The master programme of success (II)

IN medicine it is said that, “Proper diagnosis is half the cure.” To that end, let us look at the three parts of your self-concept, how they interact on each other.

Last week we looked at the first two parts: self-ideal and self-image. Today we look at the last part: self-esteem.

The core of your personality
The third part of your self-concept is your SELF-ESTEEM. This is the feeling or emotional component of your personality. Your level of self-esteem determines the vitality and energy of your personality.

On the other hand, whenever your current performance or behaviour seems to be inconsistent from the person that you would most like to be, your self-esteem goes down. The greater clarity you have with regard to your self-ideal, the person you would most like to be, the easier it is for you to tailor your performance and behaviour so that it is consistent with being the kind of person you most admire.

The very best definition of self-esteem is, “How much you like yourself.” The more you like yourself, the better you do; and the better you do, the more you like yourself. Each time you perform well in any area, your self-esteem goes up. You like yourself more, and you perform even better in that area, and in other areas as well.

Supercharge your personality
The higher your self-esteem, the faster and easier it is for you to develop the Million Dollar Habits that enable you to accomplish extraordinary things with your life. Since everything you do on the outside is controlled by your subconscious mind, by your current programming, as you change your self-concept, you change your reality.

Take time to become absolutely clear about the virtues, values, qualities and attributes that you most admire, and which you most aspire to make a part of your personality. Prior to every event of importance, create a clear mental picture of yourself performing at your very best, consistent with the highest values and qualities that you have, or desire to have.

The foundation of your personality
“Where does your self-concept comes from? How does it begin? How does it develop? What are the major influences that shape your self-concept and how can you change your self-concept once it has developed?”

These are vital questions, and there are definite answers for them. The fact is that each child is born with no self-concept at all. Every thought, feeling, idea, opinion, belief or conviction that you have as an adult has been learnt, starting in early infancy. You have been taught to believe the things you believe by the people and influences around you over the course of your lifetime, especially when you were a child.

It is true that each child is born with certain personality characteristics, propensities, talents, leanings, and other unique attributes and qualities. Some psychologists say that fully 60 per cent of personality characteristics, such as courage, extroversion, musical interest, sensitivity, athletic ability and so on, are inborn and innate. This is why children born into the same family, with the same parents and similar upbringing, often turn out totally different from each other.

But in terms of self-concept, how a person thinks and feels about themselves relatite to their ability and potential, this is learned from early infancy.

Your two natural qualities
When you are born, you come into the world with two natural qualities. First, you are completely UNAFRAID. You are totally fearless. You have no reason to be afraid because you have had no experiences to make you afraid.

The second natural quality that you are born with is that you are completely SPONTANEOUS. You laugh, cry, pee, poop, sleep and express yourself with no thought or concern about whether anybody approves or disapproves. These are your natural qualities in a state of nature.

As an adult, when you feel completely relaxed and safe, surrounded by people whom you like and trust, your natural tendency is to revert to being completely open and unafraid, spontaneous and expressive. This is the ideal condition of the completely happy, fully functioning adult.

Starting early in childhood, as the result of the things your parents do and say, you begin to learn the two basic negative habit patterns that then become the most destructive influences in your life as an adult. The first negative habit pattern that you learn is called the “inhibitive negative habit pattern.” This is what soon becomes the fear of failure, risk, and loss.

Fear of trying anything new
This feeling of “I can’t,” begins the development of the fear of failure. If you are discouraged or punished too often as a child, very early in life you will become fearful of trying new things. This fear will then carry over into later childhood, adolescence, and adult life.

Thereafter, whenever you think of doing something new or different, something that entails risk or uncertainty, your first reaction will be “I can’t!” As soon as you say the words “I can’t” to yourself, you will begin immediately to think of all the reasons why such a thing is not possible for you. You will think and talk in terms of failure, rather than success. You will think of the uncertainties and all the possible risks of loss that may occur. Before you even try something new, you will talk yourself out of it.

What others might say
The second fear that we learn early in life, which then affects us for the rest of our lives, is the fear of rejection, or criticism. We are all sensitive to the opinions of others, especially to the opinions and reactions of our parents when we are growing up. Parents often take advantage of this need to please to control and manipulate their children. The way they do it is by giving or withholding approval and support, based on the behaviour of the child at the moment.

When the child does or says something that the parents do not like, they immediately become rejecting and critical of the child. Since the approval and support of the parent is like a psychological lifeline to the emotional health of the child, the child is immediately affected and pulls back from the behaviour in order to regain the love and approval of the parents.

The approval of others
As you grow older, you become increasingly sensitive to the approval or disapproval of others, starting with members of your family, and then your friends and associates. Teenagers especially become extremely sensitive to whether or not they are liked or disliked by their peers.

Instead of being fearless and spontaneous, completely open, honest and expressive, they begin to shape their behaviours and conform to whatever they feel their peers will approve of at the moment.

This feeling generates what is called the “compulsive negative habit pattern,” which is characterised by the words “I have to!” As an adult, the child who was subjected to disapproval and destructive criticism becomes hypersensitive to the attitudes and opinions of others. They are continually saying, “I have to do this” or “I have to do that.”

When the fear of rejection becomes extreme, the individual becomes so hypersensitive to the opinions of others that they cannot make a decision until they are absolutely convinced that everyone in the world around them will approve and support the decision.

The antidote to all your fears
One of the greatest discoveries in the development of the peak performance personality is that your fears and your level of self-esteem have an inverse or opposite relationship. In other words, the more you like yourself, the less you fear failure and rejection.

The higher your levels of self-esteem, the lower are the fears and doubts that hold most people back. The more you like and value yourself, the more willing you are to take risks and to endure the inevitable setbacks, obstacles and temporary failures that will occur.

The more you like yourself, the less concerned you are with the approval or disapproval of other people. You go your own way.

“The more you like yourself, the less concerned you are with the approval or disapproval of other people.”

BY CAPT. SAM ADDAIH (RTD)

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