Nathaniel branden is a practicing psychotherapist in
Los Angeles and, in addition, conducts business seminars, workshops, and
conferences worldwide on the application of self-esteem principles and
technology to the challenges of modern business .In this book Branden focused
on the critical need to understand the psychology of self-esteem and its relationship
to our daily lives. During his career, Nathaniel Branden wrote nearly 20 books
on self-esteem, including such influential works as The Psychology of
Self-Esteem, How to Raise Your Self-Esteem, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem and
The Art of Living Consciously.
This book Nathaniel Branden wrote it as a guide. It
helps the readers to build their self-esteem. This book is not an extension of
the theory of the self-esteem, but an amplification of its practice. Its basic concern
is with the actions both mental and physical, that advice self-esteem or
undermines it. In this book he describes about various strategies for building
our self-esteem.
Self-esteem affects our confidence. Our potential to
achieve what we most desire is directly related to our self-esteem. It has two
components a feeling of personal competence and a feeling of personal worth. In
other words self-esteem is the sum of self confidence and self respect. It
affects our behavior and thoughts. It changes how we feel about and value
ourselves. To have high self-esteem is to feel confidently appropriate to life.
Low self-esteem means that you will have a poor image of yourself and this will
result in a loss of confidence. Self esteem will also help you at work. Your
confidence and positive attitude will enable you to look and feel your best.
The higher our self-esteem, the more likely we are to creative in our work,
which means the more successful we are likely to be.
The second strategy is liberation from guilt. If we are to protect our self-esteem, we
need to know how to assess appropriately our own behavior, and after assessing
our own behavior in matters where we feel truly and appropriately guilty we
need to take specific steps to resolve the guilt rather than merely suffer
passively.
The next strategy to build our self-esteem is living responsibly Branden says that “ Men and women who enjoy high self-esteem
have an active orientation rather than a passive one ” They take full
responsibility for the attainment of their desires. In order to raise our
self-esteem we need to live actively rather than passively, to take responsibility
for the fulfillment of our own desires, for our own existence and for our
actions and well being. Another strategy to protect our self- esteem is living authentically. Self-confidence
and self-respect are sustained by living authentically. This is the courage to
be who we are to preserve congruence between our inner self and self we present
to the world. Good self-esteem demands congruence which means that the self within
and the self manifested in the world we be in accord. He finally says that nurturing the self-esteem of others.
Each of us ultimately responsible for our self-esteem. We have the option of
supporting or assaulting the self-confidence and self-respect of anyone we deal
with, just as others have that option in their interactions with us. In
supporting the self-esteem of others we support our own. Thus, self-esteem is
served by living benevolently.
By
practicing all these strategies mentioned above everyone can live successfully
with higher self-esteem. In short this book is more like a workbook or guide
and Branden doesn’t let his readers get away with just reading words on a page.
He makes them work for their self -esteem 
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