# 183: Self-Esteem and Education
Story behind the Passage
I am really stupid. I know, this sounds like the completely wrong entrée into this post, But let me explain. I am just recognizing how deeply I am into all issues relating to education. In fact, the field that I know most literature and methods and theories about is education — if you want to put a label on it. I simply was not aware of this. And I know, I often write that I have these breakthroughs when I realize this but there is always some progress, some deeper insight. The reason why this happens is probably because I never studied education and I never longed to become a teacher. Since, in addition, the university teaches you to think along disciplinary lines, I totally lost track of the fact that most things I am interested in and do belong to the field of pedagogy. I mean, helo, you remember all I am writing about coaching, as well, right? Everything involving leadership and communication is nothing but education and pedagogy either.
So, it is my deepest conviction that education helps you gain self-esteem. But there is a fine line between gaining self-esteem and losing it completely because of education. Why? Because if you learn more and more, you forget that others do not learn all this stuff. I am not judging. I am not saying that others are stupid and you are smart. I am saying that you progress and fill your mind and if you then have this tendency to be a perfectionist, the impostor problem can kick in and you long for more and more learning because you are afraid that you will remain completely stupid. This is what you start telling yourself. I talked about impostor before and I also explained how this relates to women and men alike (# 161: Impostor: Not Just a Women’s Problem | by Silke Schmidt | Mar, 2021 | Medium). And, of course, it does not only refer to academics. But an environment that is so much driven by brain issues is really hard on you if you feel like learning means a lot more and different things than taught in the academic world.
The reason why I am linking the two issues, self-esteem and education, is because in a conversation today (is it not so typical for a humanist to always think about conversations and discourse?) I again had this suspicion that someone is shying away from taking the next step in his life and in his career. And it was funny for me to notice this thought because I had never thought about him in this way before. You only see in others what is inside you, right? Again, I do not want to sound like I am judging but I very recently considered that I was on the way of wasting a lot of potential and not taking next steps because I felt so small — so not ready, so unprepared. When I realized this, I immediately also noticed what this had to do with self-esteem (for the sake of keeping it simple here, I am not differentiating between esteem and confidence today, I wrote about confidence before.). It dawned on me how much this lack of self-esteem can really change our lives — it can determine every single decision you make.
And that is sad.
But I know that you cannot push others. At least, I think, you should not. It is not going to lead anywhere. Because, after all, what you implicitly do is try to push yourself by pushing others. What you can do, however, is share stories. You can encourage self-esteem in others by motivating them to show what they are capable of doing and by appreciating the results. I do not know if I am really good at this but I hope I am getting better. Sometimes I forget that I also have this perfectionist drive and that always makes you see the tiny stain that can still be polished and you forget to mention the 90 percent that are excellent. Again, I am already getting a lot better at expressing this. I want to insist that communication is the biggest issue here, it is not about not seeing it.
I remember that I bought this very old book by Branden with the yellow pages inside and the textile cover after reading a reference to it in some other book. I cannot remember which context this was in. It could have been coaching or my research on leadership. I still have not read the entire thing but I know that it gives a wonderful insights into the Psychology of Self-Esteem. These foundational findings do not change much, no matter how many sophisticated empirical studies you run on this. The foundations remain intact. This is the sad thing when it comes to finding out how much the lack of self-esteem can hold you back. But it is also encouraging in the way that you see how much there is to gain if you finally unleash your potential by not holding it back anymore.
My Learnings
“Man is the only living species able to reject, sabotage an betray his own means of survival, his mind.” These passages above are so rich and dense, and so is this one sentence. Branden refers to the fact that human beings are among the few on earth that are not able to survive by themselves. They have to learn everything and they have to be nourished — both physically and mentally — by others. Hence, their ability to learn is what keeps them alive. This is why the “mind” plays such an important role. Human beings are thinkers — we constantly process the information around us in a way that other living beings, potentially, do not.
These are the prerequisites for the argument that man is the species able to “sabotage” the mind. If you think of anything related to mental health and motivation, this is true, of course. As you learn in Buddhism, our emotions are just thoughts. They come and go and your mind controls them. Or rather, your mind produces them. There is nothing in the outside world that can produce happiness or sadness in itself. It is your mind turning these events or observations into thoughts and emotions which then have an effect on your well-being and consequently also on your professional success. All this changes your level of self-esteem. If you keep sabotaging your own mind by making yourself believe that you are small, i.e., not experienced enough, not smart enough, not professional enough, not educated enough, not beautiful enough, not kind enough… then you really are not enough. Belief turns into identity, behavior, gestures and expressions.
And this is the root of the lack of self-esteem.
This lack of self-esteem then leads to the consequence that you do not trust yourself and your methods of achieving goals. This is also why you do not dare starting challenging tasks — beyond the comfort zone. You sabotage your mind be telling yourself that you are not “ready.” How often do I hear this? Quite often. And, of course, I am not excluding myself. I tell myself quite often that I am not ready for something. The difficulty is, I do not tell myself consciously. The mind is quite deceitful. Usually, it comes up with some pretty good excuses why you do not start xyz. Very often, the excuse is: It does not feel right. Yes, I am always in favor of using gut feeling, as you know. But you know what, there are two different kinds of gut feeling. There is the gut feeling that kicks in when you have different options and you decide for one over the other because your gut feeling somehow tells you which option is superior. But there is also a gut feeling that makes you turn away from something. It s the kind of gut feeling that almost hurts — because it is driven by fear.
As you probably know yourself and from some of my previous blog posts, fear is one of the most fruitful basic emotions of human beings. I am saying fruitful because fear actually produces many results. We do not trust — ourselves and others — because we fear. But also, we survive because we fear, e.g., the violence of a perpetrator and physical harm due to accidents. So, fear is a very powerful emotion. When I say emotion, I obviously again have to underline that fear is a thought that your mind produces. The reason why I am talking so much about this fear-driven gut feeling is because it is the door opener to change. If you dare look at what kind of fear is really driving you, you are closer to making different decisions. I am not saying you should run away from the fear or neglect it. Both things do not work, actually. I am saying you should embrace the fear, study it, accept it.
Consequently, if you find out that you are not taking a certain step because you are “not ready,” analyze what would have to happen to make you feel ready. Be honest to yourself — really honest. Try to dig deeper and deeper, try to find out if there is any fear involved. I am not saying there has to be. I am saying there is a likelihood that there is. The general argument that you need “more time” to start something, to become ready, is totally acceptable. Yes, you cannot enforce inner growth. Everything in life takes time. But — and this is a promise — if you are ready to look for the fear and welcome it, things will happen: also to your self-esteem.
Reflection Questions
1) Do you consider yourself to have a high or low level of self-esteem? How does this affect your life?
2) Is there something that you keep thinking about with respect to your career but you tell yourself you cannot do it? If you still started it tomorrow, what would happen?
3) How did your education affect your sense of self-esteem?