“The tragedy is that so many people look for self-confidence and self-respect everywhere except within themselves, and so they fail in their search.”
– Dr. Nathaniel Branden
Although you are a miracle, that does not mean you are God’s gift to humanity. Rather, your life is God’s gift to you. (If you are an atheist, just consider yourself lucky to have a life.) The blunt truth is that this planet would still be reliably orbiting its sun had you never been born. “The graveyards are full of indispensable people.” That perceptive saying, or versions of it, have been attributed to various sources, including Charles de Gaulle, Georges Clemenceau, Elbert Hubbard, and a 1909 Oklahoma newspaper. That sentiment bears keeping in the back of your mind—perhaps along with this Italian proverb:
“At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.”
Unfortunately, a lot of haughty people walking around today not only believe they are indispensable, they believe the world owes them a living. The world does not. The world owes you nothing. It presents you with opportunities. What you do with those opportunities (many of which come disguised as hard work) is up to you. If you are 40 years old and still working at a minimum wage job, don’t blame others or “the system.” Look in a mirror to find the primary cause of your failures.
We encounter self-anointed “special people” almost every day. Arrogantly acting as if they are wearing a crown, they forget that they have never been granted a kingdom. They babble with co-workers while they ignore customers standing directly in front of them. They eagerly offer others advice while not following it themselves. They take their sweet time on smoke breaks, forcing others to work harder to compensate for their absence. They butt ahead of polite people waiting patiently in line. They use the express line at the supermarket despite having a shopping cart overflowing with items.
They ride the subway while loudly engaging in cell phone conversations that annoy everyone else yet are as dull as a pair of old blue jeans. They nonchalantly saunter across busy streets with their eyes glued to those phones, and then irritably look up when a car horn dares to remind them that the asphalt is meant to be shared according to well-established and reasonable rules.
They inhabit the universities, where they are taught to hate the capitalist system that made the United States of America the most prosperous and productive nation in human history. They demand that others provide them with free tuition and free health care, as if they have a God-given right to someone else’s efforts and money. They write angry, anti-oil-industry diatribes with their plastic keyboards, oblivious to the fact that without that precious petroleum there would be no plastic or keyboards.
They believe they are “special” simply because someone told them they are special. This is an infectious affliction that could easily be called American Idol Syndrome. Its symptoms include grandiose feelings of self-importance and an expectation of superior treatment. It is caused by parents and teachers who tell children they are extraordinary and special human beings who can do anything and who deserve everything their little hearts desire—even when they have exhibited no exceptional skills or talents that would suggest monumental success and fame are even possible, let alone likely.
I would venture a guess that at least nine out of every ten people who have auditioned for American Idol have neither the ability to consistently carry a tune nor the charisma to pull off a performance with even limited success. Yet audition they do—by the thousands. (On the other hand, Mariah Carey made a fortune not following melodies.)
This is not to suggest that parents should pour cold water on the dreams of their children, but they do have an obligation to be honest. One of the primary causes of American Idol Syndrome is a misguided emphasis on attempting to elevate the self-esteem of children. That emphasis is often destructive because many parents and teachers do not understand the principle elements of self-esteem.
Repeatedly telling little Jimmy “he is the best” at something (or everything) does not increase his self-esteem. It inflates his ego. Repeatedly promising tone-deaf Susie she will someday be a Grammy-winning singer does not increase her self-esteem. It makes her delusional. Praising a child with the words, “Good job!” when she really does a good job is certainly appropriate. But far too many parents recklessly overuse that praise to the point where it loses meaning and impact. (Don’t say “Good job!” when “Nice try” or “Better luck next time” are more suitable.)
What exactly is self-esteem? It is not self-image. Self-image is how you see yourself. (You recognize that you have a round face or an oval face; that you are tall or short; that your eyes are blue or brown; that your hair is straight or curly.) Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself or, as some have described it, the relationship you have with yourself.
