Health and Wellness

By Sameer Kumar

Ten Steps to Improved Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is a lot like cholesterol. You know the commercial, “It can come from chicken makhani or from your grandfather Makhan Singh.”

Well, self-esteem also comes from two sources. One is your internal voice and the other is a culmination of many external variables. For simplicity, let’s just refer to the external variables as “other people” or “society.”

Unlike cholesterol, where you can control external factors, such as food and exercise but not your genes, with self-esteem you have absolutely no control over how people or society behave (the external factors). But you can have complete control over your “internal” voice. So let’s focus on what we can command.

Your internal voice (a.k.a. the voice in your head) dictates how you perceive yourself, how you perceive other people and how you believe other people perceive you. You can see the power that your inner voice commands. The key to maintaining high self-esteem is learning to harness and control its power.

As much as I hate to admit it, coming from a South Asian background can be pretty tough on our self-esteem. Sure, we are a very successful community, especially academically and financially, but where do we rank when it comes to our self-esteem? Growing up Desi not only demands that we grow thick skin, but also an equally durable interior.
We’ve all heard at least one of the following statements:

1) “Oh, you got a 98 on the exam! Hmm, what happened to the other 2 points?”
2) “Why aren’t you married yet? You do know you’re already past ‘marriageable age.’”
3) “Rakesh’s mother must be so proud. I’ve heard he makes over $250,000. You could be like Rakesh if you wanted to.”
4) “Anjali beti takes such good care of her parents. Her husband even lets them stay with them. Ahhh, I’d like to have a great son-in-law someday.”
5) “Such a beautiful little girl you have; if only she were fairer.”

Combine these comments with the crab mentality that often exists among our peers and you may face toxic elements from your family, friends and even the obscure uncles and aunties who add their two cents without knowing a thing about you. Yet, we often allow these comments and innuendos to chip away and shatter our self-esteem.

Well it’s time to make it stop! Self-esteem is about your thoughts and perceptions. There are always two ways to interpret a saying or an occurrence. You can choose to interpret each in a positive manner that feeds your self-esteem, or you can let it destroy you.

Last month, I was reading through a legal listserv where six or seven attorneys were bashing me and my book. I must admit I was infuriated. How dare they question my credibility! How dare they mock something they’ve never read! I composed a long-winded email, ready to give them a piece of my mind!

But before I sent that email, I calmed down. I told my wife about the incident and had her take a look at the email. She instantly knew I had lost all perspective. She asked me how much time I had spent writing the email. I was ashamed to say it was quite a bit. She then asked what “those people” were saying about me. I told her they had performed a search on my name and my book and said that since I also spoke and wrote on relationship matters, my credibility as an attorney was questionable.

She turned to me and said, “So basically it was a small handful of attorneys you don’t know who were Googling you?” “Yes,” I responded. “You do realize that’s what people do to celebrities, right? They Google them to find gossip and then talk about them.” Ahhh, yes, the other perspective (and although I was feeling quite good about my newfound celebrity status I wasn’t looking too cool in my wife’s eyes right about now). There are always two ways to interpret a situation.

As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Below, I’ve listed ten steps you can implement immediately to exponentially increase your self-esteem. In the process, you will also develop not only the “thick skin,” but also a strong internal gauge to control the extent to which external factors influence your self-esteem.

Ten Steps to High Self-Esteem
1) Accept 100% responsibility for everything that happens to you. Control is a critical component to self-esteem. The more you feel in control, the higher your self-esteem. However, control means you take responsibility for ALL outcomes, not just the ones that are pretty.

I wear a rubber band on my wrist. Every time I find myself blaming someone else for my fate or complaining about something that is wrong, I snap the rubber band. It hurts only as much as I choose to make it hurt, but it always breaks my thought pattern of blaming and complaining. Instead I ask what I can do to improve or change the outcome.

Feel free to try one on. It can be used for most of the steps listed here.

