Self Esteem and Confidence Building (by Yetunde Abisoye)

I am a member of "The Let's Talk About Series" community. I'll be sharing notes from one of the sessions held earlier this year, on Self Esteem and Confidence Building by Yetunde Abisoye.

----------

Miss Yetunde Abisoye is a social entrepreneur, passionate about youth development and mindset shift of underserved communities. She is president of Doyen Initiative Africa, an NGO set up for transforming youths through career,  entrepreneurship and innovation development.

An alumni of Strategy for Mentoring Initiative and Leadership Empowerment. A member of Young Africa Leaders Initiative. She currently studies Business Administration at Yabatech college of Technology.

-----

Yetunde Abisoye:

I've been emboldened with the responsibility of speaking on self esteem and confidence building. But I'd start with a briefing of my story.

If I had done nothing about my perception in life and yearned for more, I would have been an Onion seller in Alaba market and married possibly to a butcher or maximum a civil servant –which in totality is not bad. But there was a change. And to survive that transition there was need to build two key things, a healthy self esteem and self confidence.

Let me establish that I am not addressing this issue because I'm the best, but possibly by privilege.

She was born and bred to a family of semi-literate parents and extended family. Literally, there was no graduate within her reach leaving her to the option of either ending up as a trader or an average individual in the society coupled with the fact that they lived in a rural community.

Her yearning for greater heights in life beyond the status quo of her immediate family made her face hatred, where she expected love. If you ask me, this can be an impediment to the development of anyone's self esteem since the home is the first place to build one. So there were constant shutting down of the expression of her real self and the envisions.

That was me.

If you were born in Ajegunle, or in any of the rural settings, you might want to agree with me that shooting for the stars is a fallacy.

You would hear words like "you are not the type they are looking for there".

That's connoting the local parlance in English language.

So, while I try to communicate in clean English right from my home, I was tagged ITK.

***

First an insight into what Self Esteem is. I'd connote that Self Esteem is a perception of oneself. The feeling and value attracted to oneself which births external value you attract.

Confidence is belief or trust in somebody or something. Having a feeling of certainty about something.

One question I'd appreciate an answer to is this: How many of us find it hard to compliment the achievement of someone else, especially in a competition when we are defeated?

No one wants to wear the cap of guilt, but we all at one point would have done that.

The decisions you make in life is a reflection of the value you placed on yourself which is summed up as Self Esteem.

No one can ever value you more than you do to yourself.
You are a currency, Current and See. You flow, and people see it.

Statistics has proved that in 17 seconds, our Self worth is analysed by people.

While I'm not subscribing to pride in life, but friends, a bit of ego is needed.

One of my mentors said the world is cruel on weak people, it's okay to feel victimised, and want to be pitied. But the question is: What height of attainment will that attract to you?

Either in entrepreneurship or career development, you can't afford to be a wobbler.
Except you value yourself, how do you expect me to value you?
No one without a value in life has ever attracted any meaningful relationship or achievement.

Your Self Esteem is a tool to your confidence. Self esteem is like the US Dollar, it's not the best currency in the world, but the Americans made it so. They flowed it into all nations and made it the medium of international trade.

And guess what friends?
The Chinese refused it. That's a healthy esteem.
They believed in themselves, their capacity, their self-worth. They have Self confidence.
And without mincing words, we are gradually watching the transition of world power.

That is You. You have the power in life to attain everything you have ever imagined.
But the voices playing in your head is setting the limitation. It has affected your confidence.

So then, how do we build our esteem?

1. Believe in Yourself (No one has the right to).

2. Envision your life as if no one was shutting you down.

3. Stop seeking validations from anyone except You. If you are too negative, stop seeking it from your self.

4. Trust that you are made for more and keep affirming yourself that you are.

5. Start saying YES to your dreams.

On confidence I'd share this –

At age 22, I had failed in over four businesses, changed my father's name to my maternal grandmother's name, had a terribly bruised relationship with my mother, had siblings who thought I wanted to be greater than they are and hated me for it, and had attempted two failed suicide attempts.

But one day, something changed. It was sometime in 2013, two years after the whole drama of growth process (that's exactly what challenges are for you), I asked myself "To whom do I owe my success, my families or me? I realised it was I.

I had failed, yes. But is it too late to start a new story? No?

So I looked into the mirror and told myself the greatest story of my life.

Either I leave this life a mediocre or a great woman, it is up to me.

I recognised my failures, I acknowledged the battles. But I resolved to winning.

Look at me friends, it was difficult. It was emotionally battering. But I started saying yes to my life, my dreams, my unfolding future. And I became my own cheerleader.

And Dearies, you know what? The moment I started, the universe started aligning to my fragrance.

Your confidence level is equivalent to the depth of your acquired knowledge and willingness to accept your failures. Your failures are not failures, they are Success trials which end in wrong attempts. There can be a reattempt.

By the time I got my confisteem (if there is a word like that) together, when you play the track of my past failure, I laugh at it and give you a full gist of how it went. That's Self Confidence.

You can not dance to the beat of your life when you don't play the tunes. Stop making people play the tunes. Pull yourself together. Your esteem is needed for the next phase of life.

On a final note, I'd reiterate my key words –

Bests. Believe, Envision, Stop external validation, Trust in the new You and Say Yes to your dreams.

On confidence –

• Acknowledge your wrong attempts at Success and try again.

• Celebrate your little victories and never compare your life with someone else's. It's an insult to your Creator who called you YOUNIQUE.

Thank You, Friends.

----------

The Let's Talk About Series is a personal and career development discussion platform that discuss diverse topics to help boost people's productivity and build personal confidence. They are passionate about self discovery, and believe the strife for personal development helps in adding value to one's life; creating opportunities and setting priorities for the areas that make them most effective.

You can check out the community on Facebook.

Yetunde Abisoye