Self Esteem

Self-esteem is the emotion or feeling a person has with regard to his/her self-worth which is composed of his/her self-competence and self-respect. It is the limiting factor on a person's performance. Simply said, a person's performance will not exceed his/her Self-esteem. This is evident from Maslow's hierarchy of human needs in that Self-esteem needs must be fulfilled before the need for Self-Actualization (performance) can be addressed.

Self-esteem can be thought of as multiplication of a person's self-competence and his/her self-respect. When a person's self-competence is a 10 and his/her self-respect is a 10, then his/her self-esteem equals 100. But when self-competence is a 3 and self-respect is a 3, then self-esteem only equals 9 which is less than 10% of full potential and so performance and productivity is less than 10% of his/her potential. Even though a person's self-competence and self-respect may both be 8, his or her resulting Self-esteem would be 64, or less than two thirds of full potential. One means of measuring your Self-esteem is the the Self-esteem Quotient.

A person's Self-esteem is not static, but fluctuates depending on a his/her behavior and how the results of that behavior influence perceptions about self competence and self respect. Similarly, a person's Self-esteem is not constant throughout all areas of life, but varies with his or her beliefs of self competence/respect in each area. In some cases, very high Self-esteem in one specific area may "spillover" or generate an increased belief in competence in a closely related area.

A person's Self-esteem is an indication of the size of his/her "comfort zone" or the range of activities in which the person feels comfortable or believes he/she is competent to do. Consequently, the larger a person's comfort zone or Self-esteem, then fewer activities, environments or situations will produce stress or discomfort. Those activities outside a person's comfort zone are considered "threats" or things to be feared and doing an activity outside a person's comfort zone means taking a risk.

There are more than a dozen specific ways a person can build Self-esteem. Everyone of them increases competence, self-respect or both. One of the most common ways people raise their Self-esteem is to expand their comfort zone by taking a risk and being successful in doing so.

The greater the successful risk taken, the greater the increase in a person's Self-esteem. Unsuccessful risk taking decreases a person's Self-esteem. Avoiding taking risks erodes a person's Self-esteem. One way to consistently and predictably raise Self-esteem and performance is to constantly take risks that are small enough that success is highly probable every time.