2) Stop comparing. We’ve all had times when we’ve felt inferior because we lacked what someone else had: a better house, a better job, maybe a better spouse. There’s a simple remedy to this. First, snap the rubber band. Break the thought pattern. If you must compare, compare yourself to those who lack the luxuries you possess. Your self-esteem increases when you can see what you DO have and are grateful.

3) Be true to yourself. Remember when you were a child and you came out of your room wearing a wild and crazy outfit? Remember how you danced around and everyone laughed and talked about how cute you were? You had no inhibitions and were true to yourself. But then, a few years went by and you started hearing that you were too old to be acting like that (many of us still hear that). Maybe the kids at school started making fun of your outfit and suddenly, what was once so much fun was now something you feared would bring ridicule and scolding.

It takes a bold individual to be true to him or herself despite what the world thinks. But going against who you are – your core – does much greater damage. It eats away at your self-esteem. When you know what is right for you and you deliberately do what is wrong, you’ve just chipped away at a piece of your self-esteem. Over time, it accumulates. People may not agree with who you are or what you stand for but since when has “being normal” and “blending in with the crowd” been a recipe for success?

4) There is no such thing as rejection. Yes, really! You didn’t get the promotion. He didn’t ask you out. You didn’t get accepted into law school. When events such as these occur, we feel rejected and our self-worth diminishes. What we fail to realize is that we haven’t lost anything. We are no better or worse off than we were before these events occurred. You have the same job, you didn’t have a date anyway and you weren’t in law school. You were never rejected. Everything remained exactly as it was. You just have to try a new approach.

5) Have a feel-good list. We all have certain places we can go, people we can spend time with and things we can do that always make us feel better. Create a list of all the people, places and activities that make you feel good. Whenever you find yourself questioning your self-worth, take out the list. There is nothing wrong with eliminating toxic people from your life and replacing them with supportive and nourishing friends.

6) Interpret events in the positive. As I mentioned above, every event can be interpreted in two ways. Remember when you had that job interview and they asked you what your worst characteristic was and you responded with, “I guess I’d have to say that I’m a bit of a perfectionist and can’t leave a project until it’s done just right.” What a load of hooey! At least for the interview. But when it comes to self-esteem, positive interpretations of events is crucial. I am tempted to quote Shakespeare. “There is nothing either good or bad – but thinking makes it so.” I gave in to temptation.

7) Act, fail and do it anyway. Success breeds success and success leads to higher self-esteem. But without action, nothing happens, so be prepared to take action. Without failure, you never learn, so be prepared to fail. When you fail, you may feel discouraged and fearful. At that point, go to the steps above, interpret the failure as a learning opportunity and understand that you are no worse off than when you started. Step up and try again (in spite of the fear).

8) Accept feedback openly. Keep an open mind to what the world is telling you. Don’t confuse feedback with ridicule and pessimism. Those are the toxins you must eliminate. Pay attention to direct and indirect feedback to gauge your success. To avoid any confusion, direct feedback is when your friend tells you that you need a breath mint; indirect feedback is when anyone you talk to winces in agony at your mere, “Hello.” I may have dumbed that down a bit but you get the idea.

9) Make time your friend and perfection obsolete. Achievement, a solid self-image and a better overall life take time to accomplish. So give yourself ample time to get to where you’re going. At the same time, head towards a place of contentment rather than perfection. One assures happiness while the other simply gives the illusion of it.

10) Help others. This is strictly my personal opinion. Nothing increases one’s own self-esteem as much as bettering someone else’s life. This world is full of people who care more about the pimple on their chin than about the homeless guy outside their building. Skip the Clearasil and buy him a sandwich instead. I can’t explain it. Just do it and you’ll understand.

So just as with cholesterol, you can improve your self-esteem by “exercising” and strengthening your inner voice, by maintaining a balanced “diet” of nourishing friends, a sense of control and a positive outlook. Okay, okay, I’m done with the analogies to cholesterol (and I’m done with the article).

As always, I wish you great success and happiness.

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