Kevin W. McCarthy

The Professor of On-Purpose

self esteem

What Are You Worth?

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No, this On-Purpose Minute isn’t a financial net worth kind of question! Much is made about self-worth and self-esteem, but preceding these is inherent worth.

Have you ever considered yourself as having inherent worth for just being who you are?

Many people are asking, “How can I find more self-confidence?” The underlying question isn’t a matter of gaining more self-confidence. First it is a matter of having confidence in one’s basic humanity, reason for being, and, as the U.S. Declaration of Independence describes them, “certain unalienable rights.”

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Are you prone to place conditions or performance standards on yourself to establish your worth as a human being?

Conditional worth, esteem, or love always fall short because they are based on external or environmental factors, beyond our control. Whether such conditions are self-imposed, learned, or simply cultural they’re limiting and limited and ultimately don’t serve us well.

Even the self-improvement business can’t solve your challenge if you believe you don’t have value from the day you were born to today and into tomorrow.

What does it mean to truly accept your inborn value?

What are the implications for you if behind all of your impressions, experiences, education, achievements, and performances you’re still empty in the end simply because you grip to a notion that somehow you “don’t deserve it”? Share your thoughts in the comments sections below.

This On-Purpose® Minute invites you to explore your inherent worth and to accept your unconditional love. Scrape away the accumulation of lies, shoulds and oughts, put-downs, and abuse to reveal the depth of your being. Explore what you really believe about yourself and your worth in your heart of hearts.

Your inherent worth journey promises to be a valuable experience, albeit it may be a painful one, too. Appreciate how to do more than just build your confidence and to understand and accept the wellspring or source of your confidence, worth, and value just for being you.

There is a reason the tagline for the personal leadership offerings of On-Purpose® begins with “Be Yourself.” Implied in “Be Yourself” is coming to positive terms with who you are. This is more than just accepting yourself for who you are. It is to joyfullyOn-Purpose Logo tag w color embrace the extraordinary and spectacular supernatural reality that you even exist and that you have a reason for being. Your 2-word purpose is a simple key unlocking the remarkable truth of your existence.

Yes, you may need to step far back from where you find yourself today to prospect for your intrinsic value. Do it! Don’t settle for seeing yourself as fool’s gold when you have a 24-karat heart and life buried within begging to be discovered and explored.

Be prepared, however; the exploration of your inherent worth leads to a way where forgiveness and grace will be necessary to both give and receive. It will inspire improvement and intrinsic motivation to be and become. Inherent worth is best realized with a change of heart toward God, self, and others … in that order.

Going_to_the_Well_Cover_front

Women: Recommended Reading

Janet Cronstedt and J. M. Emmert co-authored Going to the Well, a modern parable set against the Bible story of the Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s Well. Explore the many issues of self-worth and inherent value through this easy reading message that will ring true especially for women. Men, if you care about your wife or daughter, then read this to better know how to be a man for the women in your life.

Powerful insights and understanding found in Going to the Well can lead to healing and recovery from the many plagues of low self-esteem and worth. You can’t afford to keep living the way you are. Go to the well in order to become well, whole, and worthy.

From the Mind of Mel Kauffman (used with permission) in response to this On-Purpose Minute

Shyness

Great message Kevin,

One of the siblings of low self-esteem is shyness. I am attaching a writing called Shyness No More. There are so many hidden messages in this tiny paragraph.

So many parents mention that they have a child who is shy. Not true. No child is born shy or with low self-esteem. Shyness was added by inappropriate parenting. No two siblings are treated with the same parenting.

To me, the best method of shyness recovery is to consciously stretch your zone of comfort.

No book that I have ever read has explained the source of low self-esteem and a simple way to eliminate it.

