This is Dr. Sears.  I’m joining you today instead of my regular day to talk to you about self-esteem Jenga. Yes, I did say self-esteem Jenga I want you to think of self-esteem as a genuine. Tower. So there are many things that come to poke holes in our tower and try to make it topple down. In this case, the holes are being in what you think about yourself, what you think you can accomplish your capabilities your gifts, your talents.

So a lot of times we look for external validation of who we are. And when we’re constantly looking for external validations, it’s really easy to topple that self-esteem Jenga tower. When you are not secure in your image of who you are, what you can do, what your gifts and talents are, then that is also easy for people to come in to poke holes in your self-esteem Jenga tower. They poke at it and make it all topple down. They make you think you’re worthless. They make you think you’re incapable. They make you think you’re powerless. So what helps you to keep your integrity, to keep that tower strong and intact is things that you may have heard me say these things before.

The first is a Good success list. Now I’ve seen it, in some places called a wins list, but I want to make sure that you understand it’s not just about big wins like promotions. It’s not just about big wins, like getting a salary increase. It’s about the little wins too, because we often discount. Those little successes on the way to big success with a capital S so your wins could be that you kept building skills to make you a better applicant for a job promotion or a job change that you were looking for.

A win could be that you got to work on time every day and completed your assignment within a timely manner, especially if that has been something you’re struggling with. And if that is a contingency criteria for you being bumped up to the next level, you know, how can she lead a project if she cannot be counted on to get to work on time, if she’s constantly late on her assignments, how can she ask to be a manager or a supervisor?

If you have you know… in sales and you’re trying to get a promotion for sales, a bigger base salary, some of the things that go on today, where have you shown in other areas of the company that , you epitomize, or you stand out as a contributor to the bottom line in the company, have you, you know, Made more offers to people and closed more deals than you had in the past six months in the past year, you know, have you made more calls?

Have you chased more leads or should I say followed more leads than you had previously? And then do you know, 70, 80, 90% of those get closed, as opposed to maybe last year when you were doing. Of the cold calls and less of following weeds and closing deals. You see how the little wins add up to the big thing?

Because now I can say, because I had a goal of calling or following up on 20 leads a day, let’s say, and of those 20 leads and closing 80 to 90% of them. This is why I deserve more responsibility. This is why I should have a larger cut, a bigger commission in cetera, you know, and looking back, you know, this is where I was, this is where I’m going.

And for what you say is necessary for the next step, these are the things I’ve accomplished. That’s show that I have. The skills under my belt. I have the accomplishments under my belt to go up to the next level. If that makes sense to you, let me know in the comments about this piece. I know I usually do a written one.

Again, this is not the regularly scheduled programming, but I felt it was necessary because it keeps coming up. Another thing you can do is write out your list of who you are. You know, what kind of person are you, what kind of adjectives describing you? Do most people describe you as you know, mechanically inclined mathematically inclined creative musical, you know, helpful.

You know, generous, you know, what kinds of adjectives do people describe me as, and do I describe myself as, and they must be positive. And then the second thing is, you know, who are you? What kinds of nouns, describe who you are. Are you a leader? Are you a manager? Are you a nurturer? Are you a A mathematical genius prodigy.

Can’t say that that’s my area of gifting, but I understand if you are and how that might lead you to some other areas of your life, where you want to be more prosperous. Are you. Are you organizer by that, I mean, organizing people in your community, in your workspace to do things, to get them to accomplish things.

Are you an organizer in your community? Are you organized as far as organizing your home and helping other people organize things around their environment. Are you an organizer? There are so many different nouns. Again, we have to stay in the positive, no negatives allowed. And what do you do? You know, are you, again an organizer?

It can be a verb as well as a noun. Are you, you know, do you lead? Do you nurture? Do you encourage? Do you sing? Do you dance? Do you. Math and create budgets and stuff like that. Do you help keep other people’s positivity up? Are you a positive motivator? Are you a motivator? Do you motivate people?

You know, those kinds of things to make up your statement about who you are. The more solid you are in that statement, and the more often you repeat that statement, the less people can do Jenga on you and cause yourself esteem tower to collapse. Because you know that you know that you know who you are, what you’re about and why you’re doing the things that you’re doing.

Also you might start with a list about the things you like about yourself. You know, I like that and stylish. I like that. Kind. I like that. I have a nice smile. I like that. I’m a dog, mom, you know, different things you like about yourself, independent of anybody else, independent of particular situations.

Now that is not to say that we will be self competent in all situations, especially new situations. There are new speaking engagements that still would cause me to have some anxiety about where I may not feel confident– new audiences, same topic. If it’s a familiar audience, new topic. If it’s an area that may not be necessarily my area of expertise, but I do know that I’m a good speaker.

I do know that I can teach people different elements. I do know that I love teaching people and helping them to discover their own gifts and talents. So some of the same things, once you go down that list, what you like about you will lead to skills, talent, self-confidence and self-esteem so I hope this is helpful.

Let me know in the comments again, if it was helpful to you. If you know somebody else who could benefit from this, please share this with them as well.

**This is a transcript of the podcast On the Couch with Dr. Karmon