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
BB: So the goal is to change?
KN: Yes, there’s a yin and a yang side
to self-compassion. The yin is about acceptance and reassurance. The
yang side is about the actions we need to take. For example, think of a
child who is failing at school. A compassionate parent would never say,
“Don’t worry, sweetie, failure is fine. Go ahead and fail, I love you
anyway.” Compassionate parents will give a child like that unconditional
love, but they’ll also want the child to do better in school, because
they want their child to be happy. So they look for ways of helping out.
BB: In 2007, when you two met at a conference, Kristin had
written about self-compassion before, and Chris had been giving
mindfulness courses for decades. You were eager to work together right
away. Why?
KN: It was wonderful to combine theory, practice,
and all our insights about the connections between them. I had been
engaged with the topic of self-compassion since 1997, when my divorce
threw my life into disarray. I started exploring Buddhist meditation and
learned about self-compassion exercises. I knew it was important to
show compassion for others, but for myself? Wasn’t that selfish? But
since I wanted some peace and quiet in my head, I did the exercises, and
they taught me how to be a good, helpful friend to myself when I was
struggling with things. It worked!
Meanwhile, I was doing academic research on self-esteem and
discovering its downside: If we want to be better or more special than
average, it leads to narcissism and constant comparison with others.
Then I discovered that the self-compassion from my Buddhist meditations
was the ideal alternative to self-esteem. I did a lot of research on
this, but wasn’t in touch with the practical side. Chris was. He also
had a lot of experience with mindfulness, which is one of the three core
elements in my definition of self-compassion—along with self-kindness
and common humanity. I knew mindfulness was the first step in
self-compassion. You first have to be good at being here now and realize
that you’re struggling.
CG: And that’s not easy to acknowledge, because we
like to tell ourselves, “I don’t want to suffer.” Mindfulness helps you
attend to your suffering and acknowledge that it’s real. That’s the
basis of life and plotting revenge. We tend to get stuck in a “story”
about suffering and ruminate about it, instead of being able to just see
suffering as suffering. Mindfulness helps to reduce tension in the
moment, so that you don’t get swept up in the story your head tells
about your suffering.
KN: The second key concept is “self-kindness,” the
quality that leads us to give ourselves the same care we give to others.
You learn not to attack or abandon yourself when you fall short, but to
offer yourself warmth and unconditional acceptance.
The third core element is common humanity. That’s the sense of being
connected to everyone, the awareness that all human beings fail
sometimes—and that we all suffer, as the Buddha also taught. We often
fall into the trap of thinking things should go our way, that it’s
abnormal to fail, but of course we make mistakes, we get wrinkles, and
we die. Those things not only cause suffering, but can also make us feel
isolated. Yet if we keep in mind that pain is part of being human, then
our pain can transform into an experience of connectedness with others.
Self-Compassion Break
A healthier way to deal with stressful situations
BB: Many people will have a hard time with this.
We know that everyone suffers, but some suffer a lot more than others,
and your own suffering often feels most important. It’s hard to take
comfort in that thought.
CG: Most people do find it difficult, but this
attitude really is what makes the difference. You won’t get it on your
first try. The Mindful Self-Compassion program and workbook are full of
exercises. That’s because it take a lot of practice—it’s not the kind of
thing you learn by thinking about it. Of course, some people suffer
more deeply than others, but what can help is to realize that other
people have similar emotions, that your pain is what anyone would feel
if he were in your situation.
BB: What exercise do you do when you’re suffering?
CG: For many years, I had public speaking anxiety,
and no form of therapy helped. A few months before I had to give an
important speech, a meditation teacher told me just to do a loving-kindness meditation.
I came up with a variety of sentences that I repeated to myself. For
months, I spent half an hour a day on the exercise, and I did it every
time I started to panic about the lecture. They were sentences like “May
I be safe,” “May I be happy,” and so on.
BB: So you didn’t focus on a specific problem and say, “I want my speech to go well?”
CG: No. I just showed some kindness to a broken
person, because I was sure I would fail. But unconsciously, I was
linking my panic to my friendly words. And then, right before I gave the
speech, I felt not only panic, but also a friendly voice in my head:
“May I be safe. May I be happy.” It was amazing! And my speaking anxiety
was gone. I was carried through it by the months of kind wishes for
myself. That was years ago, but I still do the meditation daily.
KN: In our program, we help the participants to come
up with their own phrases. Not everyone uses them. We do lots of
different exercises, and everyone uses the one that works best for them.
