Respond And Increase Self-Esteem

The one thing you can be guaranteed that changes everything is self-esteem. It can profoundly impact your life, your relationships and your work. It’s not money, but it sure can generate a lot of money It’s not wisdom, but it sure can generate a lot of money. It’s not charisma, but it sure can generate a lot of charisma. It’s not happiness, but it sure can generate a lot of happiness. It touches every single aspect of your life-all daylong. And you can increase you self-esteem throughout your life, there is no limit to how much you can increase your self-esteem.

In the words of Nathaniel Brandon, one of the foremost authorities on self-esteem, “Self-esteem is the disposition to experience oneself as competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and as worthy of happiness”.

My workshops and keynotes on building enduring self-esteem include the science behind increasing self-esteem, how to learn from failure, and strategies to create higher self-esteem. I also cover how to deal with negative communication.

One way to build self-esteem is by dealing with negative communication as soon as possible. This is in direct contradiction to the advice often giving of letting things roll off your back. But think about it, if we let all of those so-called little negative comments go by, they add up and get deposited right into those negative messages in your head and they undermine your self-esteem and your confidence.

Here’s a four-step communication model that I would like to pass on to you to deal with negative comments and build your self-esteem. Just like other habits, the way you communicate can be altered; it just takes awareness and practice.

The four steps are inform, request, insist, and leave. When doing this it is helpful to maintain a neutral tone of voice.

I had a job where I handled client complaints. As you can well imagine, I got lots of practice dealing with negative comments! If someone started off yelling, my first response was to inform, “You are yelling at me”. If the response continued to be loud, I would then request, “Please stop yelling” If they continued I would insist, “In order for me to hear your complaint, you must lower the volume of your voice”. If they continued yelling, the meeting was terminated and I left. In fact, out of dozens of meetings only one went through all four steps. More often then not, I had to use only the first step. I think that you will find if someone makes a negative comment to you and you inform him or her that it hurt your feelings or made you uncomfortable, you’ll get a sincere apology and if you keep responding to negative comments in this way, the instances of you being the recipient of negative comments will significantly decrease.

You will increase your self-esteem if you practice responding to negative communication. And if you want to discover the strategies to feel good about you, take more risks, and let your brilliance shine for others to see, check out my workshop series for 2010, Grow Yourself/Grow Your Business: http://tinyurl.com/yj3fenh