Some parents, caregivers, and teachers enable a child’s ego to develop in a mostly stable way, which bolsters their emotional resilience in the face of failure, situational stress, and contradiction. They “fill the child’s bucket,” to cite an SEL-based children’s book by Carol McCloud [Have You Filled a Bucket Today?] Yet other caregivers don’t even realize that they’re teaching children to doubt themselves, to have limited self esteem, to feel that something is wrong with them, and so shame grows. In so doing they teach a child to value the input of others over their own self-evaluation, including the inability to forgive oneself. There has been some improvement in the overall emotional resilience in American youth, with the increasing popularity of social emotional education in public school curricula. But we are behind many other countries and cultures which have had decades of humanistic education and anti-shame parenting [citation needed].
Self perception, mindset, and attitude are greater determinants of whether an individual sees themself as having failed or succeeded at something, or identifying as a success or failure in life. The capacity to remain emotionally secure and stable regardless of success, failure, or social feedback is known in the field of education as resilience. In psychological terms, the locus of [self] control is external versus internal [Rotter, Judge, Locke, Durham].
“Locus of control is one of the four dimensions of core self-evaluations – one's fundamental appraisal of oneself – along with neuroticism, self-efficacy, and self-esteem.[3] The concept of core self-evaluations was first examined by Judge, Locke, and Durham (1997), and since has proven to have the ability to predict several work outcomes, specifically, job satisfaction and job performance.[4] In a follow-up study, Judge et al. (2002) argued that locus of control, neuroticism, self-efficacy and self-esteem factors may have a common core.[5]”. [wikipedia]
For the sake of brevity, I’ll call this the “self nexus.” In the vernacular, we talk about this core or nexus with terms like ego, self-love, confidence, and self-trust, acceptance, resilience; and conversely, insecurity, weakness, anxiety, and shame.
I think it’s unfortunate that for years self-help gurus, career trainers and managers, motivational speakers, teachers, and even therapists have often neglected to teach self-love and (self-)forgiveness.
We’re taught that to reach goals and dreams we have to use positive self talk, visualization, we have to put the past in the past, plan and communicate effectively. Some of these lessons and practices approximate the nexus of Self-Love, Trust, and Esteem. But unless you already have a healthy ego / positive self nexus, most of this self-development education will be unsustainable.
Many trainers and authors provide the by-now-cliche examples of Churchill, Edison, Gandhi, among many others, of how it’s possible and powerful to be persistent and resilient in the face of failure. But essentially they’re really providing parables about the importance of self esteem. For it’s almost impossible to continue in the face of repeated failure without a positive self nexus.
And while resilience comes easily for us in some challenges, it can be altogether lacking in others. We may use our strengths and our positive nexus in one area to compensate, hide, or ignore our shame and fear of other competencies we’ve never developed. Since the presence of self esteem is only occasionally completely pervasive across an individual’s competencies, most of us make it through life without ever having to address or mention our pockets of incompetence or self loathing.
Regardless of an individual’s measured and ranked abilities, it’s their self perception of their ability which most determines performance and perceived feelings of well-being and satisfaction over time. In relationships, emotional, physical, and intellectual competencies, our acceptance and even appreciation of our limitations and mistakes brings the maturity and confidence that only results from this positive self awareness.
That is why wise people have urged self-knowledge for millennia; but not merely to be able to avoid our shortcomings, but to embrace them. When we can embrace shortcomings, so are we better equipped to lead, work well with and appreciate the contributions of others.
Take some time to observe yourself and others: you will start to notice that those who seem most ungrateful or resistent to contribution, or conversely, too dependent upon it, are those who fear most their own limitations.
These among many others are reasons why we need more and better opportunities for esteem-based learning for people regardless of age. There will almost always be areas in which one may desire to increase one’s capacity, comfort, and confidence.
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