BB: Is it important to practice daily?
CG: Yes, but it doesn’t matter whether you do a
particular sitting meditation or practice during your everyday
activities, as long as you keep the flame burning.
BB: You write, “What we feel, we can heal.” Does the program ever stir up suppressed pain?
CG: Compare it to your fingers, numb with cold after
you’ve been out in the snow. When they warm up again, they start to
hurt. The same thing happens in this program. We suppress a lot of
traumas, large and small, in the course of our lives. It’s like numbing
ourselves. But when we start to warm up our heart by giving ourselves
compassion, the old pain resurfaces. Suddenly we realize we’re hurting.
And the same way it’s good for your hands to warm them up, it’s good to
warm up your heart, because that’s a kind of healing. Your heart opens.
That’s why it’s important to do it slowly, step by step, and when you
have big problems, to work with someone you can talk to about what comes
up.
BB: You say you should offer yourself compassion when you’re
struggling—not in order to feel better, but because you’re not feeling
good. So the point of the program is not to get rid of the pain?
CG: I have a metaphor for that too. Suppose your
five-year-old son has the flu, and it’s day one. You’ll be friendly to
your child and take good care of him. You won’t say to yourself, “If I’m
friendly enough, then the flu will only last two days.” You know it
takes five days to get over the flu. You might say we all have the flu, a
lifelong flu known as human suffering. So when something goes wrong,
will you say to yourself, “This isn’t supposed to happen, so I’d better
do 36 things to solve the problem?” That obviously won’t work. Or will
you say what you say to your child: “That’s too bad. How sad that it
went wrong and that it hurts.” Can we just be kind to ourselves and open
our heart without seeing it as a strategy to get rid of the flu, or the
pain? That spontaneous opening of the heart might be enough to ease the
pain, whereas when we’re angry and frustrated about the pain, our heart
closes.
BB: So the pain may subside, but it won’t go away?
KN: If all you want is for the pain to go away, then
you’re not accepting that the pain is there. Then you’re resisting. The
pain won’t subside until there’s less resistance—in other words, when
we’re kind to ourselves because it hurts.
CG: The friendly sentences we say to ourselves when
we practice express simple intentions, such as “I wish I were happy,” or
“I wish I could love myself.” They’re wishes. It’s goodwill.
KN: You don’t say, “It’s not OK that I’m suffering,
and I want it to be over now.” Then you’re resisting, and that’s exactly
what causes the problem. It’s a subtle distinction, but an essential
one.
CG: We practice self-kindness regularly so that one
day when your heart breaks, the kindness will flow naturally. And that’s
exactly when you need it most. At that moment, you don’t have to do
anything else. Your self-compassion is already present, and so is your
pain.
Thanks to Michael Dam for sharing their work on Unsplash.
In
1994, Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time,
retired from the Chicago Bulls and tried to pursue a professional
baseball career. Some say Michael was paying tribute to his father, who
used to be a semi-pro baseball player and loved the game immensely.
From
the start, everyone criticized Jordan’s baseball skills. His swings
weren’t particularly good, and he was a slow runner in baseball terms.
The funny thing is that Michael Jordan’s
first sport was baseball. And he was pretty good as a kid, but at 31
years old, he simply wasn’t good enough for the MLB. It makes me think;
what if Jordan never pursued basketball?
There’s
a quote that I thought about when I saw Jordan’s baseball adventure
(there’s an excellent ESPN doc called ‘Jordan Rides the Bus’ about
this). The quote is attributed to Einstein:
“Everybody
is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it
will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
It hasn’t been verified if Einstein really said that. But it’s so true regardless of who said it. If you’re feeling bad about yourself
in life or are low on self-esteem, just remember that Michael Jordan,
arguably the best basketball player of all time, would’ve lived his life
believing he was just a mediocre athlete if he did not pursue
basketball.
What Is Self-Esteem?
Psychology defines it as an individual’s overall sense of self-worth or personal value. It’s how much we appreciate and like ourselves.
Many
factors affect our self-esteem. Things like genetics, childhood
experiences, and age, are out of our control. But other factors like our
stamina, strength, thoughts, and personal circumstances can be managed.
Self-esteem
is not some permanent state of mind, though. It changes over time. As
the Michael Jordan story shows, self-esteem largely depends on the
current situation we’re in. What you’re currently going through or what
happened to you in the past doesn’t determine how you will feel
tomorrow.
