The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

by Branden, Nathaniel

  Intuitiveness. Very often—especially, for example, in making complex decisions—the number of variables that need to be processed and integrated are far more than the conscious mind can handle. Complex, superrapid integrations can occur beneath conscious awareness and present themselves as “intuitions.” The mind can then scan data for supporting or conflicting evidence. Men and women who have a context of being highly conscious and highly experienced sometimes find themselves relying on these subconscious integrations, since a record of success has taught them that in doing so they succeed more often than they fail. However, when and if that pattern of success shifts and they find themselves making mistakes, they go back to more explicit and conscious forms of rationality. Because the intuitive function often allows them to make unexpected leaps that ordinary thinking may be slower to arrive at, they experience intuition as central to their process; high-level business executives sometimes credit intuition for many of their achievements. A mind that has learned to trust itself is more likely to rely on this process (and manage it effectively with appropriate reality testing) than one that has not. This is equally true in business, athletics, the sciences, the arts—in most complex human activities. Intuition is significant relative to self-esteem only insofar as it expresses high sensitivity to, and appropriate regard for, internal signals. Early in this century Carl Jung stressed the importance of this respect for internal signals to creativity. More recently Carl Rogers linked it to self-acceptance, authenticity, and psychological health.

  Creativity. Creative persons listen to and trust their inner signals more than the average. Their minds are less subservient to the belief systems of others, at least in the area of their creativity. They are more self-sufficient. They may learn from others and be inspired by others. But they value their own thoughts and insights more than the average person does.

  Studies tell us that creative people are far more likely to record interesting ideas in a notebook; spend time nursing and cultivating them; put energy into exploring where they might lead. They value the productions of their mind.

  Persons of low self-esteem tend to discount the productions of their mind. It is not that they never get worthwhile ideas. But they do not value them, do not treat them as potentially important, often do not even remember them very long—rarely follow through with them. In effect, their attitude is, “If the idea is mine, how good can it be?”

  Independence. A practice of thinking for oneself is a natural corollary—both a cause and a consequence—of healthy self-esteem. So is the practice of taking full responsibility for one’s own existence—for the attainment of one’s goals and the achievement of one’s happiness.

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  A mind that trusts itself is light on its feet.

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  Flexibility. To be flexible is to be able to respond to change without inappropriate attachments binding one to the past. A clinging to the past in the face of new and changing circumstances is itself a product of insecurity, a lack of self-trust. Rigidity is what animals sometimes manifest when they are frightened: they freeze. It is also what companies sometimes manifest when faced with superior competition. They do not ask, “What can we learn from our competitors?” They cling blindly to what they have always done, in defiance of evidence that it is no longer working. (This has been the response of too many business leaders and workers to the challenge of the Japanese since the 1970s.) Rigidity is often the response of a mind that does not trust itself to cope with the new or master the unfamiliar—or that has simply become complacent or even slovenly. Flexibility, in contrast, is the natural consequence of self-esteem. A mind that trusts itself is light on its feet, unemcumbered by irrelevant attachments, able to respond quickly to novelty because it is open to seeing.

  Able to manage change. Self-esteem does not find change frightening, for the reasons stated in the preceding paragraph. Self-esteem flows with reality; self-doubt fights it. Self-esteem speeds up reaction time; self-doubt retards it. (For this reason alone, in a global economy as fast-moving as ours, the business community will need to examine how principles of self-esteem can be incorporated into training programs as well as into an organization’s culture. And schools will need these same principles to prepare students for the world they will be entering and in which they will have to earn a living.) The ability to manage change is thus correlated with good reality orientation, mentioned above, and thus with ego strength.

  Willingness to admit (and correct) mistakes. A basic characteristic of healthy self-esteem is a strong reality orientation. Facts are a higher priority than beliefs. Truth is a higher value than having been right. Consciousness is perceived as more desirable than self-protective unconsciousness. If self-trust is tied to respect for reality, then correcting an error is esteemed above pretending not to have made one.

  Healthy self-esteem is not ashamed to say, when the occasion warrants it, “I was wrong.” Denial and defensiveness are characteristics of insecurity, guilt, feelings of inadequacy, and shame. It is low self-esteem that experiences a simple admission of error as humiliation and even self-damnation.

  Benevolence and cooperativeness. Students of child development know that a child who is treated with respect tends to internalize that respect and then treat others with respect—in contrast to a child who is abused, internalizes self-contempt, and grows up reacting to others out of fear and rage. If I feel centered within myself, secure with my own boundaries, confident in my right to say yes when I want to say yes and no when I want to say no, benevolence is the natural result. There is no need to fear others, no need to protect myself behind a fortress of hostility. If I am secure in my right to exist, confident that I belong to myself, unthreatened by certainty and self-confidence in others, then cooperation with them to achieve shared goals tends to develop spontaneously. Such a response clearly is to my self-interest, satisfies a variety of needs, and is not obstructed by fear and self-doubt.

