“Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it

yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince

them, you must yourself believe.”

-Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, British Statesman, Prime Minister

Author: John Cane

In all the years that I have been a “teacher”, one of the biggest things that stands out to me the most when teaching or coaching a student, is how easy and natural it seems to be for someone to own negative feelings.  What I mean by this is, how comfortably individuals can immobilize their own growth with simple negative statements that they really see as “normal”.  And I’m talking teens to adults, here.  As Dr. Wayne Dyer (Psychologist) puts it, “You cannot have a feeling, unless you have a thought.”

We reinforce fears with negative thoughts about our abilities.  The majority of the time we interpret fear as a threat, when all it really is, is a challenge or a bout with our insecurity at hand.  Insecurities dwell in the land of self-esteem or self-worth; how much we value and appreciate our selves.  And those two go hand in hand.  Let’s face it, for the most part, we really only appreciate the things we value, and that we see as having value.  And with that appreciation, we take better care of things…or not– including ourselves.

Think for a moment of something that you really like in your life and how good you take care of it, because it holds a special place in your heart.  It could be a vase, a car, a garden.  Think of how much attention you give it because of the happiness it brings you.  That happiness is worth the attention, right?  Now take this same attention, and apply it to yourself or someone else.  When we give good attention, it is called “recognition”.  Recognition, it has been found, is the number one need in all human beings.

Recognition to humans is like water and sunshine to a flower.  But for us humans, we are a compositae—a flower that is made up of many smaller flowers.  And these many smaller flowers come from being happy about the gifts we have within; our talents.  And our happiness comes in the form of internal and external recognition.

We are born with an innate sense of happiness and love within, but we need to nurture that love and happiness with the help of others.  Our ability to develop and nurture internal recognition (appreciation of ourselves—our gifts, talents, purpose in life, and self-respect) initially comes from those immediately around us—our family or those closest to us.  When we are encouraged to believe in who we are and who we need to be in this world, we grow in mastering the skills needed to become confident in our identity and stronger to handle life’s many obstacles.  With that strength, obstacles and fears are instead interpreted as opportunities for growth, and challenges are seen as an opportunity to increase our self-confidence.

“Self-esteem or self-worth is a by-product of self-confidence” (Uncommon Knowledge, Inc. /UK).  Self-confidence is attained by mastering a skill though repetition.  Kind’ve like building a muscle.  In the process of encouraging others to do well, we give recognition.  Giving recognition often is the repetition needed (like building a muscle) to become good at things and to develop gifts and talents.  What we are good at are our gifts and talents.  And these are the things that keep our self-esteem, self-worth, self-respect flowers in bloom.  And when we feed and take care of these flowers, confidence starts showing up in a variety of areas in our life.

To truly be motivated to want to do well at something and feel good about ourselves in the process, our main reason for taking action must come from a place of love and passion, the primary energy of everything in the Universe; Not only the love of achieving and growing, but also the love that comes from those closest to us.

May you rediscover a fresh awareness and creativity of the child in you.

About the author

John Cane develops and implements confidence and self-esteem workshops in North Carolina, South Carolina, and New York. With a background in Psychology, John has six separate certifications in Personal Growth and Development.