To trust one’s mind and to know that one is worthy of happiness is the essence of self esteem

We tend ti feel most comfortable, with persons whose self esteem level resembles our own

There is no greater barrier to romantic happiness than the fear that I am undeserving of love and that my destiny is to be hurt

What is required for many of us, paradoxical though it may sound, is the courage to tolerate happiness without self sabotage

It would be hard to name a more certain sign of poor self esteem than the need to perceive some other group as inferior

Self esteem, high or low, tends to be a generator of self fulfilling prophecies

High self esteem people can surely be knocked down by an excess of troubles, but they are quicker to pick themselves up again

If my aim is to prove I am enough, the project goes on to infinity because the battle was already lost on the day. I conceded the issue was debatable

Self esteem is not a subtitute for a roof over one’s head or food in one’s stomach, but it increases the likelihood that one will find a way ro meet such needs

We have reached a moment in history when self esteem, which has always been a supremely important psychological need, had also become a supremely important economic need

If we lack adequate self esteem, the amount of choice offered to us today can be frightening

To have high self esteem is to feel confidently appropriate to life

The right use of our conciousness is not automatic, is not wired in by nature

We are the one species that can formulate a vision of what values are worth pursuing and then pursue the opposite

A disservice is done to people if they are offered feel good notions of self esteem that divorce it questions of conciousness, responsibility, and moral choice

In a world in which the total of human knowledge is doubling about every ten years, our security can rest only on our ability to learn

Self respect entails the expectation of friendship, love, and happiness as natural, as a result of who we are and what we do

A concern with right and wrong is not merely the product of social conditioning. A concern with morality or ethics arises naturally in the early stages of our development

Pride is the emotional reward of achievement. It is not a vice to be overcome but a value to be attained

Relaxation implies that we are not hiding from purselves and are not at war with who we are

High self esteem is intrinsically reality oriented

A mind that trust itself is light on its feet

We are challenged to raise the level of our conciousness in the face of emotional resistance

I can project an image of assurance and poise that fools almost everyone and yet secretly tremble with a sense if my inadequacy

Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of aloneness

What determines the level of self esteem is what the individual does

We must become what we wish to teach

6 pillars of self esteem:
Living conciously
Self acceptance
Self responsibility
Self assertiveness
Living purposefully
Personal integrity

Our mind is our basic tool of survival. Betray it and self esteem suffers

When we live conciously we do not imagine that our feelings are an infallible guide to truth

Fear and pain should be treates as signals not to close our eyes but to open them wider

A business leader who operates at a high level of conciousness plans for tomorrow’s market

To find it humiliating to admit an error is a certain sign of flawed self esteem

Do I know what I am doing when I particularly like myself and what I am doing when I don’t?

Self destruction is an act best performed in the dark

We tend to be more concious in some areas of our life than in others

Self acceptance my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself

I cannot forgive myself for an action I will not acknowledge having taken

Accepting, compassionate interest does not encourage undesired behavior but reduces the likelihood of it recurring

When we fight a block it grows stronger. When we acknowledge, experience, and accept it, it begins to melt

We can be as frightened of our assets as of our shortcomings

No one owes me the fulfillment of my wishes

Taking responsibility for my happiness is empowering. It places my life back in my own hands

Often what people call thinking js merely recycling the opinions of others

No one is coming to save me

Self assertiveness means the willingness to stand up for myself, to be who I am openly, to treat myself with respect in all human encounters

My life doesn’t belong to others and I am not here on earth to live up to someone else’s expectations

Healthy self esteem asks that we leap into the arena, that we be willing to get our hands dirty

Some people stand and move as if they have no right to the space they occupy

The temptation to self betrayal can sometimes be worst with thise about whom we care the most

It is easier for people to understand these ideas as applied to work than to personal relationships. That may be why more people make a success of their work life than of their marriages

The root if our self esteem is nit our achievements but those internally generated practices that, among other things, make it possible for us to achieve

If I don’t do something, nothing is going to change

When we behave in ways that conflict with our judgement of what is appropriate, we lose face in our own eyes

Most of the issues of integrity wef ace are not big issues but small ones, yet the accumulated weight of our choices has an impact on our sense of self

The idea of original sin is anti self esteem by it’s very nature

Only we see that living up to our standards appears to be leading us toward self destruction, the time has come to question our standards

