Self-Esteem at Work

Jeff graduated with a degree in marketing with good grades. Full of enthusiasm he dressed up in a new suit and took his new thin style briefcase to his first job interview. Although he felt the interview went well, the interviewer told him that they were really looking for someone with an MBA.

Jeff returned home shattered. The next day he did not get out of bed until noon and the pattern continued. He avoided job interviews, giving various excuses why he could not make them. When his girlfriend prodded him about looking for a job, Jeff began complaining of aches and pains. He made the round of doctors, who could not find anything wrong.

No one likes to fail. However, since we have no guarantees in life, we do move forward with our plans with the knowledge that things may not turn out the way we expect. Failing is part of life.

As painful as failures may be, they should not be devastating. We have to learn to have the emotional stamina, to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off and get back on the old bicycle...and peddle on.

A person with a negative self image, may look at a job interview set back as confirmation that he is a failure. After the first disappointment he may throw in the towel and say that there is no point in trying. He'll say he is unemployable. The interview went well and yet he still didn't get the job.

His low self image determines his life attitude-he retreats into passivity. Although doing nothing results in the greatest failure of all, it is easier for him to accept passive than active failure. He will then rationalize and fantasize that had it not been for circumstances beyond his control he would have succeeded.

Some people will be so afraid to fail that they will generate great anticipatory anxiety , which will then become the cause of the failure. This is called the William Tell Syndrome. According to legend, William Tell was an excellent archer who was ordered to shoot an apple perched on his son's head, and indeed succeeded. Even though he had everything to lose, William Tell had a healthy self esteem and he succeeded. Another archer, with low self esteem would have dreaded hurting the child so much that he could not have possibly held the bow steady.

A disproportionate fear of failing may generate so much anxiety that success is impossible. That is why people like Jeff, with little self confidence, may fail at challenges that are well within their grasp.

Based on Life's Too Short! by Dr. Abraham Twerski, St. Martin's Press, pages 48-52