Self-Esteem - Open the Floodgates

By Gloria Hamilten

Children often use love substitutes to get attention either positive attention or negative attention.

When you were growing up and were still a child, quite unconsciously, you used the three "As" to obtain what you perceived to be love.

The three As are:

• Attention

• Approval

• Achievement

If as a child, you felt deprived of love, you would have sought it using these three strategies.

You would have sought attention, even if it was negative attention. Feeling starved for love, the feeling that someone was talking to you, even if it was repramanding fulfilled your feeling of not being loved.

With the second strategy, approval, your reasoning would have been: 'If I am good I will get approval and that means they love me.'

So, you find the child who would appear to conform so as to be praised by teachers, even if it mean being ostracised by peers, as a goody-goody.

Either way, the child would have felt a sense of importance.

And the third, achievement, is a type of alternative or substitute for approval and/or attention.

Achievement could have come in getting awards and walking up on stage at school assemblies, final year award presentations, in charge of extra-curricular club groups, and so on.

So your school results were either very good and you would receive approval, of they were very bad and you would still receive attention.

However, even if you received heaps of attention and approval, these artificial means of getting 'love', still left an empty feeling.

Thus you did more of the above to get more love substitutes, but it never filled the void.

Many of these characteristics from school days disappeared once you had more control on your life and you sought different ways of being noticed as an adult.

In your everyday adult world you may not be aware of the level of your self-esteem.

It is when you need to get out of your comfort zone, when you have to try something new, something unfamiliar, when you have to do something you've unsuccessfully tried before, that the true worth of your self-esteem surfaces.

Have you ever caught yourself saying any of the following?

• I can't do that!

• I'll never be able to do that!

• I'm no good at that; never have been!

• I've never been good at that!

• Mum always said, I can't do those things

• Dad says, I'm hopeless at ball games

• I've always been too weak to do that

• I've always hated art; I can't draw

• I have to do (whatever it is) to prove it to my parents

• I have to prove myself

• I'll show them how good I am!

• I'll do it my way, too bad if I stuff it

• I usually stuff it, anyway

• And so on

If you have ever said anything, even remotely resembling the above, there are chinks in your self-esteem.

Seriously.

Here is a quote from Paul Blackburn, a highly respected life change guru of Australia, I especially like:

"You are the resource the rest of your life depends on."

Ummmm. What do you say to that?

Humbling, isn't it?

How are you looking after your resource, you?

Here is another quote:

"People are like teabags because you don't know how strong they are until you put them in hot water."

Nice, isn't?

Gloria M Hamilten is a recognized authority in disciplines within Personal Development and People Skills for Business Professionals, such as Time Management, Negotiation Skills, Developing High-Performance Teams, Assertion Skills, Building International Rapport, Conflict Management and Resolution, Presentation and Platform Skills.

Her studies in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Psychology have lead to her researching brain disorders such as ADD and its relations.

She has her own training business, and conducts courses for Corporate Organizations, Sporting groups and Tertiary Educational Institutions in Australia.

Her professional experience covers over 30 years of study, research, one-on-one coaching, group coaching, presentations and workshops. Her clientele includes children as well as adults.

Gloria Hamilten has authored the eBook: "Practical Self-Hypnosis for Success" and many Reports and online articles.

Her websites provide a wealth of informative articles and resources on everything within these genres.

Visit her websites:

http://www.connect4results.com

http://neuro-linguistic-pro-site.com

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