Building Bachelor Self-Esteem (Part II)

In this piece, I will cover three additional principles for building self-esteem. If you missed earlier segments in this series, check the menu under “foundations.”

The three remaining principles are:

Find Meaning
Understand
Uproot the Negative

1. Find Meaning

Bachelors have to find their own meaning, because the sources of meaning that traditional men use are not available to us (e.g., marriage, children, work to support that). We must find meaning off the beaten path. That can be a challenge.

Let’s start with the premise that, in order to have good self-esteem, you must have a sense of meaning in life. I don’t think most people would argue with that. How could you esteem something that has no meaning? How can you take pride in a life that is meaningless?

Second step: In order to find meaning, you have to stretch beyond yourself. Sometimes, people will caricature self-esteem as “all about me, me, me” — nothing but self-aggrandizement and preoccupation with self.

It’s easy enough to get that impression. Just google “self-esteem,” and you’ll be inundated with cringey memes telling you how awesome you are. It’s all about self-empowerment, feeling like a “bad ass,” and self-glorification — in a word, narcissism.

Truth is, self-esteem cannot be attained by only focusing on “me, me, me.” If that’s all you do, your sense of meaning in life, and therefore your self-esteem, will be stunted and misshapen. In order to find meaning, and therefore full self-esteem, you have to reach beyond yourself.

I’m not saying that self-improvement isn’t meaningful; it is. But in order to find a full sense of meaning in life, you have to reach beyond yourself. You have to serve or contribute to something other than, bigger than, just you. That’s just how it works. If you don’t believe me, you are welcome to try cultivating a sense of meaning by focusing only on your own good. Knock yourself out.

Two Levels

Finding meaning is a question that exists at two levels: the general and the specific. The general question is, “Is life itself meaningful? If so, what is it?” The specific question is, “What is the particular meaning of my life? Where do I, as an individual, find meaning?”

I am leaving the general question aside. That would take too long. I am focused only on the specific question: how to find meaning in your own particular life. Granted, it will be difficult to buy into any specific meaning if your answer to the general question is “no.”

Suggestions

1. Pay Attention

As always, awareness is key. Just paying attention to the question of meaning is helpful, because that’s usually not what we are doing. We are usually preoccupied with other stuff — daily chores, work, cell phones, social media, entertainment, distractions of all sorts. So my first suggestion is simply to spend some time thinking about the issue.

For example, you could sit down and make a list of what you find meaningful in life. Or, you could ask yourself, as you go through your day, whether an activity feels meaningful to you or not, and why. You could also spend some time reading about the topic (I’ve suggested a couple books below), which can stimulate your thinking.

2. Meaningful Work

Men tend to be oriented toward doing — toward work projects of one kind or another. If you’re looking to find meaning in your work, look for an area where these 3 things intersect:

Your skills and aptitudes: what you are good at.

2. Your interests: what piques your curiosity, what you lose yourself in.

3. An element of service or contribution: giving to someone or something (e.g., a cause) beyond just yourself.

This does not have to be complicated. I’m doing a simple example of it right now. Blogging combines those three elements: I write reasonably well; I find yapping about the bachelor life interesting; and maybe it helps someone. Voila: meaning.

3. Don’t Get Carried Away

Don’t get carried away thinking that finding meaning has to be this big, Grand Purpose. The phrase “meaning in life” can sound heavy and portentous, but meaning isn’t necessarily profound and deep. Meaning usually shows up in small, humble, ordinary ways.

For instance, I take care of my dog. That’s meaningful. Am I changing the world? No. Am I moving mountains? No. So what? I’m making his life a little better. That’s enough.

Sometimes, meaning is deep and profound, but more often, it is something simple like taking care of your dog — something you do almost routinely and take for granted. If you conceive of “meaning in life” as a Grand Purpose, you’ll miss it, because it shows up mostly in the small, ordinary choices of life.

2. Understand

Understand what?

Understand yourself.
Understand other people.
Understand the world and the universe.
Understand reality.

Why? Because if you don’t, two things happen:

You fumble and bumble your way through life, because you don’t know what you’re doing. Your self-esteem inevitably suffers.

You lose confidence in your mind. Understand this: your mind is who you are. That is what the “self” is, fundamentally: your mind, your consciousness. Self-esteem is mind-esteem. If you don’t work to understand things, you won’t respect your mind. How could you? How can you respect a capacity you don’t use?

Once again, this is particularly essential for bachelors. Conventional men don’t need to think or understand much, because they have chosen to follow the standard-issue instruction manual.

If you’re a bachelor, though, you had better understand things for yourself. You know that the map provided by the culture is an old, flawed, and misleading one. You need to understand yourself, relationships, and your path in life — not by relying on the standard instruction manual, but by figuring it out for yourself.

There’s something funny about thinking. Although it is essential to living a good life, it does not happen automatically. You have to choose to do it. And most people choose not to do it — or rather, much of it. Although they may exert serious effort to understand something at school or work, because they have to, they often do not do much sustained, serious thinking outside those areas.

