this is Julian and this book is the six pillars of self-esteem by Nathaniel Brandon and this is a book I actually read a few years ago that just really blew my mind okay I don't think I've ever read a book and had as many epiphanies let's just say as I did reading this one so if you haven't checked it out suggest you do so now and uh on that notes let's crack into it so what is self-esteem okay because it's more than just selfworth you know most people's definition of it the way he defines it here is self-esteem as the disposition to experience oneself as competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and and as worthy of Happiness okay these are the two components of self-esteem self-efficacy and self-respect okay self-efficacy being confidence in our ability to learn what we need to learn and do what we need to do in order to achieve our goals plus the expectation of success and self-respect being the conviction of our own value feeling worthy and the expectation of friendship love happiness is natural results of who we are and what we do okay this here is self-esteem and what's important to understand is that our self-esteem high or low tends to be a generator of self-fulfilling prophecies okay so it works like this our self-esteem creates a set of implicit expectations of what is possible and appropriate to us these expectations tend to generate the actions that turn them into realities and the realities confirm and strengthen the original beliefs okay so let's just say you have low self-esteem uh you don't really feel like you can cope with the challenges of life you don't really feel like you know you're appropriate to life it's like ah this is not really for me I can't really achieve all of this okay that's the belief okay this here will affect your actions so when you try something you're probably not going to put in your full you know best effort you're probably going to self sabotage a bit and then you will fail you won't accomplish all of that and that failure will then reinforce see I knew I couldn't accomplish all of that it'll reinforce that low self-esteem okay and it's just this cycle that goes on and on and on and uh that keeps you just stuck okay it's a continuous feedback loop between our actions in the world and our self-esteem the level of our self-esteem influences how we act and how we act influences the level of our self-esteem and this is why self-esteem is so important okay it affects every single aspect of your life be it in the workplace for example you may choose a career that never goes anywhere or you may know people like that just always complaining like I'm just stuck in my job yet they do nothing about it why cuz deep down inside they don't feel appropriate to say a better career they're like this is the best that I can do and that career reinforces that this is the best that they can do um they may have aspirations that always get sabotaged like all these different plans and ideas that just never happen you know for example um I I love this it uses the example of a promotion okay let's just say you get a promotion uh instead of being happy about that promotion you know a lot of people are kind of panicked they're like oh my God I got promoted all these responsibilties or if you get a new job it's like oh I don't know about this job um I mean yeah it was exciting it was what I wanted to do but suddenly there's way more responsibility um maybe I won't be able to master the new skills maybe I won't be able to do it all uh and suddenly that little voice goes hey what you know you're an impostor you know maybe you don't belong here and you start self-sabotaging like this is too much I don't feel appropriate to this your self-esteem is not that high and uh then you get fired and when you get fired as I mentioned before the feedback Lube see I told you I was an impostor I couldn't Master this the promotion was not for me and you're stuck in whatever career you're in this also affect your relationships what he says here is that there really is no greater barrier to romantic happiness than the fear that I'm undeserving of love and then my destiny is to be hurt okay it's like I don't deserve this it'll never last this person's too good for me once again I'm an impostor and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy we know that we are doomed we know that our relationship is doomed and we behave in ways to make reality conform to our knowledge okay so for example you may pick someone who will inevitably reject or abandon you and you're like hey see I told you I told you it wasn't going to last I told you I did not deserve this what can I do and you just keep going for those type of Partners um or you might go with someone who you know you can actually be happy but instead of experiencing that Joy you continuously demand excessive reassurances you try to control say the other person you try to dominate the relationship or you find ways to reject your partner before they can reject you again classic self-sabotage and the question here is if I do not feel lovable it's very difficult for to believe that say anyone else could love me it's like hey if I don't love myself why does this person love me you know or okay that person loves me but because they love me they're not good enough for me okay only someone who will reject me is an acceptable object of my devotion um or you may even stay in the relationship and he says this here um as long as you're not happy so you'll just stay in this destructive relationship because by not being happy in your relationship you're reinforcing that again idea of hey I don't deserve happiness not happy don't deserve it perfect this is the relationship for me and this obviously also affects how you interact with people um how you deal with people How likely you are to rise or how much you are to achieve um your health okay for example destructive eating and living habits uh over dependence on drugs and what personal happiness you attain okay most of us live in chronic anxiety and depression and we have an inability to enjoy success even when we get it we just can't enjoy it because it's not enough okay that there is a consequence of having low self-esteem you know what he says is if my aim is to prove that I am enough the project goes on to Infinity okay it's always one more and you may turn into say workaholic okay low self-esteem um it undercuts the capacity for satisfaction because with the self-respect you don't feel worthy of Happiness okay and when we have unconflicted self-esteem Joy is our motor not fear okay it is our happiness that we wish to experience not suffering that we wish to avoid and our motive is not to prove okay our worth but to live our possibilities like see what new