Action comes before esteem

One aspect of our American culture that annoys the older generation to no end (Bobby Knight comes to mind), is the insistence among “experts” that self-esteem must be raised to help kids improve and achieve.  Baseball fanatic and columnist George Will wrote about this in an article called How to ruin a child. A number of the ideas in this post stem from Will’s thoughts.  Some are applied to baseball.

As a teacher, I have sat through many training sessions on ways to improve self esteem so children can achieve

more in school.  There have been lots of studies done and articles written that suggest there is a need for this.  As coaches, we see it permeating through sports as well.  A trophy for every kid on the team.  No scoring – every game ends in a tie.  Both of these examples – there are many more – are an attempt to keep the esteem of kids high so they will keep trying and eventually succeed.  In his article, Will points to one elementary school in Massachusetts that banned jump ropes in gym class because they didn’t want the kids who were not good at jump roping to feel bad.  No lie, they had all the kids jump as if they had a jump rope in their hands.  Like it or not, many adults are listening and looking for ways to adapt the “self-esteem movement” to their activities with kids.  All involved have very good intentions.  On the surface, I would agree that having a higher self-esteem has benefits.  However, I have a problem with how many of the experts think kids should get more self-esteem.

One major aspect of the self-esteem movement that, in my opinion, is being completely overlooked is the fact that the kids are listening too.  In my view, the danger in this is that the message kids absorb is that they cannot achieve anything unless someone else raises their self-esteem first.  In other words, their success is thought to be more determined by the actions of others instead of their own actions.  As a result, anytime things don’t go their way, they react by blaming someone other than themselves – the coach, the teacher, the umpire, etc.  Analyzing their own effort level and making necessary adjustments just doesn’t happen as often anymore.  In short, as George Will states, we have a younger generation that increasingly cannot handle failure in a positive way.  That’s because of the misguided mantra they’ve heard since birth …

Self-esteem has to arrive before success.

I agree with Will that the reverse is true.  True self-esteem (as opposed to fake praise ), in my view, comes from taking action and overcoming any hurdles you encounter.  Is there anything better than making an error on the field, figuring out what adjustments to make, practicing those adjustments, and then making the play correctly the next time?  That is the process of improving self-esteem.  Action before esteem!  In that process, people also learn the values of effort, work ethic, persistence, assertiveness, and a long list of other great traits that lead to even more successes in the future.  Sitting back and waiting for someone else to inject some self-esteem into you will only breed frustration and anxiety because of the belief that you don’t have control over your own success.  That’s someone else’s responsibility.  Wrong!

One of the fastest growing industries in the past 20 years or so is the”self-help” industry.  Hundreds of thousands of books, courses, support groups, personal coaches, and seminars cater to those seeking to improve their own lives.  Exactly ZERO of them advise people to sit back and wait for more self-esteem to arrive.  It’s easy to see why this industry rakes in so much money.  The material they pass on are not being taught nearly as much as they used to be.  People have to find it (and buy it) on their own.  Unfortunately, this information used to be free.  You could always find it in the area we used to call “common sense.”

If you are a young baseball player, there is some good news that stems from this.  If you don’t buy into the prevailing view that self-esteem must come before success, you will have a lot less competition out there among your peers. 

No more excuses.  Get to work!