Self-esteem has two parts: a recognition of your own competence and a feeling of your own worth. The problem is that far too many parents and teachers (and mediocre mental health professionals) mistakenly focus on the worth part of the concept and ignore the competence part. As a result, a child who loses a competition may be mistakenly comforted with the words, “You did not deserve to lose.” That makes the child believe he was worthy of the trophy and failed to receive it not because of a lack of competence or skills but because of a lack of fairness. He rides home in the back of the family minivan feeling (or even worse, intensely believing), “I was cheated!”
I recall my daughter coming home from school many years ago, proudly announcing she had finished third in a race. I asked her how many students had competed. “Three,” she responded. My response was not, “You were robbed!” In fact, we ended up laughing about the situation. Based on my knowledge of her skills and talents, I would have failed as a parent had I told her she could someday be an Olympic athlete. One of the responsibilities of parenthood is identifying the areas in which your child excels or likely could excel, as well as recognizing the areas in which he or she lacks fundamental abilities and potential. (Some kids will simply never be able to play the piano well. Accept it.)
It is a mistake to concentrate on attempts to boost a child’s feeling of worth while ignoring the child’s level of competence. The competence must come before the worth. That should be obvious. Regrettably, to many people it is not. That is why some schools hand out “participation trophies” to every student. It may very well be true that “Johnny will feel bad if he doesn’t get a trophy.” But we should allow him to feel bad. He will get over it and will learn one of a long string of valuable life lessons in the process. (The world can only tolerate so many Jim Acostas.)
You cannot boost someone’s self-esteem simply by paying him compliments. Telling someone he is worthy when he is not is fraudulent. It may make him feel good temporarily, but at some point he will realize he was told a lie. He may eventually come to that realization consciously, but he may immediately come to it subconsciously. To introduce reality to one’s consciousness as soon as possible is a good practice. (Encourage everyone you know to try it!)
The word esteem means respect and admiration for an individual. To place someone in high esteem means you greatly respect and admire him or her. But that represents your opinion of him. It does not represent his opinion of himself. The self in self-esteem indicates just that: esteem for oneself. A person who has healthy self-esteem respects and admires himself. Praising someone who does not warrant respect or admiration is pointless and does not increase his self-esteem. That self-esteem must be earned.
An honest and legitimate increase in self-esteem requires an increase in a person’s recognition of his own competence. That is something you cannot do for him. You can help him become more capable by teaching him skills, thereby boosting his confidence in himself, but he is ultimately responsible for increasing his own competence.
You can teach someone how to play a guitar, but you cannot forever play the chords and strum the strings for him. You can teach someone how to drive a semi-trailer, but he will have to negotiate tight curves and back up the truck many times on his own to master the skills. You cannot make another person feel genuinely worthy when he is not deserving of worth, but you can help him expand his skills and improve his capabilities so that his recognition of his own increased competence naturally results in enhanced feelings of self-worth.
Life involves wins and losses, successes and failures, achievements and disappointments. If children or adults are protected from losses, failures, and disappointments, they will ultimately come to expect and even demand continual success. That results in thousands of coffee baristas and fast-food sandwich makers with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, degrees certifying skills that are not in demand, and anger over the fact that they have not yet been handed corporate CEO positions.
How the U.S. Armed Forces turns boys into men and girls into women is not a secret to those who have served in uniform. You enter the military at an age when you think you know everything. Whatever self-esteem you may have is then torn to shreds in boot camp. You are repeatedly given tasks that test and seemingly exceed your abilities. You initially feel like a failure—and typically have a drill sergeant who frequently reminds you that you are a failure. But as the weeks go by you develop skills. Your endurance improves. Your strength increases. You become competent and you recognize your own successes. That competence makes you feel worthy and gives you the confidence to further improve and advance. Soldiers are not given respect; they earn it. That standard should be applied to everyone—not just those in the military.
For those who have not served in the military and endured basic training, I suggest watching a few episodes of the television program Bar Rescue. Hospitality industry expert Jon Taffer gets called to failing bars to rescue them from the mismanagement and incompetence of their owners and employees. Taffer is the drill sergeant and the people he encounters are the recruits.
