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There is a simple test to determine whether a woman has low self-esteem or not. Everything is very simple. If the word “stupid” is written on a fence, then a woman with adequate self-esteem will not think that it can be written about her (even if it is written about her). And a woman with low self-esteem will suddenly begin to worry that this is about her, and she may also immediately begin to defend herself, to prove to everyone that she is not a fool.
A woman with low self-esteem takes everything personally. Of course, all the most unpleasant things. I had a case, in some article some madam wrote me a comment, saying that they gave the floor to stupid housewives, you know. She wrote this about me, of course, who else is a stupid housewife if not me. I sometimes save things like this and insert them into other articles as tags for fun. So, in another post on a complex topic, I inserted such a tag, along with other “answers” from the outside world for the stupid housewife, that is, me, preventing the flow of objections.
And what do you think, one woman began to be indignant, saying, this is how you treat us, we are stupid housewives for you! And this is a clear example of a response from a woman with low self-esteem. Out of the blue, get offended and take everything personally. By the way, when I told her what the tag was actually about, she remained silent. Well it was predictable.
A woman with low self-esteem takes everything personally. Quite seriously. Yes, the lower the self-esteem, the worse it is and with humor. Sometimes it’s even scary to joke - people will take it personally that it’s not about them at all.
Low self-esteem
One of the most serious problems that prevents us from living a full life and achieving success in various matters is low self-esteem. This is a really serious problem, because a person with low self-esteem underestimates his capabilities - he does not believe in himself, in his strength, in his success, considering himself unworthy of it, he has very modest ambitions. But the problem of low self-esteem is not a natural problem for us. We acquire this problem as our life in society develops. If the people around us treat us very well, and we feel like a fish in water next to them, and have everything we need for life, then we are satisfied with ourselves. Our own opinion of ourselves is formed from our satisfaction with our lives.
Thus, our self-esteem directly depends on what kind of people surround us, how they treat us, what opinion they impose on us about ourselves and everything that surrounds us, and, of course, on our attitude towards all this. Without other people, it is difficult for us to evaluate ourselves objectively, because without comparing ourselves with others, we may not think badly of ourselves at all. We shouldn’t think badly of ourselves, it’s not in our interests, not to mention that we shouldn’t compare ourselves with others, since we are all different and, more importantly, unique! So, people, people and once again the people who surround us are who have the greatest influence on our self-esteem. It is people, by their attitude towards us, their behavior, their example, that force us to evaluate ourselves in a certain way. That is, if we lived on a desert island, then our self-esteem would never be low. We would be preoccupied with the issue of survival and would evaluate ourselves from this position. But we would evaluate ourselves without any emotions, but solely from a practical point of view. But in the society of people, we are more inclined to evaluate ourselves from an emotional point of view, rather than from a practical point of view, so our environment is the soil on which we grow and on which our self-esteem matures.
From the above, we can draw a logical conclusion: if our self-esteem is low, it means that our environment does not correspond to our interests. That is, we are surrounded by the wrong people who treat us wrong, not the way we need them. And something needs to be done about this. Otherwise, our life will not be very good, not very pleasant. Think about whether we need low self-esteem, is there any benefit from it? It is clear that no, we do not need it and there is no benefit from it. The worse, the lower we rate ourselves, the less effective, less ambitious, less energetic, and less happy we are. It is beneficial for us to think about ourselves well, very well, so that if we look for shortcomings in ourselves, then in a cheerful and energetic state, because only in such a state can we correct these shortcomings. But in a depressed and oppressed state, we will not be able to correct our shortcomings and will not do this; we will justify our inaction with them and refer to them, engaging in self-flagellation. Not to mention the fact that a person with low self-esteem tends to be offended by everyone and everything, and this greatly prevents him from building constructive and strong relationships with other people.
And what should we, or rather those of you who have low self-esteem, do with it? You will probably agree with me if I tell you that self-esteem needs to be increased if it is low. And even if it is not underestimated, it still needs to be increased, because the higher it is, the better. How to do this? Well, this can be done in two ways - you can pump yourself up accordingly, influencing your emotional sphere, or you can, with the help of awareness, sweep away all bad thoughts about yourself and begin to evaluate yourself practically, without any emotions. Which method do you prefer? I prefer the latter. Therefore, we will talk about it in this article. I don’t like all this psychological pumping, pumping, pumping, although I use it in my work with people in moderate doses, because it is not as practical and not as effective as understanding. What is the use of inflating a person like a balloon, pumping up his psyche, if this balloon can deflate, either with the help of other beliefs and suggestions, or with the help of appropriate circumstances? In a word, this is not very effective, and for a person who has decided to raise his self-esteem seriously and for a long time, the option of pumping up his psyche is not an option. But a complete understanding of yourself and your capabilities, and their skillful use - this is a truly serious approach to business. When you understand the essence of the issue under consideration, you can generally evaluate yourself the way it is beneficial for you to evaluate yourself, regardless of objective circumstances.
