The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem - The 5th Pillar: Living with Purpose

This is the sixth article from the review of The Six Pillars of Self Esteem by Nathaniel Branden. Until now we talked about:

• General introduction in self-esteem
• The 1st pillar: Living Consciously
• The 2nd pillar: Self-Acceptance
• The 3rd pillar: Self-Responsibility
• The 4th pillar: Self-Expressiveness

Today I will review the 5th pillar of self-esteem - Living with purpose

What does it mean Living with Purpose?

For me, living with purpose is the "why" behind all the other pillars. Why do I live consciously, practice self-acceptance, self-responsibility and express myself? Because I have a purpose. What I would ask you is:
Are you aware of your purpose? Do you know why are you doing what are you doing daily? How do you support your purpose with your actions?

We associate the idea of purpose mainly with the professional side of our life. Is the work that comes with objectives. Shouldn't we think also about our personal life the same way? When we are working we know exactly the actions we have to take to accomplish our objectives. Do we have the same approach on personal items?

According to Brendan the place of living with purpose in self-esteem's equation is "The root of self-esteem is not our achievements but those internally generated practices that, among other things, make it possible for us to achieve".
This means that, if we have a good level of self-esteem, not achieving our objectives won't affect us as much as we know we did something: "any action is better than no action".

Purpose and Productivity

How productive are you in your activity?
When my purpose is clear I know what I have to do and I have the internal resources to act. This makes me productive. It's intuitive that if I won't acknowledge my purpose I don't know what to follow. Some of my activities will conttribute to it, some will not. My productivity will decrease.

Purpose and Efficacy

We build our self-efficacy brick by brick, working on very particular cases:"We built our sense of fundamental efficacy through the mastery of particular forms of efficacy related to the attainment of particular tasks".
How can we built efficacy?
Being specific and measure the progress so we can correct the actions and get back on track.

Purpose and Self-Discipline

Purpose, usually, is something we have long turn, mission like. To achieve it we need self-discipline and postpone "now benefits" for future ones. In the same time, as we discussed in Living Consciously, is vital for our self esteem to stay in the present.
So, how do we manage to find the balance? I believe there is no general solution. What works for me is to find small rewards in daily activities that will support my long term involvement.

From theory to practice. Steps for a Life with Purpose

1. I take responsibility and state my purpose (should be positive, about me and in my control).
2. I identify the needed actions to accomplish it.
3. I monitor my behavior and I check how aligned it is with my purpose.
4. I make evaluate the results, I adjust when needed. I evaluate my initial purpose, maybe the adjustment needs to be done there.

Monitoring behavior and assess it versus my purpose and standards is one of the subjects we will investigate more in the last article from the series: Integrity.