Taffer quickly proves to them that they do not have the competence or skills they think they have. They expect success and consider themselves worthy of success but have not taken the actions necessary to create success. They seek first-place rewards without first-class efforts. Taffer refuses to give them awards—or even participation trophies.
In what are always blunt and often brutal confrontations, Taffer tears down the owners, managers, bartenders, cooks, and waitstaff, pointing out every failing aspect of their business. His frank evaluations prompt reactions of embarrassment, denial, annoyance, anger, resentment, frustration, and tears—and then he drills the staff into shape. Taffer gives them the basic skills they need, with the help of expert mixologists and chefs. While the owner and employees go through Taffer’s “basic training,” the bar is remodeled by his crew.
The program is not simply about remodeling a bar. It is about human nature and self-esteem. On a professional level, Taffer knows that a bar or restaurant deserves praise and profit only if it provides good drinks, good food, and good service from capable, efficient, and courteous owners and employees. On a personal level, Taffer understands that feelings of self-worth must always be preceded by repeated demonstrations of competence.
The changes in the attitudes of the bar owners and employees are often remarkable. They go from resenting or even hating Taffer to genuinely thanking him for rescuing their businesses—and often for rescuing their lives and their relationships. They go from blindly expecting success to understanding what it takes to become successful. Most importantly, they lose cocky attitudes, self-doubt, and lack of motivation and then work to develop justified feelings of competence and worth.
The bar owners participate in the program perhaps believing all they need for success is a remodeled bar and some new, free equipment. But the remodeled bar is nothing more than the soldier’s uniform. By itself, the uniform does little. It is the drill sergeant, not the uniform, who turns the recruits into soldiers. The uniform is merely a recognition of the process. Taffer turns his undisciplined bar recruits into capable bar soldiers. The fresh coat of paint and the new bar stools, signs, and refrigeration equipment are only the insignia and the brass on the uniform. Taffer is not only an expert on bars, he is an expert on human nature. He is a better psychoanalyst than many professional psychoanalysts—and that makes the program fascinating to watch.
Whether you run a bar or a restaurant, work in an office, drive a truck, perform heart surgery, teach students, program computers, sell cars, or install shingles on homes, throughout your life your many accomplishments, large or small, increase your skills and competence. That, in turn, increases your feelings of worth. You cannot skip that critical first step without harm to your self-esteem. If you bypass the competence step, your subconscious self remains aware that you are a fraud—regardless of what you may tell your conscious self. If you habitually fool your conscious self, your belief in what is important in life becomes misguided and distorted. Because your feelings of worth are artificial, you desperately seek other ways to feel worthy.
You might constantly compare yourself to others, buying things you do not need in a never-ending quest to “keep up with the Joneses.” You might measure your success and happiness not by how you feel about yourself but by how much money you earn, what kind of car you drive, what corporate title you have, or whether you have a small cubicle or a large corner office. You might become an alcoholic or take drugs. You might become vain. You might continuously seek the approval of others. You might demonstrate racist or sexist attitudes, criticizing and denouncing others so that you can feel better by comparison. You might brazenly take credit for the accomplishments of co-workers. You might refuse to admit your mistakes.
If you convince yourself that you are worthy without first proving to yourself that you are competent, your self-esteem is artificial and temporary. Even if you may only understand that on a subconscious level, the result is unhappiness.
You trick yourself into believing you will eventually be happy, but not until after you get those new shoes or that new car; not until after you move into a new house or apartment; not until after you have a baby; not until after you win the lottery; not until after you get a longed-for promotion; not until after you get married; or not until after you get divorced. The reality is that none of those things will make you happy. They will only temporarily distract you from your unhappiness. You will still not feel worthy. The key to healthy self-esteem is a realistic and justifiable recognition of competence, which will logically lead to a feeling of worth.
Do not demand too much of yourself, of course, because your likely failures will be overly discouraging. But do not demand too little of yourself either, because it is your accomplishments that support your feelings of competence. Accept yourself for who you are. If you cannot carry a tune, do not fool yourself into believing you will be the next Carrie Underwood. Thinking, “I won’t be happy until I become the next American Idol” is as foolhardy as thinking, “I will finally be happy after I get a new car.” Don’t commit to those 48, 60, or 72 months of car payments without careful consideration, and don’t quit your day job until after you have a signed recording contract.
