Good. Better. Best. Which self do you want to be?

January 14, 2010 - Issue #91
The Components of Self Esteem

Welcome to The 3-Minute Coach

Hi everyone. Welcome to the first 'real' issue of the new year and new decade. It's a great opportunity to refocus on becoming your best self!

I hope that you got to take advantage of the 3 Minute Coach pre-announcement offer on my new ebook "The Principles of Attraction PLUS". It's still available, at it's full price at store

In peace, love and gratitude.
Louise

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"Louise was my coach for 8 months in 2009 and in that period of time I didn't just heal the relationship with my parents but also moved to a new city, my favorite place on earth, met a wonderful man who I now live with and totally transformed my thoughts about myself. I feel like a much calmer, more grounded and happier woman and I also know that all is well whatever it looks like on the material outside and that there is a meaning with everything that happens. Louise has been a tremendous help for me and I warmly recommend her compassionate, loving and brave coaching to anyone who feels a bit stuck and wants to get going."
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Food for Thought

"This became a credo of mine...attempt the impossible in order to improve your work." --- Bette Davis

Keep It Simple

3 Healthy Ways to Reward Yourself

It is very important to celebrate all the wins along the way towards your goals. After all, one of the fundamental human needs is acknowledgement. It is near impossible to have others acknowledge us if we are not in the habit of rewarding ourselves for a job well done.

Of course, it's not enough to reward ourselves if we don't create healthy ways of marking milestones. Here are a few "healthy" rewards for you to consider:

Healthy Eats.
For me, nothing says "congratulations on a job well done!" like sushi. Because it's so fresh and healthy (or better be!) and, there's only one good sushi restaurant in this area of Pennsylvania, it's a doubly "special" treat. Feel free to pick a healthy food as a reward -- must make sure you focus on the healthy part, even if it means only eating the protein and letting go of any carbohydrates or sweets. (Lobster would be another choice for me, if I hadn't moved so far from the ocean!)
Time Alone.
Whether you're a busy mother who feels icky to get 15 or 30 minutes along, or a single person who can put aside an evening or other big chunk of time, spending time alone can be a real treat. As a reward to yourself, the joys of solitude are enhanced. The best part of 'time alone' is that the time is yours to spend anyway you want, as long as you are 100% present for every moment of it.
Pampering.
Although I suspect that women will actually see this as a reward, both men and women can pamper themselves. The idea is to find some way to pamper and indulge your body. Since we often don't have time in our hectic schedules to take advantage of the pampering, getting your nails or hair done, you body massaged or some other treatment designed to "honor" you is a perfect reward.
Combination.
Each of this rewards is perfect on its own, but you can heighten the sense of reward by combining two or even all three of them. Just try it!

Feature Article

The Components of Self Esteem

Becoming your best self involves a positive healthy regard for oneself. Most of us are aware of the extremes of too much self regard (arrogance) or too little (self loathing). A healthy self esteem (like Goldilocks and the 3 Bears) is 'just right'! It's a positive, balanced and healthy self-regard and is essential to become spiritually and emotionally evolved.

Self Esteem can be broken down into the following four components. The lower your self esteem, the more important it is to work on these elements individually, and in this order:

Forgiveness
So much of what we believe about ourselves is dependent on actions taken years previously. While almost never as bad as we think, these 'unforgivable' actions cause us to feel undeserving and unworthy of anything good. The odd part is, if it had been an event for which jail time was given, you would have paid your debt and been released years ago. Instead, it's a dirty secret that you carry around with you, hoping against hope that no one will find out how bad you really are.

To facilitate forgiveness, complete the following sentence, after taking 3 long slow breaths: "The thing I am most ashamed (or guilty) of is _____." Go with the first thing that enters your mind and then use the following clarifying statement: "I forgive myself for x(what you identified above)" until you begin to actually feel yourself forgiven.
Acceptance
Once we've forgive ourselves, the next step is accepting ourselves for who we are right now. Starting with 3 long slow deep breaths, use this clarifying statement: "I accept myself, just the way I am". Again, repeat this until there is no question of doubting your acceptance.
Trust
The third step of improving self esteem is trusting yourself. Trust your thoughts, your instincts, your gut reaction to things. After the 3 long slow deep breaths, use the following clarifying statement: "I trust myself and others". Repeat until there is no question of doubting yourself.
Love
The final, and possibly most important, component of positive self esteem is self love. Unfortunately, with a sense of self racked by guilt, rejection and mistrust it is near impossible to love oneself enough to maintain a healthy level of self esteem. To work on this final step, use the following clarifying statement, after the 3 long slow deep breaths: "I love myself in a healthy and balanced way".

Once you've followed these 4 steps, and are beginning to feel good about yourself, start taking actions that support this new self view. Watch the words you use and how you interact with others. Keep it up and you'll have a very healthy and balanced self esteem in no time!

Related Quotes

"Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves. " -- Nathaniel Brandon

"Forgiveness is almost a selfish act because of its immense benefits to the one who forgives." -- Lawana Blackwell

"Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas." -- Calvin Coolidge

"It really doesn't matter if the person who hurt you deserves to be forgiven. Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. You have things to do and you want to move on. " -- Real Live Preacher

"Acceptance is such an important commodity, some have called it "the first law of personal growth." -- Peter McWilliams

"As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. ." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Recent Blog Posts

Happy Contentful New Year
Thoughts on Enjoying Work
What's in YOUR Way?
2010 Handbook
Personal Foundation: Stop Tolerating

The Welcome Mat Guest Column:

What is Personal Growth
By Dr. Raymond Comeau

At birth, we were not much more than a clean slate and pure potential. We did not remain that way for long. By age three, parental influence already had laid the groundwork for what we would become. Some researchers claim that eighty percent of our character is already define while we are still toddlers.

