[00:01.56]Passage 14 Self-Esteem
[00:04.910]Self-esteem is the combination of self-confidence and self-repespect - the conviction that you
[00:13.733]are competent to cope with life’s challenges and are worthy of happiness.
[00:19.865]Self-esteem is the way you talk to yourself about yourself.
[00:24.518]Self-esteem has two interrelated aspects; it entails a sense of personal
[00:30.360]efficacy and a sense of personal worth.
[00:34.48]It is the integrated sum of self-confidence and self-respect.
[00:39.198]It is the conviction that one is competent to live and worthy of living.
[00:45.341]Our self-esteem and self-image are developed by how we talk to ourselves.
[00:50.772]All of us have conscious and unconscious memories of all the times we felt
[00:56.506]bad or wrong – they are part of the unavoidable scars of childhood.
[01:02.78]This is where the critical voice gets started.
[01:05.500]Everyone has a critical inner voice.
[01:08.433]People with low self-esteem simply have a more vicious and demeaning inner voice.
[01:14.639]Psychologists say that almost every aspect of our lives – our personal happiness,
[01:20.968]success, relationships with others, achievement, creativity,
[01:26.226]dependencies – are dependent on our level of self-esteem.
[01:31.16]The more we have, the better we deal with things. Positive self-esteem is important
[01:37.344]because when people experience it,
[01:39.785]they feel good and look good, they are effective and productive, and they respond
[01:45.246]to other people and themselves in healthy, positive, growing ways.
[01:50.900]People who have positive self-esteem know that they are lovable and capable,
[01:57.233]and they care about themselves and other people.
[02:00.561]They do not have to build themselves up by tearing other people down or by
[02:05.938]patronizing less competent people.
[02:09.08]Our background largely determines what we will become in personality and more importantly
[02:15.445]in self-esteem. Where do feelings of worthlessness come from?
[02:21.174]Many come from our families, since more than 80％of our waking hours up to
[02:26.551]the age of eighteen are spent under their direct influence.
[02:30.793]We are who we are because of their influence.
[02:34.574]We build our own brands of self-esteem
[02:37.330]from four ingredients: fate, the positive things
[02:41.638]life offers the negative things life offers and our own decisions about
[02:47.604]how to respond to fate, the positives and the negatives.
[02:52.780]Neither fate nor decisions can be determined by other people in our own life.
[02:58.447]No one can change fate. We can control our thinking and therefore our
[03:03.984]decisions in life.