How a person views himself or herself will resolve the course of that person’s life. Joel Osteen explains: “You will never rise above the image you have of yourself in your mind.” Not surprisingly then, building self-confidence is one of the more common goals among people today. In fact, it has been so throughout all of human history.
Fashioning the right amount of confidence and self-esteem requires five very basic, yet fundamental, building blocks of identity and personal character. Without these in plot, you will have a difficult time achieving the fulfilled life you desire.
1. A Firm Foundation of Faith
Joel Osteen explains in his first bestselling book Your Best Life Now: Seven Steps to Livingat Your Full Potential that “God wants us to have healthy, positive self-images, to see ourselves as priceless treasures.” This will be all the more difficult for you to enact if you don’t even believe in God.
If you stare yourself as a mere accident of random evolution, then you will understand life and your place in it very differently than one who believes in a God that created the universe and all that is in it. The book of Genesis makes this very clear when the Triune God said: “Let us make Man in our image.” You and I are created in the image of God.
The psalmist and great king of Israel, David, wrote that he was “fearfully and wonderfully made.” And the apostle Paul tells us that we are foreordained “before the foundations of the world.”
God created the universe, the human run, and you specifically. You therefore draw your inherent value as well as all your “unalienable rights” (behold the U.S. Declaration of Independence) from Him. As such, your value as a human being is not based on the economy, the government, or what other people say or think about you. It is based on God.
Yet if you lack a foundation of faith in your life, you will miss out on this all-important truth.
2. Discipline of the Mind
Jesus said: “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” The late Earl Nightingale took this principle further, arguing that “you become what you think about.” You must regulate your mind. You must discipline it to think on those things which will help you become the person you should be.
How can we discipline our mind? The apostle Paul answers this question in his letter to the church at Philippi: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are correct, whatever things are noble, whatever things are unbiased, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever thingsareof good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things.”
Joel Osteen writes: “Nobody can make us think about something…You decide what you will entertain in your mind. Simply because the enemy plants a negative, discouraging thought in your brain doesn’t mean you have to ‘water’ it, nurture it, coddle it, and help it to grow.”
If you surrender control of your mind to circumstances, mood swings, stress, and/or the opinions and critiques of others, you will lose your identity and become (more or less) a chameleon in life. Don’t let other people or circumstances dictate who you are.
3. Focus on Others
The apostle Paul tells us that we are to “esteem others better than ourselves.” In other words, keep our focus and attention on others. Indeed, the greatest figures of history – those who stand out as having moved history in a positive direction – did so by taking this advice. Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t sit around worrying about his self-esteem. He took on the world with passion and determination, and changed it for the better.
Franklin D. Roosevelt could’ve let polio cripple him emotionally and spiritually as well as physically, but he did not. Instead, his painful experience with the disease made him all the more sympathetic with the plight of tens of millions of Americans suffering in horrific poverty during the Great Depression.
Don’t wallow in self-pity. Instead, reach out with all that you have to help others. There are always people worse off than you. Do what you can to lift them up. To attend them. To serve them.
4. Passion
Be a person of intense passion for what you believe in. Don’t be a spectator in life. Study. Deepen your knowledge in a wide array of subjects, especially religion, philosophy, politics and history. Be a difference-maker. Be someone who actually cares about people and issues outside of himself or herself.
When Nathan Hale became America’s first spy to be martyred, he didn’t mourn the loss of his life. He defiantly declared: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” Now, that’s passion!
5. Perserverance
An veteran Japanese proverb says: “Topple seven times. Stand up eight.” As long as you have breath, you should never accept defeat in your life.
Ulysses S. Grant was named commander of the Union armies in 1864, and given the task of finishing off the Confederate forces in the South. His predecessors had all failed in the eastern theater – or had come up short. When Grant led Union troops South for the first time, he too met with severe setbacks. Confederate General Robert E. Lee inflicted massive casualties on Grant’s army, in spite of the fact that the Confederates were significantly outnumbered.
What separated Grant from his predecessors wasn’t that he was a better general than Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy’s top general. On the contrary, Lee was one of the greatest generals in American history. What separated Grant from his predecessors was that he refused to lose. No matter how many soldiers he lost, he kept going. The saying was that “Grant retreated forward and Lee advanced backward.” Grant kept coming, and he had the manpower and resources to do it. Ultimately, he overwhelmed Lee’s dwindling forces and compelled the Confederate general’s surrender.
With these five ingredients firmly in place, you will have the building blocks necessary for a life of stability, self-confidence, and personal fulfillment.
