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Jaylynn LooThe self-esteem market has become oversaturated with artificial self-confidence and an influx in narcissism and entitlement. Nathaniel Brandon describes self-esteem as an internal relationship between an individual’s self-efficacy and self-respect. Ultimately, the belief in your abilities combined with what you think/feel for yourself equates to your self-esteem. Over time, this belief and method of self-promotion have proven to be ineffective. It is one of the most prominent themes in an individualist culture, which focuses on the individual at hand and only them. The new concept of self-esteem as self-compassion is essentially showing kindness and promoting a form of mindful thinking. Instead of taking things too personally and punishing yourself, you take things as they come as a learning experience. This idea has been taken from a collectivist culture and Buddhism; when you take care of others, you are taking care of yourself. Both ideas pose the idea of treating others how you would like to be treated; however, Brandon’s perspective is more of “treat others how you want to be treated” with the overall theme of doing things for others to return to you. The way Kristen Neff puts it is more of a give back to the world for the overall betterment of others around you for the greater good. Andrew AriasNathaniel Brandon’s has these different pillars for self-esteem. The first one states to be present in the moment, the second states improve what you can and accept what you can’t, rule three says remove victim mentality and be responsible for you own actions. The forth rule be assertive. The fifth rule is have a purpose in life and the last rule is the practice of personal integrity. Sel

f- compassion is meant to help yourself to help build self-esteem without being competitive, looking down on others, or comparing each other. It’s not a way of judging ourselves positively, but a way of relating to ourselves kindly, embracing ourselves as we are. There are three component self kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. It use to be that criticism would help motivate someone to do better, to show that ” I can prove you wrong, you’ll see”, but what happens if you can’t prove them wrong you then start to believe the criticisms. In self compassion or compassion the individual is motivated by “what can I do to improve.” Some people may say this is victim mentality but there is a major difference. victim mentality is “I am going to feel sorry for my self but not do anything because I can’t” and self-compassion is ” I am going through a rough time and I need to reach out for help or what can i do to improve myself”. of course sometimes there’s nothing you can do. I think Nathaniel Brandon’s is what is needed to have self-esteem, while self- compassion is what you can do to build self-esteem. I had low self-esteem through out my schooling. No matter what I did my parents never thought it was good enough. like I would bring a good grade, they’ll say its your job to get good grades, but if i were to get a bad grade it will always turn to a punishment. In the army they try to help motivate the trainees by criticisms, but that doesn’t work instead it has the opposite affect, it may not happen to everyone, but it happens. They also find that there is a lack of trust between the instructor and trainees so now there moving away from that and are now doing teamwork building exercises.