Do you think our self-esteem should reflect our real capabilities and life experiences? Nothing like this. You can be a complete failure who has made a lot of mistakes in your life, and still have a very high opinion of yourself. And contrary to the beliefs and statements of many people, including all kinds of specialists, your inflated opinion of yourself will be much more useful for you than the so-called objective self-esteem. Why? Yes, because what is much more important for you is not who you were in the past and even who you are in the present, although it is certainly necessary to take this into account, but who you want to become. Do you want to be a loser, do you want to be a weakling, do you want to constantly make mistakes in your life? I'm sure not. But if your self-esteem is low, then in some ways you consider yourself worse than others, you are convinced that there are things you cannot do, that you are weak in some ways, and that much of what you do is done wrong. In general, you better know what you don’t like about yourself. Well, perhaps, objectively, it is, and you need to know about your shortcomings and weaknesses so that you can work on them to improve them. But here lies the trap of the so-called objective self-esteem. It does not allow a person to start working on himself - he does not have enough self-confidence for this work, does not have enough energy, does not have enough faith in the best, and, ultimately, the desire to start changing something in himself. A person may not be able to do even “light cosmetic repairs” to his psyche - considering himself an incorrigible loser. How many people do you know who, having low self-esteem, worked with enthusiasm, overflowing with energy, to increase it? That's it. That’s why many people don’t need the truth about themselves, because it brings them nothing but frustration, depression, emptiness, despondency, sadness and similar negative emotions. How can you work on yourself, how can you strive for bigger and better things when you give up? There are, of course, very strong people who can face the truth and use this truth as a powerful incentive to work on themselves. But such people, as you yourself understand, are few, very few.
When we fight low self-esteem, we are primarily fighting a person's lack of faith in himself. We don’t need any kind of truth, we need a beautiful fairy tale about the future - about our bright future, so to speak, which any self-respecting person should want to strive for. And he must understand that this fairy tale is actually a fairy tale, but it can come true if you believe in it and start working on its implementation. We all need to understand this. At such moments, a person realizes that he is the architect of his life, the architect of his destiny, the architect of his happiness. It doesn’t matter who he was and who he is now, what matters is who he can become. Do you understand? A person needs energy, energy to increase his self-esteem, and then to make himself better, in order to objectively correspond to a high opinion of himself. We first invent ourselves, so to speak, design, and only then we make ourselves, and not vice versa. On the contrary, it is not effective. Give a person a lot of money - he will become sulky and pretend to be God knows what. Take this money away from him and he will lose his mind again and become an insecure loser again. Why do we, why do you, need to be so dependent on circumstances?
Therefore, when they say that a person’s self-esteem should correspond to his real position in society and his real capabilities, do not take these words seriously. Today you, suppose, are a loser, but tomorrow, by taking certain actions, you can achieve success in something, in some matter that is important to you, and then one truth will be replaced by another truth. It is important to take these very actions, and in order to take them, you need to have the opinion of yourself that you have already achieved the success you need. Try to fully understand these words of mine, proven by the experience of many people, and then you will think about yourself the way you need to think about yourself, and not how circumstances and other people force you to think about yourself. And your self-esteem will be determined by you, depending on your interests and your desires, and nothing else.
Why abilities are not the main thing
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Most people don't do what they want because they think they don't have the ability to do it. But wealthy entrepreneurs think differently. They do what they want when it seems like they have no chance to do it. They see it as an attempt to develop abilities.
But in most cases, skill is not the main thing. To be able to do something, you need to learn. And most often, learning begins when we do something wrong (at least the first time). The ability to perform a task comes from the process of doing it. Therefore, if people wait until they have the skills to take the first step, they will most likely never take it.
Much more important than ability is readiness to act. If a person strongly wants something, this gives rise to a desire that encourages action. And action creates opportunity. We learn to drive by driving a car. It is impossible to develop the ability to drive a car if you have never driven a car. The desire to drive a car shapes the ability to drive a car.
Therefore, skills are not the most important thing in business. The most important thing is desire. Most people pretend they don't want it because they have no self-esteem. But their desire and desire is the first key to success. Many people deprive themselves of what they want because they don't have the necessary skills, but they don't know that one desire is enough to get started.
What is the point of Dan Pena's challenge?
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A few years ago, Dan Peña set a challenge for those who signed up for his QLA email list. His tough approach is increasingly attracting the attention of young people who have not experienced anything like this before. He stopped conducting retreats because he realized that the success rate of his students was much higher when they came to his castle.
The billionaire lives in Scotland in a 16th-century castle with butlers and other staff. And when seminar participants come to his home, the environment changes people and their comfort zone. In this way, Dan develops self-esteem in the “guests”. But the number of people at such seminars is always off the charts. This led to the appearance of the newsletter.
Dan Pena still offers this challenge to people, regardless of whether he has the opportunity to perform. His goal is to get people out of their comfort zone. Many of them cannot get rich because they are not comfortable being rich. This means they don’t want to become one. And when they begin to feel at home in luxurious surroundings, they automatically realize that moving in the direction that will help them build the wealth they desire is much easier than it seems.
According to the terms of the challenge, participants need to go to a Rolls-Royce dealership (in a presentable form), and there they will feel like the owner of an expensive car. This could be any premium dealership, multi-million dollar home, or the like.
Most people's natural reaction to these unaffordable, expensive items is to avoid them. They are simply uncomfortable being among all this luxury, and this is the result of low self-esteem. People don't believe they deserve to live in such wealth.
What does progress look like?
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Be prepared for the fact that most of the time progress will be uncomfortable. Dan Peña says when business is going smoothly, it's a sign of lack of growth. And if there is no growth, then things get worse.
Progress comes with turmoil. When things are coming at you from all sides and problems appear in all aspects, this is a sure sign of growth. Nothing gets easier, but you get better. Growth is often accompanied by the feeling that something big and overwhelming has fallen on you. And if you feel light, your success is in question.
