Overcoming Low Self Esteem Part 02 Interview
Interview with Tad James and Adriana James, Master Trainers of NLP, Master Trainers of Time Line Therapy® and NLP Coaching in Sydney, Australia
Good self-esteem is important because it helps you to hold your head high and feel proud of yourself and what you can do. It gives you the courage to try new things and the power to believe in yourself. It lets you respect yourself, even when you make mistakes. And when you respect yourself, adults and other kids usually respect you, too.
INTERVIEWER – If you had one secret to give about overcoming low self esteem, what would it be?
We’re going to do better than that: we’re going to give you two secrets: a big secret and a process you can do right now.
But first please consider this: babies don’t see themselves in a good or bad way. They don’t think “I’m great!” when they let out a big burp or worry: “Oh, no, this diaper makes my backside look too big and my legs too weird!”
But as we grow older we start having a role in developing our own self-esteem. Achievements ” like getting a good grade on a test or making the all-star soccer team ” are things kids can be proud of. So is having a good sense of humor or having good friends.
It’s all part of us learning to see ourselves in a certain way, and eventually to understand that we are good enough, that we are valuable each of us in our own way, to feel proud of what we’ve done, and to be confident that there’s a lot more ,. and we can achieve success.
However your past may have been, to begin to solve your self esteem problems you need to understand first consciously some things.
You don’t GET self-esteem from someone else. It is not handed to you on a platter. If you suffer of low self esteem you already know that in order to create it in your life you have a particular attitude towards success. Whenever you succeed at something, what do you do?
Immediately you reduce the value of what you’ve done to nothing or even worse you attribute it to somebody or something else. For example you may say that it was just an unexpected stroke of good luck, or just a lucky coincidence, or maybe the work of someone else who helped you in the background.
You know already that it is difficult for you to accept the success. In many cultures where modesty is considered a high virtue, it is also politically incorrect to say: “I’ve done a good job!” You will most likely be considered selfish and egocentric.
So, next time you have done a decently good job, when you are tempted to produce that behavior, why don’t you catch yourself in the act and begin to and accept the credit for your success.
How to do it? It is very simple: instead of saying: “This IS a good job!” say: “I HAVE DONE” a good job”.
Uh! Easier said than done! If you’re really good at low self esteem I bet you that just the thought of saying these words makes your throat cringe,
And you may think: “But I have messed up so many times in the past, I’ve never been good enough and I have so many experiences in the past that confirm that”
And maybe you did! Maybe you had!
Or maybe you just thought you did because of your low self esteem problem and even if you succeeded in some things you could not see your success because you have low self esteem. In which case you’re playing catch 22, you cannot succeed because you don’t believe it and you cannot believe it because you’ve never been successful,right?
So, what you need to do is to begin to step out of this catch 22 game you’re playing.
Here is the first step: would you agree that there is a major difference between the statements “I AM a failure”, and “I HAVE FAILED in the past”?
By the way, we all have failed in the past! But when you say “I am a failure” you become the failure. It becomes you. You’re identifying yourself with failure. It becomes your identity.
But failing is a process, it is something people DO, not what people ARE.
And we have on good authority that whatever you think you are you are much more than that!
Think of it right now: Please answer the question: Who are you? And go ahead and give yourself an answer. Do it now!
Good. Do you have a word? You must come up with a word that is the answer to the question who are you, otherwise the process will not work.
Let’s say you said I am John! Or I am a student. Or I am a woman, or I am a carpenter.
Now let me ask you, is that all you think you are? Think of it! Is that ALL you think you are?
Obviously not! So, who are you that’s not the last word you came up with?
Do you have a new word? You must come up with a new word that is the answer to the question who are you that’s not the previous word.
Good. Here is a new question for you: So, who are you that’s not the last word you came up with?
Got a new word? You must get a new word!
Good!
And beyond the last word you came up with, is that all you are? Who are you that’s more than the last word you came up with?
You do know you are more than that, don’t you? Who are you that’s more than that?
Do the process at least 10 more times or until you run out of words, asking yourself the question “Who am I that’s more than the last word you used to describe you?”
And when you’re done, take the last word you came up with and looking at that word ask yourself: How do I know I am ______________?
Now “understanding” consciously is easy, but,..
And here is the big secret ,.. the process we’ve done before is a little secret,
The problem of low self esteem is not a problem of your Conscious Mind only. And this is why you cannot solve only with your Conscious Mind’s understanding. The problem is with how the Unconscious Mind has stored our unconscious beliefs about ourselves.
In order for you to know that you have low self esteem, you also have to know a lot of other bad things about yourself and you need to ignore all the good things about yourself. Those beliefs that make us not feel good enough and we don’t even know why, because they are unconscious.
This is why in all our NLP Coaching trainings, programs and seminars we work with the Unconscious Mind to assist you to let go of what’s lurking beneath the level of consciousness. In order to restore a healthy self esteem level for yourself, you also have to let go of all the beliefs from the past that ,.
,you’re not good enough, that you’re not worthy, that you’re too shy, that you cannot achieve anything on your own, you get the idea,. You have to let those beliefs go and replace them with healthy beliefs like you have always done the best you can with the resources available to you at that time.
But you might say: but I don’t think a lot of the past, I don’t dwell on the past, I don’t spend time thinking about my experiences form the past, I am done with the past, I came to grips with it a long time ago, I understand it and I let it go.