  Empathy and compassion, no less than benevolence and cooperativeness, are far more likely to be found among persons of high self-esteem than among low; my relationship to others tends to mirror and reflect my relationship to myself. Commenting on the admonition to love thy neighbor as thyself, longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer remarks somewhere that the problem is that this is precisely what people do: Persons who hate themselves hate others. The killers of the world, literally and figuratively, are not known to be in intimate or loving relationship to their inner selves.

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  The Illusion of Self-Esteem

  When self-esteem is low, we are often manipulated by fear. Fear of reality, to which we feel inadequate. Fear of facts about ourselves—or others—that we have denied, disowned, or repressed. Fear of the collapse of our pretenses. Fear of exposure. Fear of the humiliation of failure and, sometimes, the responsibilities of success. We live more to avoid pain than to experience joy.

  If we feel that crucial aspects of reality with which we must deal are hopelessly closed to our understanding; if we face the key problems of life with a basic sense of helplessness; if we feel that we dare not pursue certain lines of thought because of the unworthy features of our own character that would be brought to light—if we feel, in any sense whatever, that reality is the enemy of our self-esteem (or pretense at it)—these fears tend to sabotage the efficacy of consciousness, thereby worsening the initial problem.

  If we face the basic problems of life with an attitude of “Who am I to know? Who am I to judge? Who am I to decide?”—or “It is dangerous to be conscious”—or “It is futile to try to think or understand”—we are undercut at the outset. A mind does not struggle for that which it regards as impossible or undesirable.

  Not that the level of our self-esteem determines our thinking. The causation is not that simple. What self-esteem affects is our emotional incentives. Our feelings tend to encourage or discourage thinking, to draw us toward facts, truth, and reality, or away from them—toward efficacy or away from it.

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hat is why the first steps of building self-esteem can be difficult: We are challenged to raise the level of our consciousness in the face of emotional resistance. We need to challenge the belief that our interests are best served by blindness. What makes the project often difficult is our feeling that it is only our unconsciousness that makes life bearable. Until we can dispute this idea, we cannot begin to grow in self-esteem.

  The danger is that we will become the prisoners of our negative self-image. We allow it to dictate our actions. We define ourselves as mediocre or weak or cowardly or ineffectual and our performance reflects this definition.

  While we are capable of challenging and acting contrary to our negative self-image—and many people do so, at least on some occasions—the factor that tends to stand in the way is our resignation to our own state. We submit to feelings of psychological determinism. We tell ourselves we are powerless. We are rewarded for doing so, in that we do not have to take risks or awaken from our passivity.

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

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  Poor self-esteem not only inhibits thought, it tends to distort it. If we have a bad reputation with ourselves, and attempt to identify the motivation of some behavior, we can react anxiously and defensively and twist our brains not to see what is obvious—or, out of a sense of guilt and generalized unworthiness, we can be drawn not to the most logical explanation of our behavior but to the most damaging, to that which puts us in the worst light morally. Only self-condemnation feels appropriate. Or, if we are confronted with unjust accusations from others, we may feel disarmed and incapable of confuting their claims; we may accept the charges as true, paralyzed and exhausted by a heavy feeling of “How can I decide?”

  The base and motor of poor self-esteem is not confidence but fear. Not to live, but to escape the terror of life, is the fundamental goal. Not creativity, but safety, is the ruling desire. And what is sought from others is not the chance to experience real contact but an escape from moral values, a promise to be forgiven, to be accepted, on some level to be taken care of.

  If low self-esteem dreads the unknown and unfamiliar, high self-esteem seeks new frontiers. If low self-esteem avoids challenges, high self-esteem desires and needs them. If low self-esteem looks for a chance to be absolved, high self-esteem looks for an opportunity to admire.

  In these opposite principles of motivation we have a guide to the health of the mind or spirit. We can say that an individual is healthy to the extent that the basic principle of motivation is that of motivation by confidence (love of self, love of life); the degree of motivation by fear is the measure of underdeveloped self-esteem.

  Pseudo Self-Esteem

  Sometimes we see people who enjoy worldly success, are widely esteemed, or who have a public veneer of assurance and yet are deeply dissatisfied, anxious, or depressed. They may project the appearance of self-efficacy and self-respect—they may have the persona of self-esteem—but do not possess the reality. How might we understand them?

  We have noted that to the extent we fail to develop authentic self-esteem, the consequence is varying degrees of anxiety, insecurity, and self-doubt. This is the sense of being, in effect, inappropriate to existence (though of course no one thinks of it in those terms; perhaps, instead, one thinks something is wrong with me or I am lacking something essential). This state tends to be painful. And because it is painful, we are often motivated to evade it, to deny our fears, rationalize our behavior, and create the appearance of a self-esteem we do not possess. We may develop what I have termed pseudo self-esteem.

