One of the causes of low self-esteem is feeling that despite sometimes appearing generous and acting generously towards the world deep you mainly care about yourself and are selfish, lack real goodness and therefore are not worthy or deserving of success or happiness.

How worthy are you?

Score the following with: 1 = rarely; 2 = sometimes; 3 = frequently

1. You raise and DON’T lower the self-esteem of others
2. You sustain an effort outside of your comfort zone to help others as much or even before yourself
3. You give the same effort to a fair decision that you disagree with as you do to something you agree with
4. You ask for help or assistance
5. You quickly and sincerely thank someone who has helped you.
6. You quickly offer help without the other person having to ask for it
7. You fully forgive and forget after you’ve been hurt and quickly move on
8. You quickly recognize and earnestly apologize for your failures of commission or omission to people you have let down
9. You enthusiastically and sincerely congratulate someone else on an achievement or good fortune
10. You give much more to the world than you take from it

10 – 16 = You’re not worth very much.  You feel much more entitled to things than you actually deserve.  You’re more of a taker than a giver and come from a feeling of scarcity.

17 – 24 = You are under the belly of the bell shaped curve with the majority people.  You could certainly improve, but you are also certainly a decent person.

25 – 30 = You are a class act.  People are fortunate to have you in their life and blessed to have you as a friend. You are an optimist, a giver and come from a feeling of abundance.

Now for the real challenge.  Ask people who care about you and want you to be the best you can be to candidly rate you.  And if it their rating is lower than yours, ask them to give you specific examples of where you can improve.  Then THANK them (because it’s gutsy for them to be candid) and ask them if you can check with them informally every month what they have observed and then to make further suggestions on how to improve even further.

Many parents may disagree on how to raise their children, but few would disagree that Child A below entering college or the work force has a much better chance for a good life than Child B.

Child A

• Focused
• Resilient
• Persistent
• Passionate
• Goal-oriented
• Handles Disappointment Well
• Doesn’t Take Self Too Seriously
• Coachable

Child B

• Scattered
• Quits
• Bails
• Bored
• No Goals
• Is Easily Upset
• Hypersensitive
• Know-it-all

12 Steps to a More Self-Confident Child*

1. Print up this blog for your children and the article from Divorce Magazine (from which these charts are excerpted) for your spouse (or ex-spouse).
2. Ask your children and your spouse if you can sit down with them to discuss something that relates to your children’s futures and is on your mind.
3. Have your children read this blog and have you and your spouse read the Divorce Magazine article and look at the chart re: Child A and Child B (which will help you be aware of how you and your relationship with your spouse influence your children’s personalities).
4. Ask your children if they think that Child A will not only be more successful and happier, but will be looked upon more positively by friends and others who may be that child’s teachers, boss or even future boy friend or girl friend (Hopefully they will agree).
5. Ask your children how they believe they would be viewed with regard to the traits in both Child A and Child B by their friends and those people in their life (including you) who have the power to grade them (teachers), accept them into college, hire them, promote them and give them raises.
6. Ask your children to describe what they do or don’t do that would cause those people to see them that way.
7. If your children answer that they are more like the insecure Child B rather than the confident Child A, ask them if they would like to become more like Child A? (Hopefully they will again say, “Yes”).
8. If your children answer, “Yes,” ask them what they specifically would need to do differently to become more like Child A and what you and their other parent will need to do differently to help them become that way.
9. Ask your spouse if they will participate in working together with you to help your children become more like Child A.
10. Set up a plan with one observable positive “do” behavior and one observable negative “stop doing” behavior for your children to commit to changing every month (after a month that behavior will become a habit and if they pick too many behaviors to change, they will not be able to do it) and keep doing this until they become more like Child A than Child B.
11. Set a date every two weeks to check in and to see how they are coming along with that change and for your children and you and your spouse to offer refinements to improve those selected behaviors even further.
12. Also include you and your spouse changing your behaviors according to what your children say you each could do differently to help them.

* This approach was inspired by the work and ideas of Marshall Goldsmith, one of the world’s preeminent executive coaches and author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful. Check that book out if you want to improve your interpersonal skills and greatly increase your career success.

More and more frequently I run into people who know they are intelligent, but don’t believe it; know they are attractive, but don’t believe it; know they are successful, but don’t believe it; know they are good people, but don’t believe it and/or know they are worthwhile and don’t believe it.

The positive side to not feeling intelligent, attractive, successful, good or worthwhile is that it can keep pushing you to become better at all of these. The negative side is that it can cause you to feel anxious, depressed and rob you of peace of mind. At the extreme it can cause you to feel despair, which I define as des-pair, i.e. feeling unpaired with intelligence, attractiveness, success, goodness or worthiness. And feeling despair can cause you to give up.

If you have overcome this dilemma of knowing something positive about yourself, but not believing it, please share what you did to put this demon to rest.

It will help many people. It will help me.

Pseudo-independent – You act un-needy, but you’re really prideful, don’t believe anyone else will do it right and don’t want to be beholding to anyone. You can’t really do life without other people. Your “empire” is no more than a Glass Menagerie, but as long as you don’t see it that way, it doesn’t seem to matter to you that everyone else does.

Independent – You are needful. You lean into people. You get input from others, but keep your problems as your responsibility. You are mature enough to realize that until you can be effectively interdependent, you can’t be independent.

Also: How to Become Independent

(c) 2009 Mark Goulston