Hey You! In this video I’m going to tell you about the third pillar you need to understand and implement in order to grow self-esteem – The Practice of Self-acceptance. It’s based on the book the six Pillars of self-Esteem written by Nathaniel Branden and my personal experience from implementing the theory for the last six months. The shift in how I look at and act in life is just too great to not share with you!
I’ve already done a 12 min video on this topic, there I follow the chapter outline from the book more precisely while I in this video talk more from learnings and experiences from implementing it. I do recommend you to watch that one as well, link: https://youtu.be/-NfJVukXP_Q !
But firstly, let me introduce you to the structure of our personal development plan; every other week I give my full attention to focus in on one of these self-esteem building pillars:
- The Practice of Living Consciously
- The Practice of Self-Acceptance
- The Practice of Self-Responsibility
- The Practice of Self-Assertiveness
- The Practice of Living Purposefully
- The Practice of Personal Integrity
Then every other week I do some kind of rejection therapy challenges which really makes me practice and apply what I’ve learnt to grow my self -esteem. It’s A holy combo! Enough said, let’s get down to business.
What Is the practice of self-Responsibility & why is it important?
It is a simple as it sounds, it means owning your reality, it means not pushing down your real emotions and thoughts circling in the back of your head. Because that’s what we do, we avoid what really needs our attention because that means we can avoid doing something about it.
Why? Well it’s simple, it requires effort and hard work to do so – or at least that’s what we think! Many times the solution is so simple and all the energy and action we put into neglecting our reality is way more energy demanding than actually dealing with what needs to be dealt with. Now of course many of the actions we do need to take are hard and do requires some serious energy input, but that’s what’s life is about if you ask me.
Life would be so boring if we wouldn’t have had to put up a bit of a fight to get what we want! But you need to find ways to enjoy the process – and you make sure strategize and find ways of reaching the wanted outcome through a path that is best adapted to you! Some things you may think will be awful, may in fact after some thinking about it have a solution that actually is quite fun and enjoyable! But you see, we often even don’t reach this step of seeking appropriate actions because we’re not allowing ourselves to objectively look at the reality. Because many times, at face value, it just seems so hard that we choose to neglect it. Consciously or subconsciously. Our mind actively does everything in its power to hinder us from feeling pain in the short-term perspective. We simply push down these thoughts and emotions, or we cover them up with external attention needing actions like work, entertainment, food, training. We often mask it with other things that may require effort as well, but just less – which is better than just binge eating and watching a movie – but it still isn’t what we really need to do in order to progress to where we want to go in life.
If I’m not getting the results I want in area of life there’s two paths to go down; being a victim or stepping up and taking responsibility. For instance girls which has been the focus for me lately, I can actively choose to work on my skills for how to attract and meet the kind of woman I want to find, or I can just blame the external factors for everything that is stopping me.
- They all have boyfriends – it’s a matter of volume, it’s up to me to skim through and talk to more women then!
- We don’t seem to have so much in comment – then I need to put myself in contexts where there’s a higher likelihood of meeting someone who shares my interests.
- I’m not able to have an interesting and engaging conversations – Then I need to develop my social skills, read books, actively practice in all contexts and evaluate and iterating on my body language and talking skills!
- I don’t seem to be attractive enough – look’s has so much to do with appearance and appeared confidence; clothes & style, appropriate exercise for a fit body, working on my posture, etc.
Now this requires the practice of the two first pillars of how to build self-esteem, a high level of consciousness and acceptance. I can neglect the fact that I’m feeling a sense missing out when I see friends enjoy their company with their girlfriend/boyfriend. But if I decide to take it in and accept that I’m feeling those emotions, If I dare to go down that route, I may conclude that that is something I want as well. Or is just push the emotions down along with some tasty food and a season of Game of Thrones.
So the first step is to go down the route of a high state of consciousness to be able to realise that it’s something that’s not right! Then the second step requires the act of accepting that that this is the reality and that this is the reality and I’m actually feeling and thinking what I’m thinking and feeling – accepting the objective reality and the facts . Which then brings you to the step of taking responsibility – strategizing and finding the appropriate way for how to reach your desired outcome.