One of the most positive aspects of the women’s movement is its insistence that women think for themselves about who they are and what they want. But men need to lesrn this kind of independent thinking as much as women do

Lies do not work

The challenge for people today, and it is not an easy one, is to maintain high personal standards while feeling that one is living in a moral sewer

No other individual or group has the power to determine how I will think and feel about myself

At the most fundamental level, I am for myself

My self esteem is more valuable than any short term rewards for its betrayal

To evolve into self hood is the primary human task. It is also the primary human challenge, because success is not guaranteed

The greater a child’s terror,a nd the earlier it is experienced, the harder the task of building a strong and healthy sense of self

Loong before a child can understand words, he or she understands touch

We do not serve a child’s development by making self reprudiation the price of our love

When we convey love, appreaciation, empathy, acceptance, respect, we make a child visible

Inappropriate praise can be as harmful to self esteem as inappropriate criticism

No one was ever made good by being informed he or she was bad

Making mistakes is integral to a great deal of learning

There is perhaps nothing more improtant to know about children than that they need to make sense out of their experience

Were you encouraged toward obedience or toward self responsibility?

To persevere with the will to understand in the face of obstacles js the heroism if conciousness

Of any professional group it is teachers who have shown the greates receptivity to the importance of self esteem

Self esteem pertains to that which is open to our volitional choice. It cannot properly be a function of the family we were boen into, or our race, or the color of our skin , or the achievements of our ancestors

What is needed and demanded today, in the age of the knowledge worker, is not robotic obedience but persons who can think

Low self esteem teachers are typically unhappy teachers

One of the greatest gifts a teacher can offer a student is the refusal to accept the student’s poor self concept at face value

A teacher should be a prospector, looking for gold

Compassion and respect do not imply lack of firmness

We can learn to recognize and accept our emotions without losing our minds

We know a lot about the skills that make for competence in human interactions, and this knowledge needs to be part of young person’s education

The economic need for large numbers of people with decent levels of self esteem is unprecedented and represents a turning point in our evolution

Today, what we see is no longer management and workers but an integration of specialists

An overattachement to the known and familiar has become costly and dangerous, it threatens both organizations and individuals with obsoloence

Freedom means change, the ability to manage change is at least in part a function of self esteem

Global competition is a far more powerful stimulant to innovation than domestic competition

We are now operating in a context of constantly escalating challenge

From the boardroom to the factory floor, work is understood more and more clearly as an expression of thought

Capitalism created a market for the independent mind

The more unstable the economy and the more rapid the rate of change, the more urgent the need for large numbers of self esteeming individuals

A commitment to lifelong learning is a natural expression of the pratice of living conciously

The successful organization of the future will be an organization geared to self esteem

It is a fallacy to say that a great leader should be egoless

The policies that support self esteem are also the policies that make money

It was my view from the beginning that a primary task of paychotherapy is to help build self esteem

Raising self esteem is more than a matter kf eliminating negatives, it requires the attainment of positives

A therapist is not a cheerleader

Everyone who has any familiarity with psychology knows about the danger of disowning the murderer within. Far fewer people understand the tragedy of disowning the hero within

I have never worked with a depressed personality whose child self did not feel hated by an older part

We sometimes find that the process of self acceptance is blocked and we do not know why

Unhealing pain from the past represents yet another barrier in the quest for stronger self esteem

When we eliminate negaitves, we clear the way for the emergence of positives, and when we cultivate positives, negatives often weaken or disappear

If we develop properly, we transfer the source of approval from the world to ourselves, we shift from the external to the internal

The root of the need for self esteem is biological, it pertains to survival and continued efficaious functioning

To the extent that a culture suppresses the natural impulse to self assertion and self expression, it blocks creativity, stifles individuality, and sets itself against the requirements of self esteem

If human life and happiness are the standard, not all cultural traditions are equal

Some version of woman as inferior is part of the cultural unconcious of just about every society we know of

The essence of the tribal mentality is that it makes the tribe as such the supreme good and denigrates the importance of the individual

Theoughout history, wherever religion has been state enforced, conciousness has been punished

What was so historically extraordinary about the creation of the United States of America was its concious rejectioj of the tribal premise

Ideas do matter and do have consequences

The American culture is a battleground between the values of self responsibility and the values of entitlement

The challenge is not to take assumptions of one’s culture as a goven,a s reality but to realize that assumptions can be questioned

Genuine self esteem is what we feel about ourselves when everything is not all right