Nathaniel Branden's Self-Esteem Every Day


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February 20 – Self-Esteem Every Day

Just as one of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child is projection of a belief in a child's competence and worth, so one of the greatest gifts you can offer another human being is not to buy at face value his or her negative self-esteem.
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February 21 – Self-Esteem Every Day

What a great parent, a great teacher, a great coach, and a great psychotherapist all have in common is the ability to see the potential in a person that the person does not see—and to be relentless in projecting that vision.
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February 22 – Self-Esteem Every Day

While we do not know all the biological or developmental factors that may influence self-esteem, we know a good deal about the specific (volitional) practices that an honest commitment to understanding inspires self-trust and that an avoidance of the effort has the opposite effect. We know that people who live mindfully feel more competent than those who live mindlessly. We know that self-responsibility and integrity engender self-respect and that the opposite behavior does not.
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February 23 – Self-Esteem Every Day

One of the forms of psychological heroism that builds self-esteem is the willingness to tolerate anxiety and uncertainty in the pursuit of your values—whether those values be work goals, the love of another human being, raising a family, or personal growth.
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February 24 – Self-Esteem Every Day

The person with poor self-esteem acts out of fear rather than confidence. Not to live but to escape the anxiety of living becomes the basic goal. Not creativity, but safety becomes the ruling desire. The gravatational pull of these feelings must be overcome if such a person is to rise.
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February 26 – Self-Esteem Every Day

when a person of high self-esteem and independence meets another person for the first time, the first question is normally not "What does this person think of me?" but rather "What do I think of this person?
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February 27 – Self-Esteem Every Day

When you have self-esteem, you expect others to perceive your value, not create it. When you have low self-esteem, you imagine that if only others value you, then you will value yourself. But waiting for Godot is not a good idea—not if you genuinely want to earn self-admiration.
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February 28 – Self-Esteem Every Day

The higher your self-esteem, the better equipped you are to cope with life's adversities—the more resilient you are, the more you resist pressure to succumb to despair. The higher your self-esteem, the more likely you are to be creative and successful in your work. The higher your self-esteem, the more ambitious you tend to be, not necessarily in a career or financial sense, but in terms of what you hope to experience in life—emotionally, creatively and spiritually. The higher your self esteem, the more likely you are to form nourishing rather than destructive relationships, since like is drawn to like, health is drawn to health, and vitality is and expansiveness is more appealing than emptiness. The higher your self-esteem, the more inclined you are to treat others with respect, benevolence, and goodwill, since you do not percieve them as threats and since self-respect is the foundation of respect for others. The higher your self-esteem, the more joy you experience in the sheer fact of being, of waking up in the morning, of living inside your body.
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March 1 – Self-Esteem Every Day

As an adult, you must take responsibility for your self-esteem. It is too late to lament, "If only Mother and Father had been different." It is also futile.
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March 2 – Self-Esteem Every Day

How can you raise the level of your self-esteem? First you must learn to live consciously—because that is the foundation for everything.
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March 3 – Self-Esteem Every Day

Living consciouly means being mentally active rather than passive. It is the abilty to look at the world through fresh eyes. It is intelligence taking joy in its own function. Living consciously is seeking to be aware of everything that bears on our interests, actions, values, purposes, and goals. It is the willingness to confront facts, pleasant or unpleasant. It is the desire to discover our mistakes and correct them. Within the range of our interests and concerns, it is the quest to keep expanding our awareness and understanding, both of the world outside and the world within. It is the respect for reality and for the distinction between the real and the unreal. It is the commitment to see what we see and know what we know. It is recognition of the fact that the act of dismissing reality is the root of all evil.
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March 4 – Self-Esteem Every Day

Have you ever noticed that even though your interests would be served by heeding certain realities, you will not necessarily do so? Or that you do not necessarily think about the things you should think about or confront the facts that urgently require your attention? Have you ever noticed that you have the option of turning the light of consciousness brighter or dimmer—and that you do not necessarily make the appropriate choice? This is the meaning of free will—the choice to focus awareness or not to, to think or not to, to operate consciously in any moment, or not to.
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March 5 – Self-Esteem Every Day

The choices you make about your degree of consciousness do not vanish leaving no trace; they have long-term consequences, not only in how well your life works but also in how you feel about yourself—whether you are a person you can admire.
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March 6 – Self-Esteem Every Day

Intellectual soverneignty, self-reliance, and self-responsibility are rooted in a firm sense of reality. This means a deep respect for facts. What is, is. Things are what they are. Truth is not obliterated by the refusal to see it. Facts are not annihilated by the pretense that they do not exist.
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March 7 – Self-Esteem Every Day

Our minds are our basic means for survival. All our distinctly human accomplishments are the reflections of our ability to think. Successful life depends on the appropriate use of intelligence—appropriate, that is, to our self-assigned tasks and goals and their attendant challenges.
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March 8 – Self-Esteem Every Day

The more intelligent you are, the greater is your potential for awareness, but the principle of living consciously hold irrespective of the degree of intelligence. Living consciously means generating a level of awareness that is equal to the task before you—whether it be designing a computer program or sweeping the floor.
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March 9 – Self-Esteem Every Day

Thinking for yourself, thinking independently—about work, your relationships, and the values that guide your life—is an essential part of living consciously.
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March 11 – Self-Esteem Every Day

Merely choosing to think is truly heroic in some cases. For instance, if you choose to think and you come up against facts you cannot handle, what then? If you choose to think and your thinking leads to conclusions that threaten to disrupt the routine of your life, what then? If you choose to think and your conclusions lead you far from the mainstream beliefs of others, what then? If you choose to think and you begin noticing traits and characteristics of yourself you do not admire, what then? If you choose to think and you see what you do not wish to see, or what others do not wish you to see, what then? Your long-term interests may best be served by remaining conscious, but that is not how it may feel in the moment—that is why I speak of the heroism of living consciously.
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March 12 – Self-Esteem Every Day

All of us tend to operate more consciously in some areas than in others. Notice that the areas where you operate most consciously are also the areas where you life works best.
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March 13 – Self-Esteem Every Day

Any time you admit a difficult truth, any time you face that which you have been afraid to face, any time you acknowledge, to yourself or to others, facts you have been evading, any time you are willing to tolerate temporary fear or anxiety on the path to better contact with reality—your self-esteem increases.
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March 14 – Self-Esteem Every Day

You undermine your self-esteem when you persist in your evasions and contradictions, because at a deeper level you know what you are doing.
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March 15 – Self-Esteem Every Day

Rationality—respect for the facts of reality—must include respect for the facts of your own being. Your inner world, too, is part of reality. No one can be said to be living consciously who exempts self-awareness and self-examination from the agenda.
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March 16 – Self-Esteem Every Day

What you are blind to in the world tends to reflect what you are blind to in yourself. A person who denies the presence of a need tends to be blind to opportunities to satisfy that need—as, for instance, when a person denies his need and desire for companionship. Denying the reality of pain beeds oblivion to the source of the pain and thus continual exposure to new hurt—as when a woman repeatedly subjects herself to exploitative and enervating encournters with men.
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