froners we can reach and it's creativity that drives us not safety okay it's again growth versus protection and we can't avoid the importance of self-esteem okay you may ignore it you can ignore it all you want it's happening whether you like it or not and this is why it's so important to work on it and raise your self-esteem okay and you can do so by focusing on actions or practices okay basically something you do over and over again a way of being and this here will affect your self-esteem okay and this is important to understand you can't work on it directly because it is a consequence of internally generated actions but you can work on those actions okay and here come the six pillars of self-esteem the six practices if you will the first is the practice of living consciously number two the practice of self-acceptance number three the practice of self- responsibility number four the practice of self- assertiveness number five the practice of living purposefully and number six the practice of personal Integrity okay and we'll dissect these now so the first one is the practice of living consciously okay basic basically having a mind that is active versus passive that seeks awareness versus simply not bothering uh that is responsible toward reality versus that escapes or evades reality okay some examples um I know I'm not giving my job my best but I don't want to think about it you know it's just too much anxiety um it'll take care of itself you know I know there's a situation I need to deal with but you know I'll deal with it someday you know I know I'm not giving my loved ones enough time but we know someday we know someday I will someday they they'll thank me you know I just don't want to confront that right now uh I know I'm Wrecking my health you know this is not the healthiest thing to do but someday or in the future or you know whatever you fill in the blank okay basically anything to just turn a blind eye to reality okay we don't want to deal with it uh it's too stressful too anxiety-provoking so we just choose not to guess what we can choose that we can choose to confront reality or not it's not like by default we're confronting reality we can choose to acknowledge it or not we can live in a Little Dream World in a fantasy land in a mental fog and what he says is that we can't feel competent or worthwhile conducting our lives in this mental fog okay you need to reconnect with reality you need to live consciously and it's more than just seeing and knowing okay it means acting on what one sees and knows okay and this is key being concerned to know if your actions are in alignment with your purpose or values okay and this here is what affects your self-esteem okay so basically throughout our lives we're confronted with thousands of upon thousands of choices okay and they're usually small choices not just the big ones and one is basically connected to thinking the other is connected to non-thinking okay being conscious being unconscious and uh these choices establish the kind of person we are okay uh deep down in our psyche let's just say they add up and the sum of that experience we call self-esteem okay it's basically the reputation we acquire with ourselves and every time we pick Let's just say the choice that is non-thinking that avoids reality just view it like a minus one you know it's like we start at zero and there's a choice you know it's like okay there's the situation I need to deal with am I going to you know acknowledge a situation and say take right action or not you take right action plus one you don't minus one and all those little plus ones minus ones that's where your self-esteem ends up being okay so living consciously is step one okay look at your life focus on the facts and start taking right action based on those facts now this here does not mean that you must be engaged in some you know sort of task or or problem solving every single second of the day okay you hear this and it's very easy to be all paranoid like oh my God okay what do I have to deal with now am I conscious now oh I I just drifted off oh my God I must be present no okay what he says is that context determines appropriateness and uh to be in the state basically appropriate to what you are doing okay so guess what if you are say watching a movie or doing something to relax guess what being appropriate there is like Let Yourself drift off in the movie don't need to be all conscious oh my God conscious like there's a time and place for at all and this should not be viewed as some sort of chore or something like oh this sounds horrible um it's basically a joyful exercise of the mind okay something you learn to love so this here is the first practice the second is the practice of self-acceptance okay and there's three levels of meaning here the first is to be on your own side okay basically to be for yourself and to refuse to be in an adversar relationship to yourself you know some people are just so self-hating self- rejecting you know it's this constant adversarial relationship that no work or Growth work can actually begin until this problem is addressed okay that's the first level the second is your willingness to experience okay experience for example what you you think okay to think what you think to feel what you feel to desire what you desire to have done what you have done and to be who you are okay it's the refusal to regard any part of yourself as alien or not me okay any physical part any thought any emotion and uh so many of us do you know it's like we experience something that is unpleasant we feel guilty about experiencing it we're like oh that was not me you just repress it you don't acknowledge it you don't accept it okay and uh you know what he says here is that accepting doesn't mean liking you know you may have an emotion you don't like but guess what acknowledge that's it's an expression of who you are okay if I refuse to accept that I often live unconsciously for example how will I learn to live more consciously you know it's like just fully accepting like this is me right now and then from there you can start getting to work the third level is the idea of compassion and that is being a friend to myself so for example it's accepting uh and you know say being compassionate if you do something you know that's an undesired behavior let's just say you do something quotequote bad uh instead of beating yourself up it's like it doesn't mean you you know you're like hey that was good job you know you're not for that behavior but you kind of examine the motives you're like okay why did you do that okay you're kind of this compassionate friend to yourself so you can fix it so it won't happen again and there's a little side note here too and I love this what he says is