Your Self-Esteem Checklist

Young woman lying peacefully on a bed of leaves

For people to think highly of themselves, they need to be aware of every aspect of the self and identify their own personal scale to measure their performance. Most people are so used to defining themselves based on others around them that I can understand why this is not an easy task. Easy it may not be, but it is possible and, I believe, essential.

Last week, in Service Your Self-Esteem, we talked about essential rules to increase self-esteem. To increase our self-esteem, we need to look at ourselves carefully and examine each part of what creates the self.

Last week, we met Eli, my mechanic, and talked about his checklist for car maintenance, the one he uses before returning each car to its owner. Well, here (at last) is a self-esteem checklist – your very own list of the parts of your self-esteem.

This post is part 6 of 20 in the series Self Esteem Mini-Course

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Expect to Be a Happy Parent

One major difference I see between happy parents and unhappy parents is in the gap between their expectations and the fulfilment of their expectations. Basically, if your expectations are high and are not fulfilled, you will be disappointed and unhappy. However, if most of your expectations are fulfilled, you will be a satisfied and happy parent.

Expectations are one important factor of happiness. Byron Katie does some wonderful work (she even calls it “The Work”) on how our expectations can make us miserable if they do not match reality (read Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life).

Children living in a family with expectations that are too high to be fulfilled feel inadequate and develop a failure identity. For example, a family of musicians with high expectation from their kids regarding their musical aspirations and abilities would be devastating for a kid whose passion is playing soccer.

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Service Your Self-Esteem

Last month, I sent my car to be serviced. On the front window, my mechanic put a label telling me when to bring the car to him for the next service. When he returned my car, it drove perfectly, quietly, smoothly, swiftly and without any black smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe.

People are a lot like cars. We function well, smoothly and at full speed when we take good care of ourselves. When we neglect ourselves, we feel bad, rejected and frustrated and our performance suffers. Whereas cars need servicing every 10,000km, people need it roughly every week (10,000 minutes), so take care of yourself at least once a week to feel fresh and shiny.

This post is part 5 of 20 in the series Self Esteem Mini-Course

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Teen Birthday Parties: Who Needs Them Anyway?

Teen girl blowing out candles on a cake at a birthday party

It was the third birthday our daughter had refused to celebrate with friends. For her 17th birthday, she invited a couple of girls to go out for a movie. For her 18th birthday, she spent the day crying because it was her grandmother’s funeral (and her dad was away to attend).

When she approached her 19th birthday, we had the same discussions about a party all over again.

When I was kid, most of the kids wanted to have a party, at least on their birthdays. Only the “rich” kids could have parties every year. Some rare kids had parties more than once a year and those were obviously the most popular.

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Change: Let Go of Your “‘Bananas”!

How do you trap a big monkey in a small cage the size of a banana? Easy! You place a banana inside the cage and leave an opening large enough for the monkey’s hand, but not for the banana.

As soon as the monkey grabs the banana, it is trapped! The monkey can set itself free if it lets go of the banana, but it won’t. By not giving up what it has in its hand, it locks itself just outside the tiny cage.

People are the same – we hold many “bananas” that keep us trapped in little “cages” – because we just won’t let go.

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Are Your Ready?

It all started when our daughter Eden was a year and a half old. She had Pneumonia and high fever and she wheezed all day.

After one dose of Antibiotics (by the way, 18 years ago, it was every 6 hours, even if it meant waking her up at night), we had about a week or two off and the wheezing started again.

First kid, young parents, we went straight to see our baby specialist. He was the head of the Pediatric Ward at our local hospital and we went to his private clinic every time something happened.

About 4 months later, we found ourselves in his private clinic again. It was Pneumonia the fourth time. During that time, Eden had red, dry cheeks, high fever (every time she was not on any medication) and wheezing, wheezing all day.

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My kids don’t eat the food I make. What should I do?

Kids’ eating habits are very important for parents and it is very frustrating to prepare food and find out your kids do not like it.

If you look at this issue from an emotional point of view, it has to do with control. Your kids are exercising control over what and when they eat, while you try to keep that control. Once you look at it this way, though, the solution is simple.

Here are some great things that will get your kids to eat well.

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What Do I Want?

It is an amazing experience to be an educator because teaching is to giving like learning is to receiving. We teachers have the greatest learning while we teach. My meeting with John was living proof of this concept.

I published a newsletter about worth, which had a wonderful impact on many readers. I received many encouraging and supporting responses.

Since then, I have told so many people about John and helped them find the answer to the big questions in life that I would like to share it with you and thank John for giving me one of the best lessons in my life. I hope you take the learning from it too.

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Kids are Like Fish

Kids are like fish. No, not because they are pretty and cute (although they are pretty and cute) but because their ability to grow depends on their environment, much like fish.

Did you know that fish will grow to the size that will be supported by their surroundings?

If you put a fish in a small bowl, it will grow to fit the size of the bowl. If you take the same fish into a small pond, it will grow bigger. If you move it to a lake, the same fish can grow to be big, really big.

Kids also have this fishy characteristic. For them, life is a fish bowl and they depend on the grown ups in their life to find a good size bowl to call home. They also depend on the grown ups in their life to “clean the water” and supply them with “food”.

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Is It Better to Be Poor and Happy or Wealthy and Miserable?

When coaching people on wealth creation, it is amazing for me every time to discover how strongly people who are not wealthy believe that this question is valid. Don’t get me wrong. I came from a simple family, where my mom and dad both worked hard, very hard, at more that one job, to provide for 5 children.

When my clients discuss this, I know what they are talking about because we had such discussions around our dinner table.

People who do not have “enough” money (90% of our society) have some beliefs that support their identity as “poor”, “struggling”, “cannot have what we want”. Here are some of them:

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