Team Wellness Advisory Board: Excessive Self-Esteem

Dr. Dennis O'Grady

Excessively confident people can tone down their act.

Don’t envy or get angry with those suffering from ESE. Fear and sadness have been out of their control for some time. ESE’s must learn they don’t have to deny tender feelings or be a pillar of strength for everyone.

Changing excessive self-esteem into high self-esteem is harder than raising low self-esteem, so don’t feel awful when your self-esteem is in the pits – the alternative is even worse!



Ways for ESE’s to grow and change:

Change before you lose out BIG time.

To Be Successful: Chances are you don’t know what people really think. You may not know someone as much as you’d like to think you do. Take interest in opinions other than your own.Ask for Negative Feedback: Begin to care how people think and feel.

Listen to negative feedback.
To Be Successful: Find out what grudges people are carrying toward you. Listen to even small gripes. Don’t isolate yourself from negative feedback through intimidation. Take Pride in Being Wrong: Care to know what people expect from you.

Embrace your own weaknesses.

To Be Successful: Stop defending your weaknesses. Your strengths have less to teach you than do your weaknesses. Make Your Relationships Really Matter: Weaknesses do not make a human being bad.

Stop living in a bubble.

To Be Successful: Stop protecting yourself with money, power, or status. Nurturing who you are is more important. Expose Yourself to Opinions Different from Your Own: Let yourself be stroked for your genuine self, not your status.

Stop pushing people away to prove a point.

To Be Successful: Is being right more important than being loved? Never. Pull people toward you.
Be Vulnerable: Winning isn’t anything compared to warm attachments.

Face your fears of intimacy.

To Be Successful: Intimacy means receiving a part of another human being and gifting that person, in turn, with a part of yourself. Face your fears of being hurt by intimacy. Be Interdependent: Stop being so high and mighty and start trusting and depending on others.

Let your sensitivity and caring show through.

To Be Successful: Sure, you’re tough, but softness will get you where you want to go. Balancing the two is best and will provide you with insight and intuition. Be Emotionally Balanced: Begin to express your sad feelings in small ways.

Face your underlying depression.

To Be Successful: Stop being a fanatic about work, fun, or success – lead a more balanced life. You are strong enough to stand up to depressive feelings. Be a Genuine Human Being: Focus on allowing yourself to experience a full range of feelings instead of just the good feelings.


Join a group where your status is unknown.

To Be Successful: Attend events where you are unknown and don’t say what you do for a living. Be a small fish in a big pond. Be Grateful: Enjoy finding out how you come across as a person.


Stop missing the glory of your past successes.

To Be Successful: Learn to be self-accepting when you aren’t a big star. Help support the successes of others more. Be a Team Player: Humility is superior to greatness.

Get therapy even when you don’t need to.

To Be Successful: Hire a therapist who is not intimated by you. Unblock yourself and become a caring human being. Be a Good Listener: Praise people. Take your future back into your own hands.

Being a superior human being means being open intellectually and emotionally. Learn to be genuine and vulnerable.