Pass it along,

Mel

Shyness No More

I believe that shyness is a habit. Shyness is not in your DNA. Shyness is not in your genes. Scientists have not been able to isolate one shyness molecule. Being shy is instilled. A newborn in the nursery is not shy. The newborn will do what it needs or wants to do without shyness or hesitation. Soon when the newborn becomes a small child a parent will utter, “My child is shy.” The parent will utter these words in front of their child. How sad. All of us seek attention. Soon the child will realize it is getting more attention by being shy, then the child becomes shyer. How sad. When the child becomes an adult it seldom speaks. Speaking becomes emotionally painful. Anais Nin wrote, and then the day came when the risk of remaining tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Neale Donald Walsch, who wrote Conversations with God, penned these words: life begins at the end of your comfort zone. So in order to have more life a person must enlarge their comfort zone. One way for your zone to have a larger circumference is to be pushed. Mother eagle commanded her eaglet, “Come to the edge.” The eaglet said, “I am afraid.” Mother eagle admonishes, “Come to the edge.” The eaglet once again said, “I am afraid.” She pushed. The eaglet soared! Wouldn’t it be delightful to soar out of your shyness into a world that is waiting for your words? Ralph Waldo Emerson had another suggestion: do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain. William Shakespeare over 400 years ago gave us this thought: act the part and you become it. Shyness recovery is a decision. When you reach the age of self-reliance, you will decide.

Mel Kaufmann

(1921-2018)

19 Ways to Conquer Low Self Esteem

Above is an interesting article with a diversity of ideas and points of view on low self esteem sourced by Jordan Ring.

How Do You Build Your Confidence?

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Pointer: I make reference to The Service Model™ in this On-Purpose Minute. Here is a link to review, purchase, and download a copy. Click Here for Your Copy.

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Look at the kid in the front row, fourth from the left! Yep, the one with the rolled-up pants (room to grow) and checkered jacket. That’s yours truly in Mrs. (Lois) Johnson’s Kindergarten in Bethel Park, PA! My guess is the photo was taken in 1960 and I’m five years old. I was one of the youngest kids in this class.

Mrs. Johnson Kindergarten

I was blessed with a very happy childhood. I don’t look really happy on the day of this photograph. Come to think of it, none of the boys look too thrilled to be this close to girls (yuck!) and under such tight control with our hands in our laps!

In reviewing my report card from those days, I read “Kevin is young and lacks confidence.” Fortunately, my parents decided to hold me back a year so I could grow in confidence. Yes, I repeated kindergarten! My parents’ wisdom set me on a more positive trajectory for life. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Odd that I still remember those words and that label “Kevin … lacks confidence.” It used to really bug me that I was a person who lacked confidence. As I’ve matured, I realize how wrong my understanding of that statement was. Mrs. Johnson was offering feedback to my parents so they could make informed decisions to remedy the matter rather than labeling me. I’m the one who mistakenly “owned” the label. Five- and six-year-old minds do things like that. Sadly, so do 25-, 35-, 45- … year-old minds, too!

Each of us lacks confidence at the start of anything new. Confidence can apply to a skill or aptitude but not to the very nature or soul of a person—that’s just too destructive.

Have you bought a lie that you lack confidence or some other such nonsense? Don’t!

Let’s rephrase the statement and shift your perspective. You just haven’t yet found the bedrock of your beliefs and faith upon which to grow in confidence! I promise you that this solid ground for the soul exists in you. Like innate leadership, you have a place where you are designed and destined to be confident. It is a birthright that you may need to claim (or reclaim). Keep looking!

Look into the eyes of that little boy on the first row then and today in the video. As a person, does he lack confidence today? I’ve been a speaker in arenas in front of thousands. I’ve been on TV and radio broadcasts throughout the USA and Canada. People without confidence don’t do that.

How Do You Build Your Confidence?

There’s the question I’m placing before you. I’ve found the readers of this blog are a bright bunch of people. Please share your insights, comments, or quotes in the Comments section below. Let’s help one another become more confident as leaders of our lives.

Quotes About Confidence

Readers of The On-Purpose Person and The On-Purpose Business Person know that I start each chapter with a quotation. For this post, I turned to my book of quotations about confidence specifically. These quotations will stimulate your thinking:

“I had no vision of the scope of what I would start. But I had confidence that as long as we did our work well and were good to our customers, there would be no limit to us.”

