Designing a Future Marked by High Self-Esteem

by: Dr. Joe Rubino
http://www.getmotivation.com

Studies show that more than 85% of the world’s population suffers from some degree of diminished self-worth. For most people who lack a positive self-image, the future looks like a mere extension of their troubled past. Their expectation of what is to be is consistent with what has been — with a slight and predictable level of improvement. Because of their lacking self-esteem, most are resigned to a life that lacks the excitement and passion that characterizes the lives of those who feel worthy of tapping into the best things life has to offer. People who possess a positive self-image typically have an optimistic expectation of what is ahead of them and as a result, they realize this expectation as a self-fulfilling prophesy.

In contrast to the state of resignation that typifies those with diminished self-esteem, consider the possibility that the future lives as the realization of a promise — a promise you make to yourself and to the world. The future will result from your expectations and the quality of your future will be impacted by the commitment you have for it. It lives as a possibility. In other words, you get to invent it. In fact, you are the sole designer and architect of what is to be and the result will be entirely consistent with your expectation and your self-image.

In other words, our future will be directly related to what we expect for it to be. If we doubt our self-worth and expect our future lives to be worse than our current situation, we will sabotage ourselves into making it turn out in alignment with this self-fulfilling prophesy. If we limit our expectations and plan on more of the same results we have experienced to date, our apathy will generate a future consistent with this expectation. To the contrary, if we believe in ourselves and our expectation is that our future will be better than our present situation, self-motivation will lead to actions that will bring about the positive outcome we envision.

If we feel good about ourselves and expect to live happy, fulfilled, and successful lives, we will take the actions consistent with realizing that expectation. We will therefore generate the opportunities that will result in rich relationships, abundance, and joy being attracted to our lives – because we believe we deserve it and act on this belief.

We get what we expect and attract prosperity or lack, joy or sorrow, rewarding relationships or angry, frustrating ones all as a result of whether or not we feel worthy. Just as we can doubt our abilities to succeed and our worthiness of attracting rewarding friends and intimate relationships, we can also instead choose to take full responsibility for expecting all aspects of our lives to be the way we want them to turn out. When we come from this positive mindset and commit to manifesting our dream lives, we put forth an energy that attracts all the things we desire to us.

Realize that you have consciously or unconsciously attracted everything that shows up in your life to you. If where you are in life, the relationships you have attracted to you, your physical, financial, emotional and spiritual states are not what you desire, decide now to alter your course. Decide that you deserve better. Get in touch with the erroneous decisions you made at an early age that impacted your self-esteem. Reframe how you see yourself and resolve to act from a declaration of who you are (just because you say so) instead of the unlovable, somehow defective or unworthy image you made up or bought into long ago.

Change your expectations. Design a life plan consistent with your new expectations. Make requests of those who can support your efforts in some way. The future exists for each of us as a possibility. When we do the necessary work to complete our troubled past and put the self-interpretations that do not support us behind, we can courageously decide to design our future lives deliberately to be in alignment with joy, abundance, fun, fulfillment, and self-love. When we train ourselves to first expect positive results and then to act in accordance with what we expect, we set the stage for a bright and promising tomorrow. We have the personal power to create our future on purpose. The future can unfold out of our declaration of how we see ourselves and what we expect it to be like. To the extent that we take responsibility to expect great things in our lives, ensure we give off positive, attractive, loving energy and then get into action to bring about our expectations, we will be the force behind the realization of a rewarding happy future characterized by soaring self-esteem.

So, my challenge for you today is to write out a clear and specific vision of exactly what your life will be like in every area including your relationships, health, wealth and finances, occupation, recreation and social life, and personal and spiritual development. Commit to resolving any past issues that continue to erode how you feel about yourself. I wrote “The Self-Esteem Book” and the accompanying “The Self-Esteem Workbook” to support you to learn the tools that will allow you to reinvent your life and how you see yourself. When you realize that you have the power to transform your world and enhance the quality of experiences you attract to you, you will begin to act upon opportunities for manifesting joy, fulfillment, abundance, success, and meaningful relationships. There are no accidents. You are reading this article now because you have attracted the opportunity to take a significant step forward. Seize the chance and begin to look for the countless opportunities to impact your life all around you on a daily basis. Transformation begins with the intention to look for opportunities that can make a difference in your life and then taking bold, focused action in the direction of your vision. All that it takes is courage to begin the process of restoring your personal magnificence and a commitment to consistent awareness and effective actions.

Dr. Joe Rubino is an acclaimed personal-development trainer, self-esteem expert, transformational success-coach and author of 11 best-selling books and audios available in 19 languages. He is the CEO of www.CenterForPersonalReinvention.com, a life-impacting personal excellence and leadership-development company and the author of the transformational www.SelfEsteemSystem.com.

When an Employer Just Is Not That Into You

by Liz Ryan
provided by BusinessWeek.com

No one ever said a white-collar job search was easy. There's nothing relaxing or carefree about tracking down corporate recruiters, following up on interviews, and playing phone tag for days with overstressed HR people and hiring managers. Job hunting is grueling, mentally and emotionally.

But if you think about job searching the same way you would planting seeds, you'll have a different perspective. Every gardener knows that many of the seeds he plants will get eaten by birds. Others will shrivel and die. But gardeners don't waste time tracking the progress of every seed or nurturing those that just won't thrive. They water the garden and see what grows. It's the same with a job search; not everything we do will bear fruit. The tough part is knowing when to give up on the seed that isn't going anywhere.