Why is that? Why do most people avoid thinking much? Why do they not try to grasp things more deeply? I think it’s for two reasons:

Thinking is work. It requires effort.

2. Thinking entails risk. You could be wrong, and you could end up in the soup because of your mistake. Your thinking could also alienate you from others or lead you into conflict with them.

Thinking takes work, and it entails risk. That’s why most people avoid it.

What is the hardest task in the world? To think.
Emerson

Not thinking — not trying to understand — has consequences, though. It keeps you inept. It depletes your identity. It degrades your self-respect.

Again, our selves are our minds; our minds are our selves. Self-esteem is mind-esteem. If we don’t use our minds — if we don’t make the effort to think and understand – then we will not have self-esteem. How can you esteem something you don’t use? How can you trust a capacity you don’t develop? How can you feel confident in your ability to deal with the challenges of life, if you don’t develop the understanding necessary to do so?

So, the bottom line is, always be learning. Always be trying to understand things at a deeper level. I don’t mean you have to understand everything from astrophysics to cellular biology. I mean you have to make the choice to think about and deepen your understanding of what is relevant to you: you, other people, work, relationships, culture, values, the world.

If you want to read more about the link between thinking/understanding and self-esteem, check out the books by Nathaniel Branden, below.

3. Uproot the Negative

Most of the popular material on self-esteem takes a very positive approach. It talks about being your own cheerleader, instilling confidence with positive affirmations and lots of positive self-talk. That’s fine. I don’t disagree with the notion that thinking positively does help. However, it pales in comparison to not thinking negatively.

There is a well-known phenomenon called the negativity bias. Neuroscientists put it this way: “Our minds are Velcro for the bad and Teflon for the good.” Negatives have a much bigger impact on us than positives. For instance, research tells us that negative events have 3 to 5 times the impact on happiness and life satisfaction than positive events do.

Something similar happens with self-esteem. The negative forces within have a much larger impact than the positive ones. A negative core belief can drag us down much more quickly and powerfully than positive self-talk can build us up.

As a result, then, it follows: if you want to get the most bang for your buck, focus first on rooting out the negative. That is where your biggest point of leverage is. That is how you will have the most impact.

Most of us have negative beliefs and styles of thinking that undermine self-esteem. They come in two forms: automatic negative thoughts and negative core beliefs. I suspect this is familiar territory for many of you, so I’ll just do a quick overview. Consult the resources at the end for a deeper dive.

Automatic Negative Thoughts

Automatic thoughts come up reflexively. They usually fly under the radar until you look for them. Just spotting them is half the battle.

Here are a few examples:

“Should” statements: thinking that things should, ought, must, or have to be a certain way, or else it’s unacceptable.
“Mind reading:” assuming you know what someone else is thinking about you.
Catastrophizing: blowing things out of proportion.

If you google “automatic negative thoughts,” you’ll find lists of these styles. See if there are patterns you recognize in your own thinking, especially when you are feeling low. It helps to be able to recognize and label them. David Burns’ Feeling Good is a good resource, if you want to learn more.

Negative Core Beliefs

Core beliefs are usually installed in childhood or adolescence. Because they have deeper roots, they are more damaging and difficult to reverse than automatic thoughts. They lie dormant when you are feeling good but strike when you are under stress.

Here are a few examples:

“I can’t get it right. I never measure up.”

“I can’t trust people.”

“I’m a failure.”

If you google the term “negative core beliefs” or “self-defeating beliefs,” you’ll find various lists of negative core beliefs. Check some out; see if anything rings a bell. Remember, you’re looking for how you think when you’re feeling lousy about yourself. If you’re feeling good now, it may be hard to recognize, so cast your mind back to a time when you felt crappy about yourself.

Several of the books below (Burns, McKay, Young) can help with uprooting negative core beliefs. These things are like sea serpents waiting in the depths to strike. Swim down and take them out. It can take some time and effort, but it’s worth it.

Recap

Here are the five principles we’ve covered:

Approach uncomfortable, anxiety/distress-arousing situations (internal and external), rather than dodge them.

2. Develop a good relationship with yourself

3. Find meaning in life

4. Understand

5. Root out the negative

If you work at those practices over time, you will build self-esteem. I have no doubt about that.

Two final thoughts

There are no quick fixes. Self-esteem is like anything else of value. It has to be earned over time with work and effort. Be patient. Don’t expect immediate results, or you’ll just frustrate yourself. It comes slowly. Keep at it. It will pay off. Results will gradually accumulate.
Judge your progress relative to your past, not to some future ideal. Judge yourself in relation to how you used to be, not to how you’re “supposed” to be. As long as you’re making progress, that’s the main thing. It’s not the speed that matters; it’s the direction you’re traveling.

I hope this has helped. Feel free to drop any comments or questions you have.