Series: Self Esteem Mini-Course

The more success experiences kids have when they’re young the higher their self esteem. Your role as a parent is to provide your children with opportunities to succeed.

Many parents ask me about their kids’ self-esteem. It’s hard for parents to accept that the kids they love so much and worked so hard to raise the best way they could, may still have low self-esteem and that it affects their happiness and success in life.

Parents who are on a quest to have happy kids, need to take into consideration that much of the self-esteem is developed during childhood. This takes us back to the early years, which I believe are the most important in our development.

This does not mean that self-esteem cannot be changed at any other time in life by choice. It just means that your child, just like you are doing now, will have to make extra effort to change it later.

Read Ronit Baras’ Success Experience Theory »

The term “self-esteem” comes from a Greek word meaning, “reverence for self”. “Reverence” means “respect, admiration, worship, awe, astonishment and amazement”.

The “self” part of self-esteem, as I have described in the early chapters of this mini-course, includes the values, beliefs and attitudes that we hold about ourselves.

The “esteem” part of self-esteem, means having “high regard” or a “good opinion” of our values, beliefs and attitudes.

Whether you choose the two simple words “Self Esteem” or the 3 Greek words “reverence for self”, it seems that self-esteem, for most, is having an identity crisis and is in urgent need of therapy.

Since launching this course, I have had many questions about the definition of self-esteem. It is amazing to discover how diverse and deep the meanings can be (well, any discovery is amazing). So I have decided to take Ms Self Esteem (some will say it is a Mr) to the experts to discuss this crisis.

Read Ms Self Esteem has an Identity Crisis »

Today, we are going to explore the way conflicts influence self-esteem and how learning good conflict resolution can boost your self-esteem.

Most of our conflicts with others are caused by mixed or contradicting interests. One person wants something and the other wants something else, and many times, it is impossible to compromise because there is nothing in the middle, or at least, both parties THINK there is nothing in the middle.

The main problem with conflict is that it is a magnifier. If you have low self-esteem and you find yourself in conflict, your low self-esteem will become even lower and you will have more doubts about yourself.

Read 13 Useful Conflict Resolution Steps You Need to Know »

To increase your self esteem, it is good if you know what you can appreciate in yourself. People with low self esteem simply do not realize how much or how well they do things. For many of the big questions in life, they answer “I’ve never thought about it” or “I don’t know”.

The subconscious mind, however, knows very well what it thinks about itself and many times, we react in a way that we do not understand.

We want to be fit, but we eat too much, we want to have good relationships, yet we fight a lot, we want to succeed, but we do not even try. We want to reach out and touch someone, but instead we lose contact.

This happens when the conscious mind and the subconscious mind are not going in the same direction. The conscious mind does not know why it does that to itself.

Read War Between Two Minds »

Getting to know ourselves is the first step of any personal development process. If we want to grow and evolve, we must developer our self awareness. We should get to know the people we are, what we think, what we love, what we are afraid of, what we believe in, what we would do if…, what motivates us, what will take us forward and what we want out of life.

As part of the process, we might find that we are not happy with the answers, but they are necessary to start a change. First, we must know where we are if we want to start going in a different direction, because if we keep doing what we have always done, we will keep getting what we have always gotten.

Read Awareness is Half the Solution »