Well, we beg to differ. If you still suffer of low self esteem, and you know well that you will remember for the rest of your life the frustration and sadness and shame, and hurt you experienced when your mom or dad scolded you and told you that you’ll never amount to anything, or the teacher made fun of you and your classmates laughed at you, or maybe when your girlfriend or boyfriend made you feel like a failure and maybe you felt humiliated,. You remember those very well and as long as you can still feel that these events bother you and give you sour feelings when you go back and talk about them, you’re not done.
But what if all those sour (negative) feelings and beliefs you made about yourself as a result of those experiences could really disappear such that you can revisit the memories and feel good about yourself in spite of all that happened? How would you be then? Would you still suffer of low self-esteem? After all your negative beliefs about yourself are gone and replaced with positive beliefs? And no, we’re not talking about affirmations. Those don’t do the trick!
I bet you could be a different person completely, and your life would be different. You could finally feel like you’re getting for the first time the respect and appreciation you deserve just because you’re you!
INTERVIEWER – What are some of the common problems that people experience in trying to overcome low self esteem?
Not being true to themselves, not taking action, not following through, falling back into the comfortable old ways, and one of the major problems is not knowing what to do.
But even here there is good news because when you don’t know what to do or how to proceed you can call our office to ask for FREE advice and coaching.
Yes, I did say FREE!
All people who are enrolled or have finished any of our major trainings are eligible for free coaching form our expert NLP Coaching trainers in the office.
INTERVIEWER – Some people might think that it all sounds too good to be true. Is there a catch?
Sure it is. Of course it is! There is always a catch!
Here is the catch: You need to be at the point where you are no longer willing to put up with lack of anything in your life, or your business and you are ready to stop tolerating being unhappy and dissatisfied.
You need to be willing to give up your comfortable but not satisfied life, your old comfortable but struggling ways of doing things,
You need to be willing to begin to notice that that the only thing between your current level of success and a breakthrough in accomplishment is your lack of self confidence and you are committed to breakthrough that limitation now!
INTERVIEWER – What sort of things can someone do to stay on top?
You need to learn how to refuse to indulge in self-criticism. We agree that’s easier to talk about this than do it, unless you know how to focus all your thoughts toward what you want and only what you want. There is a process that we tech which shows you how much of your thinking goes toward what you want and how much toward what you don’t want.
We teach this process and how to change what you don’t want so that it becomes exactly what you want.
It would take too long in this interview to share that information with you and we don’t have all day to talk about how to overcome low-self-esteem, but if you decide to take a NLP Coaching training or a seminar form us you will learn this process easily and then you will be in control of your own thoughts.
Your thoughts don’t come to you from somewhere else. You create them all the time. And you need to learn how to create positive thoughts and no, we don’t refer here to the power of positive thinking. Positive thinking can be useful in that it challenges you to form a different view on things. However, most of the time it just takes the form of arguing with yourself, and if it worked, you would have overcome already your problem with low self-esteem.
To change your self-image and improve low self esteem, you need to believe differently about yourself, not just repeat platitudes about how great you are really! That is not enough, and this is what we do. We give you the HOW to change the beliefs you have now which are disempowering into beliefs which are empowering for you.
You need to begin to remember that you are also important even if you don’t believe it yet, you are as important as all other human beings, and you deserve to change this problem that bugs you for such a long time. We have seen thousands and thousands of people from all walks of life, from all over the world who were bothered by this problem of having low self-esteem and never feeling good enough, we showed them how to change that, and we saw them regain hope and happiness, and joy and respect in their lives like never before.
The Secret of Creating Your Future® seminar has been sold also on CD’s and initially tapes to literally thousands and thousands and thousands of people, it has been so successful assisting people to completely let go of their lack of self-esteem that it has been copied by many other presenters who do it under a different name. It’s a hugely successful process and the best part is that the lack of self esteem never returns.
So we had a guy come and see us from Germany (name withheld for privacy concerns). And he was a very successful business man, he was getting his doctorate in business, he had a very successful company, he was a good looking guy, and he had terrible, terrible, self esteem. So we got together with him and come to find out his father, when he was alive, rag on him all the time, every hour when he was awake and when his father died he internalized that part. So he internalized his father inside of him and he did a better job of ragging on himself than his father could have ever done.
We saw him for approximately an hour and a half or two hours and when he was done he had no low self esteem and his father wasn’t ragging on him anymore. He was totally integrated and whole and his self esteem totally disappeared and he realized who he was, he realized who he was for himself was worthy and he became confident that what he was doing was fine.
So we gave you that example because if this guy has done it, so can you. It’s not rocket science, it’s something you can do and you can do easily.
And you need to remember one thing: all people are important but you are one of these “all people” .
And you need to learn to discover that you are one of these “all people” You need to discover what you want, what are your unconscious values, what are your beliefs, your needs and desires, both consciously and unconsciously – and we’re not talking about selfishness. We’re talking about a healthy self-confidence and healthy self esteem. You deserve to live life as you want.
INTERVIEWER – Where can people find more information about overcoming low self esteem ?
Well, one place is www.NLPCoaching.com that’s at the bottom of the screen. And people can contact us at the phone numbers on the screen: USA +1 888 440 4823 and in Australia +61 2 9221 9221