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

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  Pseudo self-esteem is the illusion of self-efficacy and self-respect without the reality. It is a nonrational, self-protective device to diminish anxiety and to provide a spurious sense of security—to assuage our need for authentic self-esteem while allowing the real causes of its lack to remain unexamined.

  It is based on values unrelated to that which genuine self-efficacy and self-respect require, although sometimes the values are not without merit in their own context. For example, a large house can certainly represent a legitimate value, but it is not an appropriate measure or proof of personal efficacy or virtue. On the other hand, acceptance into a gang of criminals is not normally a rational value; nor does it strengthen authentic self-esteem (which is not to say it may not provide a temporary illusion of security or sense of having a “home” or of “belonging”).

  Nothing is more common than to pursue self-esteem by means that will not and cannot work. Instead of seeking self-esteem through consciousness, responsibility, and integrity, we may seek it through popularity, material acquisitions, or sexual exploits. Instead of valuing personal authenticity, we may value belonging to the right clubs, or the right church, or the right political party. Instead of practicing appropriate self-assertion, we may practice uncritical compliance to our particular group. Instead of seeking self-respect through honesty, we may seek it through philanthropy—I must be a good person, I do “good works.” Instead of striving for the power of competence (the ability to achieve genuine values), we may pursue the “power” of manipulating or controlling other people. The possibilities for self-deception are almost endless—all the blind alleys down which we can lose ourselves, not realizing that what we desire cannot be purchased with counterfeit currency.

  Self-esteem is an intimate experience; it resides in the core of one’s being. It is what I think and feel about myself, not what someone else thinks or feels about me. This simple fact can hardly be overemphasized. I can be loved by my family, my mate, and my friends, and yet not love myself. I can be admired by my associates and yet regard myself as worthless. I can project an image of assurance and poise that fools almost everyone and yet secretly tremble with a sense of my inadequacy. I can fulfill the expectations of others and yet fail my own; I can win every honor and yet feel I have accomplished nothing; I can be adored by millions and yet wake up each morning with a sickening sense of fraudulence and emptiness. To attain “success” without attaining positive self-esteem is to be condemned to feeling like an impostor anxiously awaiting exposure.

  The acclaim of others does not create our self-esteem. Neither does erudition, material possessions, marriage, parenthood, philanthropic endeavors, sexual conquests, or face-lifts. These things can sometimes make us feel better about ourselves temporarily or more comfortable in particular situations. But comfort is not self-esteem.

  The tragedy of many people’s lives is that they look for self-esteem in every direction except within, and so they fail in their search. In this book we shall see that positive self-esteem is best understood as a spiritual attainment, that is, as a victory in the evolution of consciousness. When we begin to understand self-esteem in this way, we appreciate the foolishness of believing that if we can only manage to make a positive impression on others we will then enjoy good self-regard. We will stop telling ourselves: If only I get one more promotion—if only I become a wife and mother—if only I am perceived to be a good provider—if only I can afford a bigger car—if I can write one more book—acquire one more company—one more lover—one more award—one more acknowledgment of my “selflessness”—then I will really feel at peace with myself.

  If self-esteem is the judgment that I am appropriate to life, the experience of competence and worth—if self-esteem is self-affirming consciousness, a mind that trusts itself—no one can generate and sustain this experience except myself.

  Unfortunately, teachers of self-esteem are no less impervious to the worship of false gods than anyone else. I recall listening to a lecture by a man who offers self-esteem seminars to the general public and to corporations. He announced that one of the best ways to raise our self-esteem is to surround ourselves with people who think highly of us. I th
ought of the nightmare of low self-esteem in persons surrounded by praise and adulation—like rock stars who have no idea how they got where they are and who cannot survive a day without drugs. I thought of the futility of telling a person of low self-esteem, who feels lucky if he or she is accepted by anyone, that the way to raise self-esteem is to seek the company only of admirers.

  The ultimate source of self-esteem is and can only be internal—in what we do, not what others do. When we seek it in externals, in the actions and responses of others, we invite tragedy.

  Certainly it is wiser to seek companions who are the friends of our self-esteem rather than its enemies. Nurturing relationships are obviously preferable to toxic ones. But to look to others as a primary source of our self-value is dangerous: first, because it doesn’t work; and second, because it exposes us to the danger of becoming approval addicts.

  I do not wish to suggest that a psychologically healthy person is unaffected by the feedback he or she receives from others. We are social beings and certainly others contribute to our self-perceptions, as we will discuss. But there are immense differences among people in the relative importance to their self-esteem of the feedback they receive—persons for whom it is almost the only factor of importance and persons for whom the importance is a good deal less. This is merely another way of saying there are immense differences among people in the degree of their autonomy.

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