As young adults, education, peer pressure and societal influence had a powerful influence on our psyche and for all practical purpose finished molding the individual that we were when entering the work force.

Until that time, most of our personal growth was almost entirely due to outside influences and individual circumstances. We did not really have the maturity to define exactly the type of person that we wanted to become and for most the question never even arose.

The fact is that most people believe that we are who we are and there is no much that we can do about it. It is generally accepted that we can acquire knowledge and experience but changing who we fundamentally are is an impossible task.

It is evident that maintaining that mindset will drastically reduce the chances of self-growth or personal fulfillment. Self-growth demands conscious and diligent efforts, something that will not even be entertained with the fatalist notion that we are who we are and that there is little or nothing that can be done about it.

On the other hand, there are those who are willing to explore the possibilities of expanding who they are and work toward a personal metamorphosis in order to fulfill their real potential.

Carl Jung tells us that personal growth, or individuation as he calls it, is the conscious realization of our true self. In other words, personal growth is a conscious quest toward discovering and activating all our innate resources and talents. To put it into even simpler terms, it's about actively seeking to become all that we can be.

Real personal growth is an active process and not a passive one. That is, it has to be a directed effort and not one that is left to the caprices and whims of circumstances. We grow by understanding that we are much more than we are presently demonstrating and by expressing the will to become all that we could eventually could be.

Self-growth comes about through knowledge and experience. We grow by acquiring information and by subjecting ourselves to conditions and situations that we had never encountered before.

It's a lifelong ongoing process that has no limit except the limits that we impose on ourselves. Scientists tell us that the human brain is virtually limitless which means that we are only limited in self-growth by our lack of faith or by the absence of necessary efforts.

However if personal growth is limitless, it's primary objective is not. The raison-d'être of personal growth is acquiring a skin that we are comfortable with. It's feeling good about who we are, being well adjusted in our environment and having the feeling that life is good.

All the knowledge and all the expertise in the world are useless unless it brings us a sense of wellbeing, internal peace and overall satisfaction, which is our natural birthright. The gift was carefully place in our heart and soul at birth. It is our responsibility to find the key that will set that gift free for us to enjoy and the way that this key can be found is through personal growth.

We have limited power when it comes to changing the world but we have everything that is needed to transform who we are in such at way that we can evolve in synchronicity and harmony with that world and thus find happiness.

Dr. Raymond Comeau aka Shamou is the Author of ShamouBlog and Owner Administrator of Personal Development for Personal Success Forums

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dr._Raymond_Comeau

Working Towards Wholeness: Action Step

[For me, wholeness represents being my best self living my best life. I believe there are 13 keys to living in wholeness (5 Steps, 8 Elements). Each newsletter, I will look at one action step you can take so that you may get one step closer to wholeness]

WHOLENESS KEY: Plan for the Future
ACTION STEP: Top 3 Reasons to Plan for the Future

The process of becoming your best self is a journey towards wholeness. Only when we are whole do we move through life with ease, purpose and success. I believe there are five steps towards wholeness.

Accept Responsibility for Your Life.
Focus on the Elements. [Another way to say this is "Work through your Barriers"].
Complete the Past.
Plan for the Future.
Live in the Present.

While most of us see the value in working towards wholeness, sometimes we get stuck in accepting, or practicing, an individual step.

As if wholeness was not enough, here are the top 3 reasons to Plan for the Future:

If you do not know where you are going, you will not know when you get there. Getting clarity about what you want to create in your life is the first step in achieving it. Even before you deal with the obstacles that get in the way of your manifesting what you want, it is critical that you define what it is you do want. While it is easy to drift through life taking this road and then that one, flowing aimlessly from one destination to another, those pleasurable meanderings are just that: meanderings. Perfect for a Sunday afternoon, but not too helpful for achieving success in life.
You can celebrate every "win" along the way. Part of the process for planning for the future is identifying the intermediate milestones along the way. As we break down the steps needed to create the future, we can also see which stages can be classified as mini-wins. These need to be celebrated. The recognition of completed steps and mini-rewards keeps us motivated for the long haul.
By paying attention to the journey, you will know when it is time to go back to the drawing board. As we move forward towards our stated goals, we keep getting more information and having more experiences. The information picked up along the way, and our responses to that information gives us valuable clues about the path and journey we are on. It ma confirm that what we want and our action plan to achieve it is right on target. It may also point out that either the goal or our path to the goal needs to be reworked. Either way, we get to go back to the drawing board as often as we like. It is never a bad plan, it is just that we do not always have all the information needed to finish the journey.

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Louise Morganti Kaelin is a Life Success Coach who partners with others to help them turn their dreams into reality.
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Louise is a Life Success Coach who partners with individuals who are READY (to live their best life), WILLING (to explore all options) and ABLE (to accept total support). She specializes in helping those who know what they want to do and how to do it but still can't seem to get it done by breaking through the blocks and barriers to their success. For many free resources, including Louise's free newsletter of insightful, practical suggestions for creating your best life, visit her website at

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January 14, 2010 - Issue #91 The Components of Self Esteem