Understand your shortcomings but determine where your true skills and talents lie and then fully develop them. It is understandable that many children living in poverty think their ticket out of a bad neighborhood is to become a professional basketball or football player or a star rap “singer.” A responsible parent makes sure his child understands the odds are overwhelmingly against that. If you spend years convincing your child he has what it takes to make it to the NFL, how will he react when he learns he does not? Go ahead and let him play sports to the best of his abilities—but make sure he cracks open his textbooks too. There are, after all, far more opportunities for tax accountants, computer programmers, welders, and plumbers than for defensive linemen (and life expectancy is probably far greater).
Use the skills and talents you have. Apply them and keep applying them. Do not be discouraged by mistakes and failures; they are merely lessons. Ford Motor Company made a major miscalculation with its introduction of the Edsel in the late 1950s, but a few years later that monumental failure was more than made up for with the introduction of the Mustang. The first car you design may be horrid, but the fiftieth one may be a work of art. The first bookshelf you build may be as slanted as a Washington Post editorial, but the custom cabinetry you later learn to make may win you customers for life. The first garden you plant may disappoint even the neighborhood rabbits, but you may eventually be capable of surviving an apocalypse.
Continued practice and hard work results in continued accomplishments. Those accomplishments will support your feelings of competence, and feelings of worth will naturally follow. But, once again, you cannot change the order of those steps. A healthy self-esteem depends on following that sequence, and that self-esteem helps determine your career, your income, your lifestyle, your life partner, and even your health.
Your relationship with yourself is of paramount importance. If you do not value yourself, no one else is likely to raise the price. What others think of you is far less important than what you think of yourself. As Rick Nelson sang in Garden Party, “You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself.” Or, as someone else wrote, “You spend a small part of your life with many people. You spend a large part of your life with a few people. But you spend all your life with yourself.”
– Dr. Nathaniel Branden
Although you are a miracle, that does not mean you are God’s gift to humanity. Rather, your life is God’s gift to you. (If you are an atheist, just consider yourself lucky to have a life.) The blunt truth is that this planet would still be reliably orbiting its sun had you never been born. “The graveyards are full of indispensable people.” That perceptive saying, or versions of it, have been attributed to various sources, including Charles de Gaulle, Georges Clemenceau, Elbert Hubbard, and a 1909 Oklahoma newspaper. That sentiment bears keeping in the back of your mind—perhaps along with this Italian proverb:
“At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.”
Unfortunately, a lot of haughty people walking around today not only believe they are indispensable, they believe the world owes them a living. The world does not. The world owes you nothing. It presents you with opportunities. What you do with those opportunities (many of which come disguised as hard work) is up to you. If you are 40 years old and still working at a minimum wage job, don’t blame others or “the system.” Look in a mirror to find the primary cause of your failures.
We encounter self-anointed “special people” almost every day. Arrogantly acting as if they are wearing a crown, they forget that they have never been granted a kingdom. They babble with co-workers while they ignore customers standing directly in front of them. They eagerly offer others advice while not following it themselves. They take their sweet time on smoke breaks, forcing others to work harder to compensate for their absence. They butt ahead of polite people waiting patiently in line. They use the express line at the supermarket despite having a shopping cart overflowing with items.
They ride the subway while loudly engaging in cell phone conversations that annoy everyone else yet are as dull as a pair of old blue jeans. They nonchalantly saunter across busy streets with their eyes glued to those phones, and then irritably look up when a car horn dares to remind them that the asphalt is meant to be shared according to well-established and reasonable rules.
They inhabit the universities, where they are taught to hate the capitalist system that made the United States of America the most prosperous and productive nation in human history. They demand that others provide them with free tuition and free health care, as if they have a God-given right to someone else’s efforts and money. They write angry, anti-oil-industry diatribes with their plastic keyboards, oblivious to the fact that without that precious petroleum there would be no plastic or keyboards.
