Harness Your Self-Esteem to Achieve Your Dreams

There was this young guy who was hired on the same day as I by company I retired from. I joined as a mechanical technician, he, as an accountant.

He retired from the company more than 20 years later as Accounting Supervisor, with most of those years still as an accountant.

In contrast, there was this farm boy who was the subject of my post, Chase Your Dreams. He joined the company much later and left earlier. But in the short time that he was with the company he accomplished more than the accountant.

The accountant was born in ease and abundance while the farm boy was born in hardship and need. But the differences in the circumstances of their lives did not reflect, in any way, how they lived their lives.

Why? Because of self-esteem. The accountant had no balls, while the farm boy had just about the right size.

What is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is your overall opinion of yourself - how you honestly feel about your abilities and limitations.

To illustrate, if you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see someone you are not comfortable with, love or adore?

Your feelings towards your own reflection measure the level of your self-esteem: low, high or just about right or healthy.

On the practical side, a person's reaction to a difficult situation will show where he is in the self-esteem scale. For example:

Low self-esteem: "I am not capable of doing that, or, it is impossible to do that."

High self-esteem: "I can easily do that. No sweat."

Healthy self-esteem: "With a little push, I can do that."

Self-esteem is something we acquire as a child, developed and strengthened as we grow up. It is a belief formed and constantly reinforced by wrong role models and standards through the years. Since it is acquired, it can be un-acquired.

Yes, your level of self-esteem, just like an unwholesome habit can be changed - with great effort, of course. But you must.

Here's why.

Why a healthy self-esteem is important to your success:

A person of low self-esteem will constantly live in the shadows of his fears and uncertainties, while that of high will, more often than not, constantly live with disappointments for having bitten more than he can chew..

But a healthy self-esteem allows you to value and accept your own worth as a human being and, at the same time, value and accept the worth of others.

We are social beings and we can function better in the community we belong to if we know precisely what role we must play in the community's dynamics.

We can achieve our potentials and personal satisfaction while avoiding internal and external conflicts that are bound to happen should we be at odds with the other members of the community.

A healthy self-esteem accepts and recognizes that people are different, but must live peacefully within those differences to achieve balance in his own life and purpose.

Only by doing that can you find joy and happiness in being you. And happy people, studies show, are more predisposed to succeed.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joseph_Dabon