Today at Live On Purpose TV, I have 6 tips for what to do about low self-esteem and some
of these are going to surprise you.
Let's jump in to tip number 1 which is maybe the most surprising one.
Let's rethink self-esteem.
What it is, what causes it.
Low self-esteem is commonly misunderstood to be humility or thinking about your self
in a negative way because you don't want to be prideful.
News flash!
Low self-esteem is actually a problem with destructive pride.
That surprises a lot of people because it seems like, "No, I'm just being really humble."
No, you're not.
Check it out.
Everybody's got an opinion.
Right?
You got an opinion about you?
You know what?
I have an opinion about you.
I don't even know you all that well.
But I got an opinion about you.
Now, does your opinion match my opinion?
Probably not.
Because I can tell you my opinion of you is high and it's bright and it's beautiful.
I think you're awesome.
Now, my opinion doesn't match yours.
Who's right?
Oh, oh!
Yeah.
See?
You took my opinion and you tossed it out the window.
You're like, "Well, doctor Paul doesn't really know me.
Or if he did really know me then maybe he'd understand."
And you tossed my opinion.
I got a PhD in psychology and you're taking opinion and throw it away in favor of what?
Yours.
You're going to hang on to your opinion in a face of mine.
Do you see how prideful that is?
Other people in your wold have opinions about you too.
And sometimes you'll write them off or toss their opinion out the window in favor of whose?
Your own.
This is destructive pride.
people.
And as soon as we start to see it that way, then we have a better chance of actually addressing
it appropriately.
It is not humble.
It's destructive pride.
Get over yourself and your own opinion and how you always hang on to that in the face
of others.
Sometimes because of our low self-esteem, we avoid doing things that are hard for us.
Here's tip number 2.
Intentionally take on somethings that you're pretty sure you can't do.
Does that sound a little weird?
I know.
It might be a little counter-intuitive.
I want you to have a courage to take on things that you're pretty sure you can't do.
And you're going to surprise yourself from time to time.
I had an opportunity to hear JIa Jiang speak.
If you look him up, he's got one of the leading TEDtalks.
And his blog --100 days of rejection therapy has caught a lot of attention.
Jia took this on.
He realized he was afraid of rejection.
And so, he wanted to systematically desensitize himself from being rejected.
And he took on something everyday that he was pretty sure that he couldn't do.
That he would be rejected.
He would be declined.
He would be told "no".
He would have bury his foot in front of him to do that.
It's an amazing project that he took on.
I want you to try something similar as you're working on your own self-esteem.
You intentionally take somethings on that you're pretty sure you can't do.
For the third tip, we're going to turn in word and take on honest look at what kid of
chatter is going on in there.
You've heard of self-talk.
This is kind of a tricky topic because the chatter in our head, we listen to as if it's
true.
Notice what it is that you're saying to your self about yourself.
What kind of commentary is going on in there.
You hear the voices?
That makes some people pretty nervous when a psychologist ask them if they hear the voices.
But you hear them, don't you?
And you hear that chatter going on in your mind all the time.
Now, if this is truly self-talk, what is it that you say to yourself and what is it that
you're listening to yourself say?
And here's another question for you.
If I talk to you the same way you talk to you, would we still be friends?
Would you pay any attention to me if I were treating you the way that you treat you?
Let's just add some compassion and empathy.
Are you down for that?
Sometimes, we go about and we're so kind and compassionate and loving to everyone except
for one when we are cruel and demanding and punishing.
Right here with ourselves.
Pay attention to that self-talk and do you have to talk to yourself that way?
Okay, that's a weird question.
Do I have to talk to you in any particular way?
No, it's up to me.
It's up to the choice that I make.
It's the same thing with your self-talk.
And until you see this as a choice, it's not.
And you will continue to roll with whatever it is that you're used to just because it's
easy.
And our brain is basically lazy and loyal.
It's going to continue to do what has been programmed to do unless you intentionally
change it.
Pay attention to it.