They believe they are “special” simply because someone told them they are special. This is an infectious affliction that could easily be called American Idol Syndrome. Its symptoms include grandiose feelings of self-importance and an expectation of superior treatment. It is caused by parents and teachers who tell children they are extraordinary and special human beings who can do anything and who deserve everything their little hearts desire—even when they have exhibited no exceptional skills or talents that would suggest monumental success and fame are even possible, let alone likely.
I would venture a guess that at least nine out of every ten people who have auditioned for American Idol have neither the ability to consistently carry a tune nor the charisma to pull off a performance with even limited success. Yet audition they do—by the thousands. (On the other hand, Mariah Carey made a fortune not following melodies.)
This is not to suggest that parents should pour cold water on the dreams of their children, but they do have an obligation to be honest. One of the primary causes of American Idol Syndrome is a misguided emphasis on attempting to elevate the self-esteem of children. That emphasis is often destructive because many parents and teachers do not understand the principle elements of self-esteem.
Repeatedly telling little Jimmy “he is the best” at something (or everything) does not increase his self-esteem. It inflates his ego. Repeatedly promising tone-deaf Susie she will someday be a Grammy-winning singer does not increase her self-esteem. It makes her delusional. Praising a child with the words, “Good job!” when she really does a good job is certainly appropriate. But far too many parents recklessly overuse that praise to the point where it loses meaning and impact. (Don’t say “Good job!” when “Nice try” or “Better luck next time” are more suitable.)
What exactly is self-esteem? It is not self-image. Self-image is how you see yourself. (You recognize that you have a round face or an oval face; that you are tall or short; that your eyes are blue or brown; that your hair is straight or curly.) Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself or, as some have described it, the relationship you have with yourself.
Self-esteem has two parts: a recognition of your own competence and a feeling of your own worth. The problem is that far too many parents and teachers (and mediocre mental health professionals) mistakenly focus on the worth part of the concept and ignore the competence part. As a result, a child who loses a competition may be mistakenly comforted with the words, “You did not deserve to lose.” That makes the child believe he was worthy of the trophy and failed to receive it not because of a lack of competence or skills but because of a lack of fairness. He rides home in the back of the family minivan feeling (or even worse, intensely believing), “I was cheated!”
I recall my daughter coming home from school many years ago, proudly announcing she had finished third in a race. I asked her how many students had competed. “Three,” she responded. My response was not, “You were robbed!” In fact, we ended up laughing about the situation. Based on my knowledge of her skills and talents, I would have failed as a parent had I told her she could someday be an Olympic athlete. One of the responsibilities of parenthood is identifying the areas in which your child excels or likely could excel, as well as recognizing the areas in which he or she lacks fundamental abilities and potential. (Some kids will simply never be able to play the piano well. Accept it.)
It is a mistake to concentrate on attempts to boost a child’s feeling of worth while ignoring the child’s level of competence. The competence must come before the worth. That should be obvious. Regrettably, to many people it is not. That is why some schools hand out “participation trophies” to every student. It may very well be true that “Johnny will feel bad if he doesn’t get a trophy.” But we should allow him to feel bad. He will get over it and will learn one of a long string of valuable life lessons in the process. (The world can only tolerate so many Jim Acostas.)
You cannot boost someone’s self-esteem simply by paying him compliments. Telling someone he is worthy when he is not is fraudulent. It may make him feel good temporarily, but at some point he will realize he was told a lie. He may eventually come to that realization consciously, but he may immediately come to it subconsciously. To introduce reality to one’s consciousness as soon as possible is a good practice. (Encourage everyone you know to try it!)
The word esteem means respect and admiration for an individual. To place someone in high esteem means you greatly respect and admire him or her. But that represents your opinion of him. It does not represent his opinion of himself. The self in self-esteem indicates just that: esteem for oneself. A person who has healthy self-esteem respects and admires himself. Praising someone who does not warrant respect or admiration is pointless and does not increase his self-esteem. That self-esteem must be earned.