So
what does that look like in daily life? Well, it’s difficult to keep
healthy relationships, excel at work, cope well with stressful
situations, and even be happy if you lack a sense of self-worth. Here
are two situations that show how self-esteem impacts our daily lives.
Self-talk
If
you constantly talk yourself out of everything you want to do, you end
up doing nothing. I recently started teaching an online course about
digital entrepreneurship. And nearly every person goes through something
like this:
“I
had this great idea and got excited about it. Then, I looked it up and
saw it already exists. I don’t know how to come up with something
unique.”
And
then, they go on blaming themselves. Another thing I often hear is, “I
want to start a blog but there are already millions of them.” When I
started, it was the same thing. I could have said, “Well, there are
already a million productivity blogs so I’m not going to start one.”
Let’s
be honest. These are all excuses. We all come up with “reasons” why we
shouldn’t start a business, write a book, talk to the person you fancy,
move to a different country, start losing weight, etc.
Working with others
Without
confidence, we can’t do things like committing to something, sticking
to our decisions, and taking calculated risks. You can’t work well if
you keep second-guessing your own actions.
No one likes to work with people who are unsure about everything. It’s so frustrating. But we fail to look in the mirror.
When
you’re in a meeting, and a client or boss attacks you or expresses
concerns, will you tell them the truth, or will you cop out and give an
excuse?
The William James Formula
So, how do you improve your self-esteem? In 1890, William James, “The Father of American Psychology,” published The Principles of Psychology. I’ve been a fan of James’ work for many years. My book, Think Straight, is primarily based on his philosophy of Pragmatism.
William
James says that self-worth is based on two elements: Our actual
achievements, and our aspirations. He demonstrated this idea in an
equation:
Self-esteem = success/pretensions
Our
self-esteem is dictated by how well we’re doing in life (success)
divided by how good we feel about ourselves (pretensions). Good
self-esteem is the result of having more success than pretensions.
How To Use This Formula
What
I like about this formula is that it’s practical, realistic, and
honest. It’s not about positive affirmations or saying stuff like,
“you’re a badass” without results.
But
we can’t have success with everything we do. As William James said, a
person has to “pick out the one on which to stake his salvation.”
Michael
Jordan could’ve been an okay baseball player. But he could only be
exceptional at basketball. Basketball is his “salvation.” If you want to
become great at something, you need to know what you’re good at and what you consider important.
If you feel like you can’t do anything, then you’re likely doing the wrong thing.
Too many people do stuff that don’t correspond to their strengths, and this is where they fail.
As we succeed more in life, our self-esteem grows. So, ask yourself: Are you doing something you can be great at?
Sometimes,
we feel stuck. Maybe you’re working a dead-end job, or something you
enjoy but having little success with, and you don’t know what to do.
That’s okay. I go through those moments as well.
The
most important thing is that we focus on our strengths, skills, and
areas we can achieve something meaningful, just like Jordan and
basketball — not baseball. Your self-esteem will grow as a result of
that.
I
write about productivity, habits, decision making, and wealth building.
Subscribe to my newsletter to get free articles in your inbox: dariusforoux.com/
What is the meaning of confidence and high self esteem, really?
The self confidence meaning we typically attribute needs to be reevaluated. Because we misinterpret what confidence is.
And then we perceive it the wrong way.
We think it’s a charismatic speaker. A witty dinner party guest. Or the person who is always winning at work. They may be confident, yes. But it’s actually simpler than that.
It’s only one, simple thing.
The key to becoming confident is the willingness to experience negative emotions.
Or what I can the NET - Negative Emotion Tolerance. Because the confident people out there know that knows the cost of really going for what they want isn't that risky - because they’re willing to feel a temporary uncomfortable emotion. And that is the worst that can happen. And uncomfortable emotions pass.
And in this video, I breakdown the only thing required to more confident, with this NET confidence formula. And how to live a satisfying life on your terms.
Improving real, lasting confidence is possible - and I don't mean fake confidence (or pseudo confidence). I mean true confidence in its highest and most freeing form.
What would you be doing if you were willing to experience negative emotions? Think about it.
What are 3 things you’d do if you became really confident - right now?
Not only would you be doing new, scary things. You’d be doing MORE things. A ton more! Your life could change. Pretty much overnight,
The people you look up to (or even envy) simply don’t fear negative emotions like being criticized, rejected or unliked as much. And it works in their favor like magic. If you want some of this confidence magic - this video is for you.
Let me know in the comments - what is self esteem to you?
Every day in my work as a therapist, I talk to people who just don’t like themselves very much. They say things like:
I know I shouldn’t say this but I never feel worthy.
