High self-esteem achieves aims
Do you feel confident about your capabilities to achieve aims? If so, how often: almost whole the time, you usually have high expectations about your future performance; in certain situations such as being at school or home; or just in specific tasks like reading, writing, drawing and so on?
If you answered “Yes” to any of the above questions, you probably have a high self-esteem. People who have a high self-esteem make positive assessments of their worth(1). High or low self-esteem depends on your relationship with the world that surrounds you . Having a high self-esteem is utterly essential to achieve aims in life because people who have a high self-esteem tend to have an optimistic predisposition, which is useful to learn and face challenges. So, high self-esteem is related to success. For example, if you have a high self-esteem, you could learn more and better. To illustrate, during my work experience at “Colegio Polivalente de la Pintana” I met a boy called Miguel, who has a high self-esteem. He believes he can do whatever he wants because he has been successful in sports and school’s subjects, for example. Also, all his classmates and teachers think he is going to be someone remarkable in the future and I agree with them. Miguel is a very sociable boy who participates in any social activity. However, people with a high self-esteem are not necessarily extroverted or outgoing. Usually, people who have a high self-esteem are not looking for others’ approbation because they feel satisfied and confident with the way they are. Miguel’s self-esteem is as higher that he does not care about others’ negative opinions. Do people have a high self-esteem all the time?
As you have noticed at the introduction, there three kinds of self-esteem : 1) General or Global, 2) Situational or Specific, and 3) Task self-esteem(2). The first one is the self-appraisal that people have, which is resistant to change. It is made over time and across experiences. From this point of view, Miguel has a high General Self-esteem due to the fact that he has had successful experiences about his capabilities in the past. Thus, he generally has a good predisposition to do things and try new ones. The Situational Self-esteem is the self-appraisal that people have in specific situations or contexts. For instance, Miguel feels more comfortable in the mathematics class instead of the art class. The third one, Task Self-esteem, is the self-appraisal that people have in front of a specific task. For example, Miguel is a good student but he thinks he can do a better performance talking than writing, because it is more difficult to him to organise information on paragraphs within a text than speaking naturally. In conclusion, Miguel has a High Global Self-esteem, but a lower one in front of certain situations and tasks. So, it is possible to say that self-esteem is situational dependent. For this reason, students should try to have a positive predisposition to make their learning more comfortable in order to improve their self-esteem to learn more and better.
What can you do if you think you may have a low self-esteem? First, to increase your self-esteem you have to identify what kind of self-esteem you have (Global, Situational, or Task). Then, you should make the effort of developing it. To start this process, a positive and optimistic attitude makes the difference. You have to think you are capable. Third, if you are not sure about your capabilities, it would be a good idea to ask people what positive characteristics they think you have. Finally, remember: “power is in your mind”. If you trust in yourself, you could do whatever you want!
1 Brown, H. D. (2000). “Principles of language learning and teaching” (4th edition). 2000. NY: Longman.
2 Brown, H. D. (2000). “Principles of language learning and teaching” (4th edition). 2000. NY: Longman.
By Katherine Silva Monrroi