An honest and legitimate increase in self-esteem requires an increase in a person’s recognition of his own competence. That is something you cannot do for him. You can help him become more capable by teaching him skills, thereby boosting his confidence in himself, but he is ultimately responsible for increasing his own competence.
You can teach someone how to play a guitar, but you cannot forever play the chords and strum the strings for him. You can teach someone how to drive a semi-trailer, but he will have to negotiate tight curves and back up the truck many times on his own to master the skills. You cannot make another person feel genuinely worthy when he is not deserving of worth, but you can help him expand his skills and improve his capabilities so that his recognition of his own increased competence naturally results in enhanced feelings of self-worth.
Life involves wins and losses, successes and failures, achievements and disappointments. If children or adults are protected from losses, failures, and disappointments, they will ultimately come to expect and even demand continual success. That results in thousands of coffee baristas and fast-food sandwich makers with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, degrees certifying skills that are not in demand, and anger over the fact that they have not yet been handed corporate CEO positions.
How the U.S. Armed Forces turns boys into men and girls into women is not a secret to those who have served in uniform. You enter the military at an age when you think you know everything. Whatever self-esteem you may have is then torn to shreds in boot camp. You are repeatedly given tasks that test and seemingly exceed your abilities. You initially feel like a failure—and typically have a drill sergeant who frequently reminds you that you are a failure. But as the weeks go by you develop skills. Your endurance improves. Your strength increases. You become competent and you recognize your own successes. That competence makes you feel worthy and gives you the confidence to further improve and advance. Soldiers are not given respect; they earn it. That standard should be applied to everyone—not just those in the military.
For those who have not served in the military and endured basic training, I suggest watching a few episodes of the television program Bar Rescue. Hospitality industry expert Jon Taffer gets called to failing bars to rescue them from the mismanagement and incompetence of their owners and employees. Taffer is the drill sergeant and the people he encounters are the recruits.
Taffer quickly proves to them that they do not have the competence or skills they think they have. They expect success and consider themselves worthy of success but have not taken the actions necessary to create success. They seek first-place rewards without first-class efforts. Taffer refuses to give them awards—or even participation trophies.
In what are always blunt and often brutal confrontations, Taffer tears down the owners, managers, bartenders, cooks, and waitstaff, pointing out every failing aspect of their business. His frank evaluations prompt reactions of embarrassment, denial, annoyance, anger, resentment, frustration, and tears—and then he drills the staff into shape. Taffer gives them the basic skills they need, with the help of expert mixologists and chefs. While the owner and employees go through Taffer’s “basic training,” the bar is remodeled by his crew.
The program is not simply about remodeling a bar. It is about human nature and self-esteem. On a professional level, Taffer knows that a bar or restaurant deserves praise and profit only if it provides good drinks, good food, and good service from capable, efficient, and courteous owners and employees. On a personal level, Taffer understands that feelings of self-worth must always be preceded by repeated demonstrations of competence.
The changes in the attitudes of the bar owners and employees are often remarkable. They go from resenting or even hating Taffer to genuinely thanking him for rescuing their businesses—and often for rescuing their lives and their relationships. They go from blindly expecting success to understanding what it takes to become successful. Most importantly, they lose cocky attitudes, self-doubt, and lack of motivation and then work to develop justified feelings of competence and worth.
The bar owners participate in the program perhaps believing all they need for success is a remodeled bar and some new, free equipment. But the remodeled bar is nothing more than the soldier’s uniform. By itself, the uniform does little. It is the drill sergeant, not the uniform, who turns the recruits into soldiers. The uniform is merely a recognition of the process. Taffer turns his undisciplined bar recruits into capable bar soldiers. The fresh coat of paint and the new bar stools, signs, and refrigeration equipment are only the insignia and the brass on the uniform. Taffer is not only an expert on bars, he is an expert on human nature. He is a better psychoanalyst than many professional psychoanalysts—and that makes the program fascinating to watch.
