Do you feel valued by the society you live in? In this post from Lou Tice at the Winners Circle he talks about how being different from the the society we live in can seriously impact our own self-worth. It may be more of a problem for people than you realize.

Self Worth and Society

What happens to us when the society in which we grow up doesn’t value our personal attributes? You know, many, if not most, of our feelings of self-worth or self-esteem have been influenced by the messages we get from our society.

Some of those messages are overt and up front: we know without question that our society values affluence, power, efficacy, youthfulness and health. Now, imagine how it might feel to be poor, relatively powerless, or chronically ill or disabled in this society.

Some messages are subtler. We say we value diversity, children, old people – but our behavior often says something else. If movie stars and models are young, tall, thin, with expensive clothes, what message does it send to those of us who are different from that?

If the kids in school laugh at us because of our accent or shabby clothes or the work our parents do for a living, what do we learn about our value? It is terribly important that all our children feel proud of who they are – just the way they are.

Sometimes all it takes is one concerned teacher, parent or other adult who cares enough to take the time to set the record straight in the child’s mind. Every one of our kids needs to know that what is and is not valuable really depends on some pretty arbitrary things like where you happen to be born and when.

They need to know that they are loved, prized, and capable of rising above stereotypes to be uniquely valuable human beings. For in the end, we rise to each other’s expectations, or we fall to them.

Lou Tice
The Pacific Institute

Way back, before I became ill, I worked in a small precision engineering workshop — there were only a dozen or so of us there, and three of them were the people who owned and managed the firm, but spent most of their time operating the various machines alongside the rest of us. I was a centre-lathe turner; the work was challenging to my limited skills, but really enjoyable. There was a good camaraderie between the people who worked there, including the owners, although they were very strict about time. Every once in a while we would all go out for a drink together, and there was rarely any friction between any of us.

But that all changed in an instant. My faith was never hidden as such, but it had never come up in conversation in the years that I’d worked there — it wasn’t planned that way, it just happened like that. Then, one weekend, I didn’t want to work extra overtime hours on the Saturday morning, because I was doing something connected with Church. Everything was fine about that Saturday morning while they assumed I was at a wedding, or something like that; but then, while we were chatting I was asked what I was doing. As I say, my faith was never hidden, and I had no reason not to tell them. Wow, was that ever an error of judgement!

My working life became a living nightmare. Victimisation wouldn’t be anywhere near a strong enough word to describe what I was put through — all instigated by the bosses. We were a young family, and there wasn’t much in the way of work around, so I just had to put up with it, and try to ride the storm out. I was just the same person as I’d always been, but in the months that followed, I lost all my self-confidence, my self-worth, and my self-esteem. The storm never ceased, it just blew harder and harder. In the end, the stress made me ill, very ill, and I had to take some time off work, which was unpaid. And that was the straw that broke the camels back, and gave them all the excuse they needed to get rid of me.

I don’t know if all of that triggered my ongoing health problems, but I don’t suppose it really helped. I do know that it took years for me to recover from the experience, if I truly have even now. I still get times when I’m crippled by lack of self-worth and self-esteem.

Okay, mine is a pretty extreme example, but it does show that, even things that you might consider to be perfectly normal and acceptable, can be used as something to attack a person’s self-worth if it makes them slightly different from the society they find themselves in.

Wow, it’s a long time since I talked about these things, and this has got a bit long — sorry, but it has been quite cathartic for me to write it all out. One important thing I need to add though. I have tried, within myself, to forgive them for what happened. But every time I think about them, I have to try to forgive all over again — so I suspect, deep down, I haven’t really done so. But I will keep trying. I don’t bear them any grudges. Those experiences, as with all life experiences, have helped form me into the person I am today. And, I think, they’ve helped me to be a better minister than I ever could have been without them.

Another great post from Lou Tice at the Winners Circle. His posts are always a great help, and encourage me to think differently about things, even when, sometimes, that can be challenging: If you think you might be helped by reading many more of them, do please consider subscribing for the daily emails yourself.

Self-Confidence

This is another post from Lou Tice at the Winners Circle. In this one, Lou talks about self-confidence, why it’s important, and, best of all, gives an interesting idea about how you can build your own self-confidence.

Do you ever wish you had more self-confidence? Self-confidence is one of the most important feelings any adult or child can experience. In fact, confidence in our abilities and ourselves often account for the difference between people who succeed and those who do not. But how do you become self-confident?

Well, there are a number of things you can do to build your feelings of confidence. One of the most important, I believe, is the deliberate acquisition and strengthening of meaningful skills. Stewart Brand, founder and publisher of “The Whole Earth Catalog,” said that, “The formula for an interesting life is skills – acquire them and use them. The more skills, the more interesting you become. Skills automatically give us pride and confidence.” Skills also help us to feel competent and powerful, especially when we can use them to accomplish personally meaningful goals.

In addition to learning new skills, it is also important to leverage the ones you already have. By this I mean learning how to get more mileage out of things you already know how to do. People who are peak performers are always looking for new information in their field so they can maintain their competitive edge.

They know that no matter who you are, it is important that you never stop growing. And when you are busy learning new things and improving on what you already know, you just naturally feel more confident.

What will you do today, tomorrow and in the future to continue growing and building your self-confidence?

Lou Tice
The Pacific Institute

I’m not a very self-confident person. And even that is probably something of an understatement. But I feel there is something in this post from Lou Tice for me to pick-up and learn from. I haven’t always been this lacking in self-confidence, and when I think back to times when I had more, I realize that they are all times when I was learning something new, or building on what I already knew. And that’s something I haven’t been doing anywhere near so much recently. Perhaps it’s time to put that right, to learn something, to achieve something. Now I just need to make my mind up as to what!

This is another post from Lou Tice at the Winners Circle that has got me thinking in a good way, hopefully something I can benefit from. I find the daily emails to be a great help; if you think you might too, do please consider subscribing yourself — it doesn’t cost anything.