In my head I know it’s not true, but I always feel like a fraud.
I’ve accomplished a lot, but it just never feels like enough.
Across
genders, races, careers, education, and income brackets, many people
suffer silently with low self-esteem. No matter how hard they try, they
just can’t seem to feel good about themselves. And the reason? They’re afraid to live the life they really want.
Instead of going after what they truly want in life, they get stuck chasing after what they think they should want.
Often, they’ve defined their life in terms of other people’s
expectations and values for so long that they aren’t even sure what they
want anymore, much less how to go about getting it.
If you lack the courage to live the life you really want, you will be chronically disappointed in yourself.
Thankfully,
you can learn to break out of the cycle of living someone else’s life.
You can start to identify and go after what you really want, and in the
process, learn to like yourself more.
What
follows are four ideas for how to like yourself more, all of which boil
down to making small decisions each day to live your own life instead
of other people’s.
1. Keep the promises you make to yourself.
People
with low self-esteem are often exceptionally good at keeping their
promises to other people… and spectacularly bad at keeping promises to
themselves.
They’re
so concerned with other people’s wants and needs — their boss’ urgent
request at 11:00 pm, their kids’ demand to learn a new instrument
(again!), their spouse’s desire to take a weekend fishing trip with the
boys — that they end up constantly compromising what they want. And when this compromise becomes a habit, their self-esteem takes a serious hit.
Think about it this way:
If
you had a friend, and you were constantly ignoring their suggestions,
disregarding their recommendations, and flaking out on plans, what would
they think of you? They’d think you were a pretty lousy friend! They’d
quickly lose respect for you, start thinking poorly of you, and more
than likely, they’d stop wanting to spend time with you.
Well,
what do you think happens to ourselves when we ignore our own
suggestions and desires, disregard our own recommendations and
commitments, and flake out on the plans we make for ourselves? Yeah, we
start to think pretty poorly of ourselves! We lose respect for ourself,
and eventually, just plain don’t like ourselves. In other words, we
develop low self-esteem.
Of
course, a part of healthy self-esteem does come from doing good by
other people. It’d be hard to have genuine high self-esteem if you were a
jerk to everyone in your life.
But
the mistake most people with low self-esteem make is to assume that
taking care of other people’s wants and desires is all they need for
self-esteem:
They choose a prestigious career path because society admires.
They choose to marry someone because they know their family would approve.
They take on too much responsibility at work because they want to be a good employee and impress their boss.
True self-esteem comes from balancing the wants and needs of others with the wants and needs of yourself.
If
you don’t have a solid foundation of keeping promises to yourself, all
the noble self-sacrifice in the world won’t make you like yourself more.
Addressing
your own wants and needs doesn’t mean you’re selfish or a narcissist or
an ego-maniac. It’s just basic psychology: In order to feel good about
yourself and be helpful to others, you have to make
sure you’re putting fuel in your own tank. And one of the best ways to
do that is to keep your promises to yourself.
When it comes to keeping promises to yourself, start small:
If
you told yourself you were going to workout today after work, hold fast
to that commitment when your spouse asks if you can watch the kids
while they go hang out with an old friend who’s in town.
If
you told yourself you were going to stop taking on so much at work,
respectfully let your boss know that you can’t take on that new project
now.
If
you promised yourself you’d start that new novel you’ve been meaning to
read this Saturday morning, remind yourself that your spouse is
perfectly capable of making breakfast for the kids and you’re allowed to
spend a couple hours alone at the coffee shop with your book.
Look, obviously I’m not suggesting you stop doing things for other people entirely. But if you’re the kind of person who always compromises promises to yourself in order to accommodate other people, you need to rebalance the scales.
If you want to like yourself more, start by being a better friend to yourself, and that means keeping your promises.
2. Spend more time with people you genuinely like.
You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
Often
this is interpreted in terms of success, productivity, and ambition: If
you hang around with lazy, unmotivated people, it’s going to rub off on
you negatively. On the other hand, if you hang around bright, curious,
passionate people, you’re likely to absorb some of that enthusiasm and
channel it in your life to be successful.
What
people miss about this quote is that it applies to more than just
success and achievement: The people we consistently spend time with
affect our wellbeing and sense of self too.
If
you constantly hang around people who don’t particularly like you,
that’s gonna rub off and it’s going to be harder to like yourself more.
On the other hand, if you spend a lot of time with people who genuinely
like you and enjoy spending time with you, it’s going to be much easier
to like yourself more.