    Sam Walton, Founder of Walmart (1918–1992)

“To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in, and scramble through as well as we can.”

    Sydney Smith, Anglican Clergyman and writer (1771–1845)

“Fortunate is the person who has developed the self-control to steer a straight course toward his objective in life, without being swayed from his purpose by either commendation or condemnation.”

    Napoleon Hill, Author, Think and Grow Rich

“Calm self-confidence is as far from conceit as the desire to earn a decent living is remote from greed.”

    Channing Pollack, U.S. Magician and Hollywood Actor (1926–2006)

“Confidence is the feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.”

     Cicero, Roman philosopher, 1st Century B.C.

 

I leave you with one parting On-Purpose Proverb:

“Awareness of one’s lack of confidence indicates that your heart and your head are still talking. They just need to get the rest of the body moving so the next lesson can be learned more readily.”

Do You Want to Grow into Maturity?

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What does it mean to be a grownup, to mature, or to assume adult behavior?

Sadly, far too many adult women and men haven’t a clue what it means to act, live, and be an adult. The process of growing into maturity eludes them.

We men, in particular, seem slow to grow into the responsibilities of manhood. It has less to do with the physiology of aging and more to do with psychology and social norms. Matters like avoidance of responsibilities and lack of clarity around modern male roles complicate it and make it that much easier to put off being a man.maturity is

Perhaps the story of Peter Pan is too taken to heart and we’ve decided to “Never Grow Up.”

Women suffer from lack of maturity as well. My mother is in a retirement living situation where the women outnumber the men probably 3 to 1. When I speak with the female staff about many of the senior women, they tell tales of a new man arriving on the scene and it is like junior high girls bickering and posturing.

What a loss!

We can’t really be a very fully engaged on-purpose player when we’re living below our maturity level.

When our identity is tied to something other than our purpose, we’re subject to the whims of the world or the mercurial nature of other people’s opinions about us.

Maturity, like anything worthwhile, begins with a decision to grow up.

Yes, it takes practice, often a mentor or coach, and the desire to keep at it. And work and emotional management! Practice does pay off. The rewards of maturity are to live into the life designed for us and to make a greater contribution with our life.

Seek out a mentor, life coach, or counselor with whom you can create a structured relationship for personal leadership growth and development. This intentional approach and relationship provide the benefits of accountability, fresh perspective, and experience.

On-Purpose Partners can help with On-Purpose Peace through Do-It-Yourself (DIY) or Do-It-Right (DIR) with one of our coaches.

If you want to learn something new, then invest in becoming a more mature and capable person.

Take one step toward being more responsible for yourself. Then another step, then another. Soon you’ll discover that growing up isn’t such a big deal if you take care of the small deals along the way.

On-Purpose Tip: The process within The On-Purpose Person provides a methodology to better answer some of Life’s Great Questions about our identity and place in the world. If you don’t know who you are, then you’ll likely overcompensate by living life either too small or too large. The posing can become a preoccupation instead of being about your true occupation.

Stop wasting your years! Decide to grow up.

Fall In Love With Your Life

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Maria Carter and I met at an On-Purpose Person workshop I conducted in San Diego around 1995.  She bubbled with enthusiasm for life and people.  She has a voice and spirit that is positively uplifting.

At the time we met, Maria had a dream of helping people learn to love themselves more fully.   I'm proud to Fall In Love With Your Life book cover art recommend her book, Fall In  Love With Your Life Forever.  This work is an expression of her purpose and is true gift to women who struggle with their inner critic.  Go to her website and order the book today. 

Guys, it is a great gift to give to women in your life.  Wives, daughters, and mothers alike will benefit from calming their self critical voice and allowing their true selves to emerge on-purpose.  Not only will her life be better, but so will yours.   If momma is happy, then everyone is happy.  ; )