Brandon’s book, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, revolves around the steps a person needs to develop a healthy self-esteem. The thesis of the book is personal awareness, ability to be competent to deal with daily challenges of life and being worthy of happiness in life. The book uses six practices or pillars that would enable one to possess the qualities of self-esteem. It allows the reader to discover himself and enable changing of one’s perspective on how he views himself. The pillars discussed allows the reader to be more goal oriented and make the best decisions when faced with a difficult situation (Branden, 2004). The book discusses the following six pillars needed to build an individual’s self-esteem.
The practice of living consciously is the first pillar, and it pertains respecting of facts and being present to everything a person is doing. It encourages an individual to be open-minded and open to knowledge, the external world and the most important being understanding our inner self. The practice makes one understand his abilities and shortcomings but to develop a healthy self-esteem one must practice the second pillar which is self-acceptance. This method enables the willingness to experience, own and take responsibility for his actions thus limiting denial and self-repudiation (Branden, 2004). Once a person can fully accept himself, he can practice self-responsibility that entails being the author of one’s story and taking responsibility for our actions rather than playing victims in every challenge or trying to redirect blame on others.
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The fourth pillar is the practice of self-assertiveness that emphasizes on being authentic in everything we do and being willing to stand-up for what we believe in due to the fear of disapproval by others. The fifth pillar is the practice of living purposefully which can be attained by setting and planning our goals and ensuring that our actions complement the set goals. Lastly, the practice of personal integrity which proves that we know what we profess (Branden, 2004).
The book emphasis for inner awareness, acceptance and the other practices discussed above in the bind to possess self-esteem is comparable to other ideas learnt in class, for instance, self-fulfilling prophecies and some of the pillars illustrate the internal and external locus of control. Self-fulfilling prophecies are divided into two namely self-imposed and imposed by others. Self-imposed is based on an individual predicting his future since he believes in his abilities that he will succeed.
The individual via self-consciousness and self-acceptance can plan and take responsibility for his life thus portraying he has developed self-esteem as discussed by Brandon. Imposed by others self-fulfilling is based on others predicting your future. Thus it is similar to a victim who does not have control of his life (Branden, 2004). The book emphasis of the practice of self-responsibility urges a person to be in control of his actions and life rather than play the victim. Imposed by others, self-fulfilling prophecies illustrate a person whose actions are determined by others thus low self-esteem. The situation is clearly understood by using an illustration, for instance, in a family of very educated and successful people, a child may be forced to study beyond his capabilities to become for example a doctor like his parents. The child will develop a false inner awareness and will never enjoy happiness.
The major idea is the development of self-esteem, and it suits perfectly to the internal and external locus control since the two-locus controls differentiate the characteristics of a person with self-esteem and another with low self-esteem (Branden, 2004). A person with a high internal locus control believes that he can change or determine events around him thus portraying self-esteem as earlier discussed. Whereas a person with high external locus control believes, he does not have the ability to control or determine events. Such a person may also believe that others can control him thus showing the lack of self-esteem.
The book illustrates the creativity and simple way of revealing the author’s thoughts. It illustrates the confidence of the writer thus written to be more imposing to the reader and ensure that the reader can access himself as he continues to read. The simple wording and emphasis are used to complement the content of the book. The lack of examples is the only limiting thing that I would encourage the writer to add in case of a rewrite, the examples would enable the reader have more clarity of everything the author intends to convey and ensure that the reader is able to evaluate himself in a better way depending on the arguments and examples the author uses to discuss the six pillars.
In conclusion, it is evident to note that the book is written in a way it ensures total involvement of the reader and the ability of the reader to evaluate himself as he continues reading. It also helps a person learn the best way to feel worthy and stand tall to face every challenge while also encouraging gathering and understanding of knowledge which is key in ensuring changing stumbling blocks into stepping stones for a better future.
Reference
Branden, N. (2004). The six pillars of self-esteem . New York: Bantam.
