Failure is not what people want. People want success! I have found this to be true after delivering hundreds of presentations and speeches. Yet, if this is true, then simply speaking: Why isn’t there more success?
What obstacle or obstacles is keeping you from traveling the road to success? Again, after working with young people to established executives, I have come to realize that self esteem is sometimes the biggest obstacle to personal success, professional success and business success.
Self esteem is how we view ourselves or our own self image. When we look into the mirror, what do we see? Are we internally happy with what we see? Do we wish we could change one small thing or a lot of small things? All of these thoughts are reflections of our self esteem.
The phrase self esteem has only been around since 1965 when Rosenberg described self esteem as a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the self. Since attitudes have been defined by some as habits of thought, this really puts self esteem as something that each individual can control.
Years ago when our society was agrian in nature, individuals truly understood that it wasn’t their looks that got them to where they wanted to go, but rather goals, attitudes and self leadership skills. With this trio combination, self esteem was always being developed.
Many immigrants had incredibly high levels of self esteem even if they did not know it. They crossed oceans, traveled wildernesses and established homesteads in uninhabitable countryside. Their self thoughts were more about how to keep the food on the table, keep the children safe and put some money way for the future as they traveled the road to success.
Today, people have far too much time on their hands and lack what many of these now gone pioneers had. These individuals had Goals, Attitudes and Self Leadership Skills.
My grandmother, Hilma, was a prime example of an immigrant with all three of these critical success factors. After working in America as a teenager, she had the goal to return from her home country of Sweden and have one child born in this country. Upon leaving Ellis Island and moving to northern Wisconsin, she learned that she was pregnant at the age of 42. My father was her only child to be born in this country.
Hilma had an incredible attitude. She could cook something literally out of nothing. Her dining room table was always ready for a weary friend or stranger. And given that all of her pastries and food was delivered via a wood burning stove is a testimony to her powerful attitudes.
Finally, she had the self leadership skills to always be moving forward on the Road to Success. She had learned English during her earlier visits and then taught English to my grandfather, Conrad. Not only could she speak English, but she could write it as well. Upon my grandfather’s death, she stayed several years on the farm in the northern woods of Wisconsin. She cut her own wood, heated her own bath water from the rain barrel and grew much of her own food. I believe she would have stayed on the farm year round if her children had not had fears about the bad winter storms and her being so isolated from town.
Was my grandmother ever concerned about her self esteem? I truly do not think so. Her skills from cooking to sewing to making people truly feel comfortable were always more important. Hilma truly understood that you control your self image and no one can make you feel bad. Only you have that power unless of course you give it to someone else.
Maybe that is what self esteem today has become. Individuals giving away their personal power to others in hopes to feel better about themselves. Maybe that is why there is so much victim mentality in today’s world where there truly should not be any. As far as I am concerned, I am OK with my self image because I have goals, attitudes and the self leadership skills to help me as I walk the Road to Success.
If you want more information about Goals, Attitudes and Self Leadership, you may be interested in Three Missing Pieces of Organizational & Personal Success. Visit http://www.processspecialist.com/e-books.htm to learn more about this combination e book and e work book.
Call me, Leanne Hoagland-Smith, The Business Coach, at 219.759.5601 or visit at http://www.processspecialist.com to explore everything from how my solutions double results to articles and resources including the Simply Speaking series.
Tags: business coach, E book, goal-setting, road to success, self esteem, self leadership skilll, yes attitude
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