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Creating higher self-esteem can be crucial. Here is a little of what
research has discovered about its importance.
Believing in yourself produces increases in good health, motivation
and achievement for 6 in 10 people. (Schulman 1999)
Although an event may be crucial in the short term, researchers find
that people’s enduring self-concept – their view of who they are and
what they are capable of – is not tied to any single positive or
negative event. Instead, a self-concept is composed of a combination
of beliefs and feelings based on long-term experiences both at home
and at work. (Black 1999)
Lower self-worth translates into 37 per cent less willingness to
negotiate and use of 11 per cent fewer negotiation strategies.
Increased self-worth correlates with greater willingness to incur
the risks of prolonged negotiation and greater adaptability. In
short, the less confidence you have in yourself, the faster you will
give up trying to get what you want. (Greno-Malsch 1998)
People who feel less talented than those around them actually belive
they will be outperformed in any task they might be asked to
complete, ranging from knowledge tests to creativity exercises and
even games. (Mayo and Christenfeld 1999)
For most people studied, the first step toward improving their job
performance had nothing to do with the job itself but instead with
improving the way they felt about themselves. In fact, for eight in
ten people, self-image matters more in how they rate their job
performance than does their actual job performance. (Gribble 2000)
The more optimistic people are, the greater their satisfaction with
their job and their confidence in future success - and of course
this is directly linked to self-esteem. (Franklin and Mizell 1995)
It’s important to do what you say you are going to. For 87 per cent
of us, declarations of self-change produce a temporary improvement
in self-image followed, in a few weeks, by disappointment. This
makes our self-image worse than it was before the declaration. Keep
your promises – to yourself as well as to others.
Whilst the decision to make a change offers
wonderful feelings of control and optimism, those are shortlived, if
the change is not accomplished. The usual reason for failure is an
expectation of an unrealistically high payoff in an unrealistically
short time. For effective habit changes, either take baby steps or
change your environment so the old habit cannot happen any more.
(Polivy and Herman
1999)
People who consider their careers to have been successful are 81 per
cent less likely to have exaggerated their career plans when hey
were younger. This makes it much more likely for them to be able to
do what they say they will. Again, it's about keeping your promises
- especially those made to yourself. (Judge and Thoresen 2001)
Confidence, in combination with a realistic self-appraisal, produces
a 30 per cent increase in life satisfaction. (Sedlacek 1999)
You might imagine that a promotion on the job automatically raises
confidence and self-worth. Instead, studies find nearly half of
recently promoted managers in the technology industry express
uncertainty and doubt about themselves and their new position.
Psychologists find that the promotion can undermine their
self-confidence because, instead of being the best among a group of
lower-level workers, they now find themselves surrounded by more
accomplished people to measure themselves against. (Cassirer and
Reskin 2000)
People who are satisfied with their careers are 48 per cent more
comfortable accepting some risk in their job future than people who
feel unfulfilled in their work. Accepting risk not only makes tem
feel more comfortable pursuing future opportunities, it also allows
them to feel that their current position is a choice rather than a
sentence. (Ingram 1998)
Self-image and acceptance of risk accounted for more than half of
the reaction of workers who faced significant changes in the
workplace (such as layoffs) and were more important than the nature
of the changes themselves. (Pucik and Welbourne 1999)
Despite all this, self-esteem by itself does not predict success. In
fact, those with particularly high self-esteem are 26 per cent more
vulnerable to the consequences of failures and set-backs because of
the devastating effect negative outcomes can have on their
self-image. (Coover and Murphy 2000)
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