Employers don't like to send "No, Thank You" letters. They'll wait until the last minute, until the selected candidate (not you) has started work, or even later, before telling the rest of the pack, "We hired someone else." It's a shabby way to treat people and one of my least favorite corporate practices.

So you have to be alert earlier in the process for signs that you're not a front-runner for the job. It's easy to get stuck in the rut of continual and pointless follow-up, no matter how lackluster (or absent) the company's response. Here are some signs that they're just not that into you, and you'd be better served pursuing other opportunities:

1. Silence After Initial Contact

Let's say you get a voice mail from a company recruiter, and you in turn leave three voice mails without a response. That typically means the company recruiter made a bunch of phone calls to track down likely candidates and didn't reach you, but did reach four or five other people. Of those four or five, let's say three of the folks were great fits for the job.

What's her incentive to follow up with you? Very little, if any. If a series of callbacks elicits no response, leave one more message saying, "It seems that you're going in another direction with your search. Best of luck to you, and I'll assume that you're not interested in me at this point." Then, don't call back anymore. If they want you, they can find you.

2. Difficulty Scheduling a Phone Screen

Recruiters are as time-pressed as anyone else. When they have something they need to get done, they want to do it now. When someone calls you hoping to conduct a phone screen with you, they pray you're at home and ready to chat with them at that moment. If you're busy or unprepared, it's fine to schedule a phone screen for later in the week. But if they say, "I'll call you back to schedule your phone interview," that's a bad sign. There's a high probability they won't. And if you find that you're wasting calls and e-mail messages getting that phone screen scheduled, they're talking to other people they're more excited about. Let them go.

3. Last-Minute Interview Changes

Perhaps you're scheduled to come in and meet Joe, Javier, and Sandra. The day before the interview, there's a change: Joe and Sandra aren't available, so you're going to meet Cindy and Mohamed. When you get to the company, another change -- you're going to see Janice, or is it Janelle? -- the temp who's working in marketing. Lots of interview changes are a bad sign. Every company pays attention to its urgent items and lets others slide. If your interview feels like an afterthought, it's probably because after they scheduled you to come in they found the world's perfect candidate (not you) for the job.

4. Delay in Post-Interview Contact

Every corporate manager and HR person is overbooked, so we'll give them a week to collect their thoughts. The second week is when they should be scheduling people for second interviews, if it hasn't happened earlier. By the third week, you have to conclude that one of two things is true: Either your interview didn't make anyone's heart beat faster, or they're so disorganized (and discourteous) that you really don't want to work there anyway.

If you've sent a polite post-interview thank-you letter and left a follow-up voice mail or two, but find yourself sitting in RadioSilenceLand three weeks later, it's time to move on. You could get bumped at any point in the process: after your phone screen, after your HR interview, or after you meet the hiring manager. Rather than exhaust yourself following up on a dead seed, acknowledge the brush-off and move on.

5. Too Many Changes in the Process

You phone-interviewed for a sales engineer position, working under Stan. When they brought you in for a face-to-face interview. it had morphed into a product engineer position in Stella's group. Now they want you in again, to meet with Jared for an applications engineer position.

At this point, stop the action and request a live phone call with the person you feel most comfortable with in these conversations. Ask him or her, "What's going on?" With luck, you'll get a straight answer: A big reorganization is under way, or they love you and they're trying to find a spot that is actually budgeted to be filled this month. Don't stay in the process if you can't get anyone to level with you. Companies who play bait-and-switch are very often employers who value their employees' needs little, if at all.

6. Slow Follow-Up After Second Interview

By the time you've made two trips to an employer's facility, you're well invested in the process. If they are too, they should tell you. You should hear from a company within three or four business days following a second interview, and recruiters should be brimming with enthusiasm in their follow-up phone calls or e-mails.

If that's not the case, give them a heads-up that you've got other fish to fry; give them another day to fill you in on where you stand in their process, and then walk away. Just leave a voice mail saying, "I'm under the impression that you didn't find a good match between my background and the position we discussed; if I'm wrong about that, please let me know today. Otherwise, I'll close the file."

7. Delay in Extending the Offer

With corporate rigmarole being what it is, it's hard to get an offer letter approved these days. There may be a few days' delay between the call that says, "We really like you! Let's talk terms!" and the arrival of a written offer letter. A few days means three or four days, max. If you've been waiting a week-and-a-half and you haven't heard an update, you're being insulted. They don't think it's worth their time to pick up the phone and explain what obstacles they're running into -- or maybe they've lost interest.

You'll just have to cool your heels and wonder about that. That's a terrible sign, and a big signal to find a more communicative employer.

Talk to people at your gym, on the train, or at your next neighborhood barbecue, and you'll hear more than one story that ends with, "I should have paid attention to the red flags in the interview process." You'll hear it from people who failed to walk away when they should have, and wasted weeks or months being insulted by uncommunicative prospective employers.

You'll hear it from people who waited patiently for a disappointing offer, and from people who lived to regret accepting a job with an employer who executed a poorly run interview process.

You seldom hear from people, "I walked away when that company blew me off, and I wish I hadn't."

Baby boomers are retiring every day, and companies need talent. You need an employer who will treat you like a professional, and not a cog in its engine. Put your energy in pursuing the right job. Remember, not every seed is meant to grow.

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