29 Matching Annotations
  1. Jun 2023
    1. It is quite “normal,” and human, to not enjoy making mistakes! That is why we often feel embarrassed, deny their existence, and/or blame others for our errors. We believe that the best way is to admit your mistakes, learn from them and take corrective action. After all, a mistake is a mistake – no more, no less.

      some thoughts i have on this:

      • personally, i find that the biggest challenge on admitting mistakes is people defining you by a single mistake and constantly bringing it up in similar future situations. there is this fear of being stuck with this identity or perception from others and it can be quite daunting.

      i wonder if this is so because we often derive our understanding of ourselves through other people's perspectives. consequently, when they see us as failures in certain departments, we might easily adopt that belief too.

      this is in connection with the "spyglass self" where we view ourselves through others' eyes and shape and our identities accordingly.

      • a fascinating detail i noticed when faced with admitting a mistake is how we often shift the blame or focus onto others to avoid this uncomfortable and inconvenient situation. this behavior is interesting to me considering our pursuit of self-improvement and goodness. in these instances, empathy and compassion seem to vanish as self-preservation takes priority.

      this is a great instance in which we become trapped in our own thoughts, creating a dangerous bubble where only our well-being seem to matter. the contrast between this self-centered mindset and our usual desire for growth presents an interesting aspect of human nature.

  2. Nov 2022
    1. locally-based staff and carries out its programs in conjunction with local partners. Teams of international instructors and volunteers support the programs through projects year-round.

      So many good features in your project!

      Employing local staff that know the setting and can be role models for the kids.

      Supporting mentoring by volunteers to scale.

      Working with bodies to get a visceral experience that change is possible.

      Mentoring in groups to build a community.

      Spotlighting diversity and building bridges beyond the local community.

      Some related resources: Ballet dancer from Kibera

      Fighting poverty and gang violence in Rio's favelas with ballet

  3. Dec 2020
  4. Jun 2020
  5. Jul 2017
    1. Because it is so important to be seen as competent and productive members of society, people naturally attempt to present themselves to others in a positive light. We attempt to convince others that we are good and worthy people by appearing attractive, strong, intelligent, and likable and by saying positive things to others (Jones & Pittman, 1982; Schlenker, 2003). The tendency to present a positive self-image to others, with the goal of increasing our social status, is known as self-presentation, and it is a basic and natural part of everyday life.

      A short film captures how social interactions influence our complex relationships between self-presentation, self-esteem and self concept in a unique way.

  6. Mar 2017
    1. The maintenance of self-esteem is a continuous task that taxes all of the individual’s power and inner resources. We have to prove our worth and justify our existence anew each day.

      To be complemented by: Letters to a young artist by A.D. Smith

  7. Nov 2015
    1. Self-esteem and self-compassion might seem like opposites, but they actually go hand in hand. Self-compassionate people tend to have higher self-esteem, and both correlate with less anxiety and depression and more happiness, optimism, and positive emotion. But the differences between the two are telling. As Neff explains it, the pursuit of self-esteem is the desire to be special or above average – and since half of us aren’t, we tend to get inflated egos and look down on other people. We may refuse to see our weaknesses and be at risk for narcissism, self-absorption, self-righteous anger, prejudice, or discrimination.
  8. Oct 2015
    1. Sirois suggests that interventions that focus on increasing self-compassion may be particularly beneficial for reducing the stress associated with procrastination because self-compassion allows a person to recognize the downsides of procrastination without entangling themselves in negative emotions, negative ruminations, and a negative relationship to themselves. People maintain an inner sense of well-being that allows them to risk failure and take action. 
    2. Often because we fear failing at the task and dread all the negative self-evaluations that might result from that failure.

      This popular explanation, and more importantly, Wikipedia, seem to suggest otherwise - though a nod is given to this hypothesis in the wiki article.

    1. self-compassion tends to promote health related behaviors such assticking to one’s diet or reducing smoking, or seeking medical treatment when it'snecessary and even exercising.
    2. People who were mindful were likely to behappy, but people who were mindful and self-compassionate were more likely tobe happier.
    3. Self-compassion is alsoassociated with positive psychological strengths such as happiness, optimism, curiosityand exploration, personal initiative, and emotional intelligence.
    4. "self-compassion (unlike self-esteem) helps buffer against anxiety" when confronted with threats to one's self-image; it also found that increases in self-compassion are associated with increased feelings of social connectedness and decreased depression, among other indicators of psychological well-being.

      I wonder if the ability to laugh at oneself is subsumed by self-compassion; at least, they seem related.

