Self Improvement Made Easy

I’m constantly amazed at how often people say to me that they’re experiencing low self-esteem or that they’d like to improve their self-esteem. Mostly, I simply tell them to pull themselves together – “Get real” is what’s needed if you want to build self esteem – because low self esteem is only a problem for people who don’t know who they really are.

In actual fact, your self image is just that – an image or, more correctly, a collection of images, a little like the traditional family photo album. You learn who you think you are through what psychology terms “snapshot learning”. During your childhood, or formative years, when you were young and impressionable, the events that made you feel or good or bad about yourself were, quite literally, impressed upon your subconscious mind. Those events, and how you felt about yourself as a consequence, were “snapped” by your open, sponge-like, mind. After that, they settled into your subconscious mind where they remain to this day as your key reference points for how you behave and view yourself now, as an adult.

In other words, your self image is not real – it is the result of what others did for you or to you when you were young and impressionable. Now, given that psychological research confirms that the normal adult tends to dwell on the negative instead of the positive, if you believe yourself to be suffering from low self esteem it is nothing more than a trick of the subconscious mind. So your own personal development depends upon you, really, getting real. You’re going to have to dig deep to find the real you, beyond the resident thoughts that have given you an unreal impression of yourself and your true capabilities.

However, digging deep won’t call for major self-analysis – it doesn’t require you to wallow in the events of a past long gone – after all, these are events, irrelevant to the present, to which you should stop paying attention. On the contrary, you need to pay attention to what’s really happening today – the present moment, the here and now where life is lived. If you don’t, you’re going to miss the only show in town, your life is drifting slowly away. It is in the present moment that you find reality – and it is in the calm of a mind that is no longer obsessed with old snapshots that you will find the real you.

The real you simply doesn’t have the perceived weaknesses or, indeed, perceived strengths, that you thought were you. You don’t need self improvement because the real you has an inner strength that, when applied to the present moment, can achieve anything your heart desires. As I said, you come to know the real you in the peace and quiet of a calm, clear, focused mind. You focus your mind by coming to your senses – by using all five senses to fully experience and appreciate the present moment, free from the veil of useless resident thought that has, up to now, given you no more than an incorrect impression of the present moment. Therefore, if you really want to build self esteem, you really do have to get real in the only place that you’ll find reality – here and now.