Elements of Personal Brand

Components to consider for your personal brand include: your leadership abilities; your special strengths; talents or achievements; your personality traits; and, your distinctive qualities.

So, let’s discover the real you! Think outside the box and be as specific as possible so your brand doesn’t mirror anyone else’s.

Your Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is a way of thinking, feeling and acting that implies that you accept, respect, trust, and believe in yourself. When you accept yourself, you can live comfortably with both your personal strengths and weaknesses without undue self-criticism. When you respect yourself, you acknowledge your own dignity and value as a unique human being. You treat yourself well in much the same way you would treat someone else you respect. Self-trust means that your behaviour and feelings are consistent enough to give you an inner sense of continuity and coherence, despite changes and challenges in your external circumstances. To believe in yourself means that you feel you deserve the best – in satisfying your personal needs, aspirations and goals. To achieve a sense of your self-esteem level, think of someone (or imagine what it would be like to know someone) whom you fully accept, respect, trust, and believe in. Now ask yourself to what extent you hold these attitudes toward yourself. Where would you place yourself on the following scale?

A fundamental truth about self-esteem is that it needs to come from within. When self-esteem is low, the deficiency creates a feeling of emptiness.

Causes of Low Self Esteem

Click here to view an explanation on the causes of low self-esteem.

Do any of the above categories seem to be relevant you? Do more than one? You may initially find it difficult to acknowledge problems in your past. Our memory of childhood is often hazy and indistinct; especially when we do not want to recall what happened. The point of remembering and acknowledging what happened to you as child is not so that you can blame your parents. Most likely, your parents did the best they could with their available personal resources, which may have been severely limited because of deprivations they experienced with their parents. The purpose of remembering your past is to release it and rebuild your present. Old “tapes” or patterns based on fear, guilt, or anger will tend to interfere with your present life and relationships until you can identify and release them. Once you acknowledge and ultimately forgive your parents for what they were unable to give you, you can truly begin the journey of learning to care for yourself. This means becoming a good parent to yourself.