On
one level this seems obvious: Spend more time with people you actually
enjoy! But this can be a surprisingly hard thing to do because competing
desires often interfere.
For example, while many people like the idea of hanging around people they genuinely enjoy,
they also like the idea of hanging around people who will advance their
social standing. And more often than not, the second desire outcompetes
the first:
Instead
of going to dinner and a movie with your easy-going buddy from
high-school, you commit to attending a dinner party with a co-worker who
could put in a good word for you with the partners at the firm.
Instead
of joining that Tuesday evening mystery novel book club you’ve been so
excited about, you commit to attending Tuesday night PTAs, a group you
don’t mind but also don’t particularly jibe with.
If you find yourself chronically spending time with people you don’t really enjoy, take a moment to consider why that is. What’s motivating you to do this? Social pressure? Ambition? Fear?
Then, try experimenting in very small ways with spending more time with people you truly enjoy: Email
your fellow PTAers letting them know you won’t be able to make it this
week and get coffee with your best friend instead. Text an old buddy and
grab lunch with them instead of a coworker.
Spend a little more time with people you enjoy and who enjoy you back and you just might start to enjoy yourself.
3. Be gentle in the way you talk to yourself.
We all have people in our lives who are critical, negative, and at times, just plain mean:
Maybe it’s your manager at work who’s always criticizing your performance and comparing you to other coworkers.
Maybe
it’s a spouse who’s perpetually sarcastic and judgmental about
everything from your wardrobe choices to your parenting style.
Maybe
it’s a parent who tries to use harsh criticism to “push” you and
motivate you, when really all it does is make you feel worthless.
If
you have one or two of these people in your life, you know how draining
and difficult it is just being around them. It’s as if they suck the
life and energy right out of your soul, leaving you stressed, depressed,
and empty.
Well,
as much as we all dislike it when other people are like this to us, we
rarely stop and consider how often we’re like this with ourselves!
We all have an inner voice that narrates our daily life. Some people call it self-talk, some call it their inner monologue,
but no matter what the term you use, it’s something that’s present for
all of us. All day, everyday, we are both the protagonist in the story
of our life and also the narrator, continually describing and evaluating
what’s happening at any given time.
But
for a lot of people, this inner voice is a jerk. It’s harsh,
judgmental, overly-critical, pessimistic, and sometimes downright cruel:
You flub the last slide in your presentation at work and instantly your inner voice jumps on you: I’m such an idiot! I always screw something up. I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to lead the presentation for the team.
You
forget to give your kid a kiss when you drop her off at school and as
you’re pulling out of the parking lot, your inner voice starts berating
you: Oh my God, I didn’t even give her a kiss goodbye.
She’s going to be so upset… I’m probably the only mom at school who
forgets to give their kid a kiss goodbye. Maybe I really am just a bad
mom?
Now, here’s the thing you really need to understand about your overly-negative self-talk:
Even if you understand intellectually that it’s not accurate or helpful
to talk that way to yourself, you’re still going to feel miserable if
you keep doing it.
Self-talk is a behavior. It’s something we do. And sometimes, it’s something we do so often that it becomes a habit.
If you constantly talk down to yourself, you’re going to feel the same as if another person was constantly putting you down.
Sure, you might not really believe that you’re the world’s worst parent or friend, but if you constantly tell yourself that in your head, you’re gonna feel like it. And if you do this enough — talk trash to yourself and about yourself — you’re not going to like yourself very much.
The best way to undo a habit of overly negative self-talk is to focus on one simple idea: gentleness
Try to catch yourself speaking harshly or critically to yourself and ask:
Is there a gentler way of talking to myself?
Importantly, changing your self-talk
isn’t about positivity or vacuous affirmations. Telling yourself you’re
the world’s greatest mom after forgetting to kiss your kid goodbye
isn’t going to do you any good either because it’s equally untrue.
Instead,
by focusing on gentleness, you will find yourself being more realistic
in your self-talk. And when you habitually become gentler and more
realistic in the way you talk to yourself, you’ll start to feel much
better about yourself.
You
wouldn’t be friends with someone who was constantly putting you down,
so it shouldn’t be a surprise that you don’t like yourself very much
when you’re constantly putting yourself down.
Be gentle with yourself and you’ll find it a lot easier to like yourself.
4. Make time to do things you actually enjoy.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people give up doing what they love in order to do what other people love.
Take
the case of a 31-year-old former client of mine we’ll call Jenny. There
are two things you need to know about Jenny: She loves her family and
she loves tennis. Unfortunately, her love for tennis isn’t getting much
love.
