I read a forum post just now that talked about an online test someone had taken. It seems her expectations were higher than her results and she felt really down for only getting 50 %. In her post she said:
“I shall try to forget it, its hard to forget negative things for me, its like i want to put myself down. ”
Do you know how often I hear that? And why do I hear that so much? Hard to forget negative things… Why would we want to put ourself down? Why do we seem to listen more to negative things than to positive? If someone makes one negative remark all the praise we got from that person or from others before seem cancelled out as if they never existed.
Does that make sense or is it just something we have been trained to do until it became a disempowering habit? I feel that is becoming more and more difficult to stay positive. The media is doing their best to make us think we are surrounded only by violence (which is not true!).
Parents and teachers and in many cases Governments are telling us what is right and what is “wrong”. Even though we seem to have more freedom today there are more and more No, No’s we identify ourselves with. Fortunately there are plenty of people out there who see great opportunities and use them for the betterment of mankind.
It should be easier to laugh or at least shrug on a test like the one the lady above made because unless done by a real professional who knows the topic inside out, they have no meaning but hey, if I get all excited by the Matrix test (see my ecademy profile) than I suppose it is only normal that someone else gets upset about some other silly little test.
Here some advice: Hold your head high knowing that you are unique with all the ups and downs that make you the personality you are.
Let’s focus on the good in our lives! Let’s make it a daily habit to count all our blessings, all the good things we can be grateful for so our “so called weaknesses” don’t graze us so much. We are all unique and we are all perfect if we only let the perfection out that is often locked so deep inside of us.
Dare to be different. You are worth it.
Barbara Hofmeister
www.thetobebook.com
In case you want to read the Wikipedia definition of self-esteem:
In psychology, self-esteem or self-worth includes a person’s subjective appraisal of himself or herself as intrinsically positive or negative to some degree.
Self-esteem involves both self-relevant beliefs (e.g., “I am competent/incompetent“, “I am liked/disliked”) and associated self-relevant emotions (e.g., triumph/despair, pride/shame). It also finds expression in behavior (e.g., assertiveness/timorousness, confidence/caution). In addition, self-esteem can be construed as an enduring personality characteristic (trait self-esteem) or as a temporary psychological condition (state self-esteem).
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