Sometimes we’ve realised that there is something wrong – we just steer avoid from dealing with it and sometimes we’ve don’t even practice a high enough level of consciousness to realise that there even is a problem needed to be addressed. And the thing is, once we’ve realised there is something that is “off” in our lives, it never really leaves us, it just drains us on energy!
In all life areas where we’re not currently were we want to be, there’s room for us to look at our reality and ask ourselves what we proactively can do to make that wanted outcome happen in an as efficient way as possible. “what would the ideal version of me do”? The real beauty of starting to practice this habit actively – not being a victim and taking full responsibility for everything in life – is that you autonomously start to proactively seek ways of improving your life. You’ll notice how it becomes less and less of an effort to seek the best suited way for you to do something. It gets imprinted in your brain that the route that requires the least amount of energy expenditure is the only way to do it. It’s like a natural biologic reaction of our body, which constantly seeks the most energy efficient state. What’s even better is that it’s SUPER fun! It feels like your tricking the system, life hacking your way through life. All this results in a dramatic personal development growth curve, which actually becomes more and more like an exciting life-hacking game!
So, It’s time to start taking 100% responsibility for what happens in your life, not to say that you can control all external factors that will impact your life – that’s just never going to happen – but, to make sure to REACT in the appropriate way when something that interrupts your world, for the better or worse, is handled in an as efficient matter as possible to make you move towards your ideal self as quickly and efficient as possible!
“Having worked with people for so many years with the aim of building self-esteem, I have always been on the lookout for decisive moments in psychotherapy, instances when a “click” seems to occur in the client’s mind and new forward motion begins. One of the most important of such moments is when the client grasps that no one is coming. No one is coming to save me; no one is coming to make life right for me; no one is corning to solve my problems. If I don’t do something, nothing is going to get better.
The dream of a rescuer who will deliver us may offer a kind of comfort, but it leaves us passive and powerless. We may feel If only I suffer long enough, if only I yearn desperately enough, somehow a miracle will happen, but this is the kind of self-deception one pays for with one’s life as it drains away into the abyss of unredeemable possibilities and irretrievable days, months, decades.” (Nathaniel Branden, The six Pillars of Self-Esteem, p. 116)
THE OBJECTIVES:
#1 Each day I want you to live your day with this focus, try to be conscious and ware on what is happening in your life – ask yourself how the ideal version of yourself would had handled a specific situation? I strongly recommend to journal and reflect – it’s an incredible power in writing out your thoughts and being able do respond to yourself.
#2 Look at your different life areas and see on a general level if it’s something obvious you’re not dealing with, have one life area focus each day. Do I need to say it;) – journal!
- Monday: Personal development & spirituality
- Tuesday: Social & relationships
- Wednesday: Health & wellbeing
- Thursday: Work & career
- Friday: Finances
#3 Sentence Completion Exercise:
In the book, Brendon Outlines some sentence completion exercises to every of the six pillars, that means writing 6-10 endings to each of these sentences, morning and evening, Monday through Friday. It may seem as an effort and quite boring to be frank, which it actually can be if you ask me, but it brings a you in a thinking mood and sets you day up to focus on this topic, and I’ve actually really found them to help me a lot to get a deeper understanding of the pillars.
Morning:
Self-responsibility to me means-
At the thought of being responsible for my own existence-
If I accepted responsibility for my own existence, that would mean When
I avoid responsibility for my own existence-
Evening:
If I accept 5 percent more responsibility for the attainment of my own goals-
When I avoid responsibility for the attainment of my goals-
If I took more responsibility for the success of my relationships-
Sometimes I keep myself passive by-
“The power of the method is that it generates shifts in the consciousness and orientation of the individual without lengthy “discussions” or “analyses.” The solution is largely generated from within. If you keep a journal and over time write six to ten endings for each of these incomplete sentences, not only will you learn a great deal but it will be almost impossible not to grow in the practice of self-responsibility. The best way of working is to do the week’s stems Monday through Friday, then do the weekend stem If any of what I have been writing is true, it might be helpful if 1- and then move on to the next week’s stem on Monday.”
(Nathaniel Branden, The six Pillars of Self-Esteem, p 115-116)
Good luck and commit to me in the comments if you’re up for the challenge!
/Alexander