    5. all the traps that people can fall into when they try to get and keep a sense of high self-esteem: narcissism, self-absorption, self-righteous anger, prejudice, discrimination, and so on. I realized that self-compassion was the perfect alternative to the relentless pursuit of self-esteem. Why? Because it offers the same protection against harsh self-criticism as self-esteem, but without the need to see ourselves as perfect or as better than others. In other words, self-compassion provides the same benefits as high self-esteem without its drawbacks.
    6. In fact, a striking finding of the study was that people with high self-esteem were much more narcissistic than those with low self-esteem. In contrast, self-compassion was completely unassociated with narcissism, meaning that people who are high in self-compassion are no more likely to be narcissistic than people low in self-compassion.
    7. People with high levels of self-esteem, however, tended to get upset when they received neutral feedback (what, I’m just average?). They were also more likely to deny that the neutral feedback was due to their own personality (surely it’s because the person who watched the tape was an idiot!). This suggests that self-compassionate people are better able to accept who they are regardless of the degree of praise they receive from others. Self-esteem, on the other hand, only thrives when the reviews are good and may lead to evasive and counterproductive tactics when there’s a possibility of facing unpleasant truths about oneself.
    8. Those with both high and low self-esteem were equally likely to have thoughts like, “I’m such a loser” or “I wish I could die.” Once again, high self-esteem tends to come up empty-handed when the chips are down.
    9. Participants’ self-compassion levels, but not their self-esteem levels, predicted how much anxiety they felt.
    10. self-compassion steps in precisely where self-esteem lets us down—whenever we fail or feel inadequate. Sure, you skeptics may be saying to yourself, but what does the research show? The bottom line is that according to the science, self-compassion does in fact appear to offer the same advantages as high self-esteem, with no discernable downsides. The first thing to know is that self-compassion and self-esteem do tend to go together. If you’re self-compassionate, you’ll tend to have higher self-esteem than if you’re endlessly self-critical. And like high self-esteem, self-compassion is associated with significantly less anxiety and depression, as well as more happiness, optimism, and positive emotions. However, self-compassion offers clear advantages over self-esteem when things go wrong, or when our egos are threatened.
    11. I slowly came to realize that self-criticism—despite being socially sanctioned—was not at all helpful, and in fact only made things worse. I wasn’t making myself a better person by beating myself up all the time. Instead, I was causing myself to feel inadequate and insecure, then taking out my frustration on the people closest to me. More than that, I wasn’t owning up to many things because I was so afraid of the self-hate that would follow if I admitted the truth.
    12. when we acceptourselves fully, and we embrace who we are, flaws and all, then it actually does allowus to see ourselves clearly (because it’s safe tosee ourselves clearly), and because we care about ourselves and don’t want to suffer,we’re going to try as much as possible to makechanges that, you know, are going to make us healthier and happier, but we also knowthat if we don’t succeed, it’s still OK.
    13. if you really have self-compassion, remember, you are more ableto see yourself clearly. It is safer to see yourself clearly and therefore it’s a loteasier for you to take responsibility because it’sokay to have messed up, to have made a mistake.

      This is to emphasize the difference with making excuses for oneself, and it is a fairly interesting distinction.

    14. Self-compassionisn’t poor me, self-compassion is: it’s hard for all of us. The human experienceis hard for me, for you, this is the way life is. It’s not ego-centric, quite the opposite,it’s a much more connected way of relating toyourself. And also this is why the mindfulness is so important. When we’re mindful of oursuffering, we see it as it is, we don’t ignore it, but we also don’t over-exaggerateit.
    15. “this is really hard. This is difficult. I need a little care and compassion toget me through this.” Then we really aren’tat our best, at our most psychologically stable, when we gotowards trying to fix that problem. So it’s actually something you have to remind yourselfto do before going straight into fixing problems.Just acknowledge and validate how difficult thesituation is.
    16. self esteem sort of suggests, that to be, to consider yourself valuablein the world, you have to be better than average. That’s great except that ifeverybody’s aspiring for that, and everybody is better than average we’re in a placeof mathematical implausibility

      I suppose we'll see if the key idea here is to focus on a few traits rather than the average of all traits.

  9. Sep 2015
    1. if we feel like helping is not possibleor we don’t have the capacity to do so, so in this research when we encounter a lot ofpeople whoneed assistance, we’re actually much less likely to help. And that tells us that sortof cultivatingfeelings of efficacy and in a way to feel empowered to help at the right level is reallyimportantin meeting these challenges to kindness.
    1. One of the greatest buffers against picking up others’ stress is stable and strong self-esteem. The higher your self-esteem, the more likely you will feel that you can deal with whatever situation you face. If you are finding yourself being impacted by others’ moods, stop and remind yourself how things are going well and that you can handle anything that comes your way. Exercise is one of the best ways to build self-esteem, because your brain records a victory every time you exercise, via endorphins.