CONFIDENCE 4 U

Feeling Good About Ourselves, by Rachel Green

07-Mar-2001, Number 63

What do you think about yourself really? Have you ever felt bad about yourself, thought you were no good, stupid or worthless? It seems from my discussions with people that many of us don't feel too good about ourselves. We might not tell anyone else about this but deep down ticking away is a grinding negativity. Does this matter? Yes! It can affect everything we do, the way we relate to other people, the extent to which we look after ourselves, our mental health, our relationships. It can affect us in many, many ways. So what can we do about it? Here are seven tips ...

Tip One - Blow Your Own Trumpet

The first thing to do to help boost self-worth is to ditch some of the outdated beliefs that we've been indoctrinated with. For example, in numerous families people have been brought up to believe that talking about themselves is bragging, big-headed or ego-centric, and that such attributes are not good and must be avoided. Most of us will have been told at some stage not to "blow our own trumpet". I remember as a teenager my sister and I once asked my mother why we were never rewarded for doing things well or praised for our skills and successes. Her answer was, "Well we didn't want you to become ego-centric or big-headed". Gee! Just a little praise would have helped us both feel better about ourselves. Being told not to blow our own trumpets is a very confusing message because it fails to differentiate between straightforward, honest talking about ourselves and over-inflated, exaggerated descriptions of our own self importance which exclude other people. Yet the two are very different. What matters is how we talk about ourselves. Be willing to blow your own trumpet!

Tip Two - Learn how to talk about your skills

Secondly, develop the skill of being able to talk about your strengths. It is all right to explain what your strengths are in a clear and honest way. It is all right to acknowledge that in certain areas you are particularly skilled. It is all right to be able to explain to other people what you are good at. After all this is what wins people jobs at interviews.

How you do this matters. For example if I say "I was the best communication specialist that firm had ever seen and they were so grateful, I was so good", it would be an unsubstantiated exaggeration which was elitist and boasting. In contrast if I was to say to someone, "I was really pleased with my recent workshop, one of the participants managed to talk in front of a group without a script for the first time. He was stoked because he'd always clutched a script and read his presentations word-for-word before. I got a buzz out of that". It is honest, clear and specific. Learning how to talk about yourself fairly, matters.

Tip Three - Be able to stand your ground

The third step is to believe what you say when you are explaining a strength and to be able to politely and nicely stand by what you've said. Two examples of where I've done this may help to illustrate this.

The first one happened a long time ago. I was being interviewed for a place I had applied for in a Speech Pathology Training Centre as a school leaver. My limited Curriculum Vitae contained my achievements at school. On there it said that I was "The Inter-Schools Senior Girl's long jumping champion". At the interview the interviewer argued that I couldn't possibly have been that good at the age of fourteen and won the senior championship. I was shocked that I was doubted as I had won the event, and I felt inadequate to know what to do, so I stood up for myself - firmly. Phew - not easy to do in an interview. I went away dismayed that I'd ended up arguing! I was surprised to find they gave me a place in the course. They told me later that my ability to stand up for myself had contributed to that. (By the way, I did win, but I think only because it was raining on the day and not everyone turned up!)

The second thing happened recently over dinner. I was explaining to a friend that I thought I had become an academic at far too early an age and was talking about the difficulties I had encountered in my job. I ended up by saying though, that despite the problems, I thought I had been good at my job. My friend looked at me and said "Nothing like showing off is there." Surprised, I restated simply, "I was good at my job." "Oh" came the reply and the conversation finished without further put downs. She had the problem, not me.

Tip Four - List your strengths

A further step in building your esteem is to know and list your strengths on a piece of paper. You might find this hard at first. Start with anything you can do well, whether it's cooking a fruit cake, mending a television, listening to your children, calming angry people down, getting jobs finished on time, helping injured wildlife, spelling accurately, understanding a new computer programme, being patient, having a good eye for detail, being loyal, being able to generate options to solve problems, being able to get on with elderly people ... anything! Start the list. Then add to it as you do something well - keep the list going over a long time. Read the list daily and remind yourself of your strengths until you can say them out-loud, convincingly, without needing the list to prompt you. If you're reading this and thinking "That's a bit egocentric isn't it?" - go back to Tip 1!

Tip Five - Develop your own standards

A fifth aspect to develop is the ability to evaluate your skills and self worth by a valid set of internal criteria rather than constantly comparing yourself to everyone else. It is so easy to look at other people and assume that they are really good, fearless, confident, knowledgeable, skilled ... whatever! Having done this, many people then judge their own performances against the imagined abilities of the other people. It makes no sense. You don't know how that other person feels inside, what goes on for them or how skilled they really are. And anyway it doesn't matter.

Tip Six - Practise positive affirmations or meditations

Loving-Kindness Meditation has been shown to help people overcome feelings of worthlessness or dislike. It is an excellent technique for developing greater self-acceptance. A script for loving-kindness meditation is available on the website: Tips

Tip Seven - Know you're not alone

I have started to suspect that more people than I previously realised think that they are a fraud, and go around worried that they'll be found to be less competent and knowledgeable than people think they are. I have certainly felt that. So has my partner. So has one of the news readers I know. So has one of the recent retreat participants. I was even at a meeting the other day and I discovered an academic who felt the same. Why are we so hard on ourselves? One of the reasons is that as we get older we start to realise how much we don't know. The more we know the less we realise we don't know. Sometimes in this process we forget how far we've come and need to remind ourselves of this!

Here's to a good boost in your self esteem.

Rachel Green.