Self-esteem is the opinion we have of ourselves. Healthy self-esteem makes one feel positive about themselves and life in general, being better placed to deal with life’s ups and downs. On the contrary, low self-esteem brings out life in a more negative and critical light, making it difficult to deal with the challenges that life throws at us.
We all have times when we lack confidence and do not feel good about ourselves. When low self-esteem becomes a long-term problem, it can have a harmful effect on our mental and physical health. This makes healthy self-esteem a priority. I say healthy rather than high self-esteem because I have personally come to realize that high self-esteem is not necessarily a good thing because when you are too confident, too self-assured, you may sometimes fail to listen to others opinion and thus block yourself from learning. Too much of anything can be harmful thus what we strive for is a healthy self-esteem.
For some of us, we spend most of our days at work or working (on-site or at home), which means this is the best place to build our self-esteem. Our working habits ranging from how we deal with feedback (good or bad), how we prioritise our work tasks, how we deal with challenging projects and stressful situations at work shapes our self-esteem. When I began my career in clearing and forwarding, I came in confident that I am someone who stays on top of my tasks. I plan my work with deadlines and stay in control. Well, that didn’t work out because ships did not care whether I wanted them to arrive when they said they will arrive. They got delayed here, and some port delays there, and some docking issues here and assortment there, I immediately lost control and my self-esteem too. Now don’t expect I found a solution against those delays, no, but I did find a solution on how I prepare and handle the situation better. You know the famous Serenity prayer by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr? The one quoted as: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Yup! That is exactly how I personally maintain my healthy self-esteem. It just allows me to remember that there are things I can and should take control of, (an opportunity for some show-off); and there are things I just need to let go (sorry self-esteem) and there are things I just need to…. (Blank because we figure it out along the way).
You probably have your way to maintain your healthy self-esteem (go you!) and if not, you still have time to figure that one out. The good news is that Lyawere Company Limited and Interline Logistics Limited offers training to youth building their careers and we can recommend you resources that can help so feel free to reach out to us and we will be happy to talk to you.
By Fides – TLL (Today Lyawere Learns) Reflection Interline Logistics
May, 2022