Whether you run a bar or a restaurant, work in an office, drive a truck, perform heart surgery, teach students, program computers, sell cars, or install shingles on homes, throughout your life your many accomplishments, large or small, increase your skills and competence. That, in turn, increases your feelings of worth. You cannot skip that critical first step without harm to your self-esteem. If you bypass the competence step, your subconscious self remains aware that you are a fraud—regardless of what you may tell your conscious self. If you habitually fool your conscious self, your belief in what is important in life becomes misguided and distorted. Because your feelings of worth are artificial, you desperately seek other ways to feel worthy.
You might constantly compare yourself to others, buying things you do not need in a never-ending quest to “keep up with the Joneses.” You might measure your success and happiness not by how you feel about yourself but by how much money you earn, what kind of car you drive, what corporate title you have, or whether you have a small cubicle or a large corner office. You might become an alcoholic or take drugs. You might become vain. You might continuously seek the approval of others. You might demonstrate racist or sexist attitudes, criticizing and denouncing others so that you can feel better by comparison. You might brazenly take credit for the accomplishments of co-workers. You might refuse to admit your mistakes.
If you convince yourself that you are worthy without first proving to yourself that you are competent, your self-esteem is artificial and temporary. Even if you may only understand that on a subconscious level, the result is unhappiness.
You trick yourself into believing you will eventually be happy, but not until after you get those new shoes or that new car; not until after you move into a new house or apartment; not until after you have a baby; not until after you win the lottery; not until after you get a longed-for promotion; not until after you get married; or not until after you get divorced. The reality is that none of those things will make you happy. They will only temporarily distract you from your unhappiness. You will still not feel worthy. The key to healthy self-esteem is a realistic and justifiable recognition of competence, which will logically lead to a feeling of worth.
Do not demand too much of yourself, of course, because your likely failures will be overly discouraging. But do not demand too little of yourself either, because it is your accomplishments that support your feelings of competence. Accept yourself for who you are. If you cannot carry a tune, do not fool yourself into believing you will be the next Carrie Underwood. Thinking, “I won’t be happy until I become the next American Idol” is as foolhardy as thinking, “I will finally be happy after I get a new car.” Don’t commit to those 48, 60, or 72 months of car payments without careful consideration, and don’t quit your day job until after you have a signed recording contract.
Understand your shortcomings but determine where your true skills and talents lie and then fully develop them. It is understandable that many children living in poverty think their ticket out of a bad neighborhood is to become a professional basketball or football player or a star rap “singer.” A responsible parent makes sure his child understands the odds are overwhelmingly against that. If you spend years convincing your child he has what it takes to make it to the NFL, how will he react when he learns he does not? Go ahead and let him play sports to the best of his abilities—but make sure he cracks open his textbooks too. There are, after all, far more opportunities for tax accountants, computer programmers, welders, and plumbers than for defensive linemen (and life expectancy is probably far greater).
Use the skills and talents you have. Apply them and keep applying them. Do not be discouraged by mistakes and failures; they are merely lessons. Ford Motor Company made a major miscalculation with its introduction of the Edsel in the late 1950s, but a few years later that monumental failure was more than made up for with the introduction of the Mustang. The first car you design may be horrid, but the fiftieth one may be a work of art. The first bookshelf you build may be as slanted as a Washington Post editorial, but the custom cabinetry you later learn to make may win you customers for life. The first garden you plant may disappoint even the neighborhood rabbits, but you may eventually be capable of surviving an apocalypse.
Continued practice and hard work results in continued accomplishments. Those accomplishments will support your feelings of competence, and feelings of worth will naturally follow. But, once again, you cannot change the order of those steps. A healthy self-esteem depends on following that sequence, and that self-esteem helps determine your career, your income, your lifestyle, your life partner, and even your health.
Your relationship with yourself is of paramount importance. If you do not value yourself, no one else is likely to raise the price. What others think of you is far less important than what you think of yourself. As Rick Nelson sang in Garden Party, “You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself.” Or, as someone else wrote, “You spend a small part of your life with many people. You spend a large part of your life with a few people. But you spend all your life with yourself.”