There's an old saying.
I've heard it attributed to Ernest Hemingway that will lead to our next tip.
Don't think less about yourself.
Just think about yourself less.
Did you catch the subtlety there?
We're not going to value or depress the value of who we are by thinking less about ourselves.
We're just going to think about ourselves less.
We turn our focus from here, from me, from selfish to out there.
To you, to them.
To the people I can serve.
Self-esteem is bolstered by thinking about your self less.
And if that seems counter-intuitive, just try it.
You know, one of my clients called me once.
He was at the conference in another city.
He was in his hotel room.
He was supposed to be giving a presentation for his business in just a few minutes.
And he couldn't get himself out of bed.
His self-esteem was so hammered.
He'd thought so little of himself that he couldn't get himself to go offer what he had
to offer.
I gave him an assignment in kind of a hurry because I had a speech to give in a few minutes
as well.
I responded to his text and I said, "please try this: Get out of bed.
Go down to the hotel lobby and serve someone.
Find somebody down there in the lobby who could use your help.
Just make a difference for somebody.
Go do it right now."
Call him back in a couple of hours.
It was the hardest thing for him to get out of bed.
But when he got down to the hotel lobby, sure enough.
When you look outside of yourself, you're going to find other people who could use you.
And as you step up and serve them, what happens to all that negative self-talk going on inside
of you?
It get's quieted down for a minute as you turn your attention and focus to someone else.
People have usually very positive opinions about you.
If you would just pause to receive that...
And in tip number one when we talked about how we rethink low self-esteem.
It's actually destructive pride.
We let go of some of that pride and be humble enough to receive someone else's input or
complements.
So this leads to tip number 5.
Practice receiving complements graciously.
It's a gift.
When someone gives you gift, you don't just reject it.
You don't just, "Oh, I don't want that."
But we do that all the time with compliments."Oh, no."
Somebody tells you you look nice.
"Not really."
Or you know, you just blow it off or reject it.
Receive it graciously.
And here's what I would suggest: Thank you.
One of the magic words your mom taught you.
Simply, "Thank you.
How kind of you.
Thank you for that compliment."
And you don't have to say whole lot else about it.
You know like explaining it away or trying to find someway to be less awkward or uncomfortable.
Simply receive it.
Practice receiving complements graciously.
It will improve your self-esteem.
Now, let's say it one more point to wrap this up.
Tip number 6.
Focus on service and creating value for others.
Now this builds on some of the tips that we've already talked about here today.
Let's talk about value creation for a moment.
You have skills, talents, attributes, desires, interests that are unique to you.
This is a package that nobody else has in this whole world.
Yeah, you've got similarities with this person and that person.
But nobody has the exact package that you have.
We're going to use that package for what?
Here's the thing: Anytime you create value for yourself and you consume it, it does not
increase your self esteem.
What we find is that when you create value with your skills and your sweet talents and
all of those attributes that make up you and you provide that value to other people, that's
what increases your self esteem.
This is because of a psychological factor that I call Happynomics.
You can about that in one of my positivity course if you want to jump in on that.
The basis for happynomics is that those skills and talents we have are for the purpose of
creating value for other people and that creates income for us.
I'm talking about human life value income.
I'm talking about boost to your confidence to your self-esteem, to your sense of importance
and meaning.
And you might get paid for it as well.
Don't get caught up on the money.
It's about creating value for other people.
And the more you do that, the more you're psychologically bowstring yourself to have
a healthy solid self-esteem.
Service and creating value for other people.
Give it a try.
See what happens.
Did you learn something that surprised you a little bit?
Would you share that with someone else?
I bet your thinking of someone right now who could benefit from this video.
Click, share and send it over to them.
They are going to thank you for that and I thank you for that.
Also, I mentioned a course when we are talking earlier.
It's called the Positvity Power-Up.
You can connect to that at positivitypowerup.com.
That's where you get to bring me on your personal development team.
And I'm honored to be there.