In
Jenny’s mind, her job is to raise her kids and support her husband in
his demanding, high-pressure career. And almost anything outside of
these two activities feels selfish to her.
She
has lunch with friends occasionally and tries to make some time to go
to the gym in the evenings when the kids are asleep, but she rarely
carves out time to do things she loves — including play tennis.
Jenny
lives under the belief that to be a good mother and wife, she needs to
be utterly devoted to her family. And any deviation, no matter how
small, feels like a betrayal.
The problem is, deep down, Jenny knows this isn’t true.
She
knows she needs to make time to do things that she finds genuinely
enjoyable and meaningful outside of her family. And this conflict
between what she truly believes and the “rules” she’s living by is
destroying her self-esteem:
She’s
constantly comparing herself to other moms on social media who seem to
be able to “do it all” and then feeling bad about herself.
She
routinely feels flashes of resentment toward her husband who gets to
follow his passion as an attorney while she’s stuck at home with
toddlers all day every day.
She
often finds herself fantasizing about “running away” and how she would
recreate her life without any of her current responsibilities — for
which she almost immediately feels profoundly guilty.
In
short, Jenny is conflicted: If she even considers doing more for
herself, she instantly feels guilty that she’s taking time away from her
family; but when she devotes herself entirely to her family and ignores
her own interests, she feels resentful and disappointed.
The core mistake here is one a lot of us can relate to: black and white thinking.
For
Jenny, she’s either a good mom and wife or an independent person. It’s a
zero-sum game where one side winning means the other side loses. And
because she’s unwilling to let her family “lose,” her confidence and
self-esteem end up losing.
If
you can relate to Jenny’s dilemma, the way out is to prove to yourself
that making time for what you want doesn’t mean an automatic negative
for other people you care about:
Taking
a vacation day because the snow’s awesome and you haven’t been skiing
in a couple years doesn’t mean you’re a lazy employee.
Settling
for 4 hours of studying instead of 5 and catching the last hour of your
favorite team’s big game doesn’t mean you’re a bad student or that
you’re going to fail your exam.
Leaving the kids with your husband for the evening and catching a movie by yourself doesn’t mean you’re a bad mom.
Doing things for yourself doesn’t mean you’re selfish. It means you have enough self-respect to take care of yourself.
And
a big part of taking care of ourselves is making time to do things we
genuinely enjoy and find meaningful. Of course, this isn’t always as
easy as it sounds. And the reason is, we have to be willing to tolerate
some uncomfortable feelings:
Important information for anyone who wants to build self-esteem.
Building up self-esteem isn’t easy, but it’s absolutely worth the
effort. This post from The Independent shares 5 simple ways to improve
your self-esteem, coming straight from a psychologist with 20 years of
experience.
Self-esteem is a wonderful but delicate thing. When
our self-esteem is high, we feel more resilient, we’re less vulnerable
to anxiety and rejection, and less cortisol, or the stress hormone, is
released into our bloodstream.
I always love it when I see features like the one below where women are helped to gain confidence through whatever means. Dress for Success is one such feature and goes a long way to building self-esteem and confidence. When we feel well dressed, we feel confident, it's as simple as that. This scheme helps women into employment which is another facture in gaining confidence.
This article concerns men but is equally interesting for women as we all know that harmony in a partnership on all levels is crucial to happiness. Many men have resorted to Viagra to keep their libido intact and yet there are methods that can enhance this libido without taking these enhancing drugs. Pelvic exercises are very helpful for this condition and so many others too, it is best research natural remedies before taking medication that often is unnecessary.
Building confidence is the most important issue for women who want to step out on their own and create a life of fulfilment. But it is equally important for women who have raised children and want to get back into the working environment or just to undertake training which can lead to amazing possibilities. Exercise and a healthy lifestyle are crucial to building confidence as a fit body already sets the tone for confidence.
Sadly the most destructive state women can experience is domestic violence. This undermines one of the most fundamental human needs which is security. The statistics are alarming.
Any help that can be given and hints on the way will be more than welcome. No one should have to suffer at the hands of someone else, be in physical or mental abuse.
This scheme is great as it helps women get careers. Careers for women are very important for many reasons other than obviously financial. Careers build self-esteem which leads to a happier existence as well as interaction with other women and following dreams.
It is important to nurture yourself after a break-up, especially if there has been a lot of deceit. This is when we need me time and recover and re-gain our Self-Esteem.