that if for example some negative emotion arises don't resist it okay if you resist it you're adding fuel to that emotion instead embrace it and as soon as you accept it acknowledge it um it begins to melt away okay but let's just say you keep resisting it what he says is don't resist it and don't resist your resistance to it okay so except for example the fact that you're resisting it and then go from there okay this here is the second practice the third is the practice of self- responsibility okay and what he says is that to feel competent to live and worthy of happiness I need to experience a sense of control over my existence okay and this means to take 100% responsibility for your life and your wellbeing okay taking responsibility for your happiness is empowering um it places your life back in your own hands you know so many of us we just continuously blame external circumstances other people for everything that's happening and we rarely take responsibility and although it may feel good to blame someone else you're giving them control you have zero control and obviously that will affect your ability to cope with different challenges it'll affect your self-esteem okay so take responsibility and realize here too that no one owes you the Fulfillment of your wishes okay recognize that other human beings are not servants and do not exist for the satisfaction of your needs it's shocking to hear it's like well of course but they they don't you know like we all think someone is coming and he writes this too it's like uh no one's coming to save you no one is coming to make your life right no one is coming to solve your problems uh if you don't do anything nothing's going to get better okay and this dream of The Rescuer who will deliver us you know may offer some sort of comfort but it's never going to happen and it's going to keep you stuck you know and we all believe this like hey if I suffer long enough um you know somehow maybe a miracle will happen it won't okay you're all alone start taking responsibility and from there you can start making things better okay the fourth practice is the practice of self assertiveness and uh you know there's a little exercise he talks about here where he's in a classroom and he makes someone go you know in front of the class and say I have the right to exist and to say it extremely confidently and he asked the class like does that person mean it and a lot of people have trouble meaning this like actually yelling out like I have the right to exist and fully confidently meaning it and being congruent to that you know we all feel like we're walking on eggshells like that's our entire existence um we're afraid to put ourselves out there we're afraid we'll deal with negative emotions we'll afraid people will judge us we're afraid of the repercussions and we just turn into these little wall flowers you know we have trouble asserting ourselves and what he says here is that self assertiveness means honoring your wants your needs your values and seeking the appropriate forms of their expression in reality okay and this is a practice okay it's the willingness to stand up for yourself to be who you are openly to treat yourself with respect in all human encounters okay every time you deny yourself say your needs your wants or even in more subtle ways like you have a certain idea at your job and you want to put it out there or you put it out there but you don't fight for it guess what you're betraying yourself and your self-esteem will suffer okay it's not the external world that's doing it to you it's you doing it to yourself okay people Pleasers are another example of this the fifth practice is the practice of living purposefully okay and this means basically using your powers for the attainment of goals you have selected okay um to live without a purpose is to live at the mercy of chance okay it's like whatever happens will happen you know you're just a drifter uh no okay you should be proactive not reactive if you don't do something okay kind of linking this to self- responsibility nothing will happen Okay and to live purposely is to be concerned with these questions here what am I trying to achieve how am I trying to achieve it why do I think these means are appropriate does the feedback from the environment convey that I am succeeding or failing is there new information that I need to consider do I need to make adjustments in my course or in my strategy or in my practices do my goals and purposes need to be rethought okay you should constantly be asking yourself these questions um and to live purposely and productively require that we cultivate within ourselves a capacity for self-discipline as well okay that's the fifth practice and last one here is the practice of personal Integrity okay and this kind of goes hand inand with what we talked about before for in the practice of living consciously what it means is staying true to yourself okay Integrity asks that our effort to find the best choice be authentic that we stay conscious stay connected to our knowledge call on our best rational Clarity take responsibility for our choice and its consequences do not seek to escape into the mental fog okay it kind of encompasses all of the other pillars and once again it's like hey want all of this you're on top of it you're congruent to it there is a match and uh lies really do not work you know one of the great self-deceptions is to tell yourself only I will know you it's like oh I have this value I didn't make the right choice there but no one else will know well guess what it doesn't matter about other people knowing what you know truly matters is you knowing because you're the one who affects your own self-esteem so these here are the six pillars of self-esteem okay and it's important to understand here too that all of these practices are both a cause and an effect of good self-esteem okay they generate good self-esteem but they're also an expression of good self-esteem okay remember it's all this feedback loop but this is how you raise your self-esteem there is no other way okay and once again you can achieve success you can achieve you know the promotion you want you can become whatever you want to become if you don't get this handled you will not be able to appreciate it okay you will not feel worthy of it and most likely you will sell sabotage and you will lose it okay so the only way to basically achieve success is to integrate these practices in to your life this year is where you start okay it's not seeking anything external it's your own actions okay your own actions are the only things that can affect your self-esteem um so yeah if you resonate with this check out the book and as always check the comments for the next one until next time