Why You Must Develop a Positive Self-Esteem

“We are what we believe we are” –Benjamin Cardozo

If you think you can, you can. If however you think you can’t, you certainly can’t. Poor self-image is the primary reason why people are fatalistic in their thinking. They become incurable pessimists who always see the negative side of things. They think negatively thereby inhibiting their abilities even without trying. Your attitude must be sufficiently positive for you to be an achiever. Borrow from nature and be like the Bumblebee. The Bumblebee is by all standards a very big insect. Scientists have studied it and came away with the conclusion that it can’t fly. They believe that its body is too big and its wings too light and small that aerodynamically it should not fly. However, the Bumblebee does not know this and it flies. So it is with us humans. The only limitations we have in life are those we place on ourselves. What you think you can do is what matters not what others think. You can never escape mediocrity or get anywhere in life if you wait for the approval from other people before you commence. Believe in yourself.

You can’t afford to be like the eagle whose egg from which it hatched fell from the eagle’s nest and landed in the chicken’s nest. The egg was incubated by the chicken and hatched along with the chicken’s eggs. It was raised with the chickens with which it was hatched and it believed it was a chicken. It lived its life like a chicken. All through its life, it kept admiring eagles when it saw them soaring and wished it could fly like them. Unknown to it, everything it needed to fly was there but mentally it believed it could not and it never did until it died still believing it was a chicken. You will agree with me that the only limitations this eagle had were those it mentally placed on itself. You as a human being can always avoid this type of mental trap if you choose to. All you need to do is to believe you can and you will. That is positive self-esteem.

 

Why You Are Extremely Valuable

“If I were you, I would stand for something. I would count.” -- Benjamin E. Mays

In business, the human beings running it are the ultimate assets not the brands, the equipment or the products. The human beings are the only resources that are resourceful. They think, they feel, they see and act according to their feelings. They are the ones who make the products, find the markets, sell the products and keep the concern going. Without them, there is no business. They are therefore the most important resources of any business even though they are not Balance Sheet items.

Stop reading for a while and take an inventory of yourself then try to place a value on what you are worth as a person. There is no doubt that you must have placed a very high premium on yourself. Congratulations, you are absolutely correct in whatever value you have placed on yourself. You are you because you are unique. There are no other you anywhere in the world. You have no duplicate. God made it so and no one has been able to fault God’s intentions successfully. You are an immensely valuable product of God’s creation and He too must have placed a very high premium on you hence He took His time to create you. “God never spends His time to make a nobody.” The way you take yourself, the way you value yourself and the way you apply yourself are the primary determinants of whatever service you can render to yourself and mankind. “Self-image is a premise upon which your entire personality and behavior is built.” If you find yourself so valuable, useful and important, you have no reasons whatsoever why you can not apply yourself to useful and valuable purposes for your own benefit and that of mankind. You simply have no right to be poor if you are this valuable.