Focussing on "Self Esteem" has led to ever going rates of narcissim, I don't have access to the research right now, but Kristin Neff writes about it, how the focus on self esteem led to this expontential rise in narcissim in America. I think she has done a few talks on the research, you can start on her website if you want to track it down, or google scholar, or your university library. Some American educators have written about self esteem leading to narcissim as well.
So when I am working with young people I focus on Self Compassion, and learning Self Compassion Breaks, and I hope to be able to incorporate the top ten types of distorted cognitions, as well as some anxiety busting disputing.
Finding some comfortability in your own skin is a major achievement Link Removed. I don't have that yet but I am slowly chipping my way through my own stuff.
The ways in which you express things, and certain thoughts, can assist in you not being labeled or perceived as being arrogant, so you can say "I don't think you people need to do yourselves up for social media, there is nothing wrong with the real you". If you disarm people with validation, on some level, you can often get them to go on a journey with you.
My partner doesn't suffer fools gladly and can be quite abrupt with people, which, at times, is appropriate, however, in his new job he needs to be able to smooth over some volitile personalities, and manage some very fragile egos, so I have worked on him not trash talking with other people, but listening to their grievances with a focus on feelings, and a reframing of how lucky they are all to be employed where they are employed.
My partner has negotiated quite the mine field, and we have had to work out a range of strategies as he has gone along. There are a number of genius' and 90% of the people are on the spectrum, in such a profound way that hellos are avoided to avoid awkwardness.
So without giving up his own ethics and morality my partner has been able to do some management skills, and handling that has kept projects on track, without the seriously massive meltdowns. With that constellation of people there are going to be meltdowns, but they can be managed, and contained with some thoughtfulness.
So it is very tricky, and if you do the I am superior than other people thing, they may perceive you as arrogant. Sometimes you will be labelled as arrogant when you point out the massive skyscraper building gaping hole in their logic, and there is not much you can do about that. Sometimes you have to say it as it is. Sometimes you don't get on with people and that is a fact of life. Sometimes the crap coming out of their mouths is a complete waste of everyone's time, and some people call it. The other night a woman said that teacher's should go back to teaching like they did 40 years ago, and I said that is not possible, because only 12-15% of Australians went to the end of High School 40 years ago. And if they taught the way and the content that they taught 40 years ago then they would have to stop teaching at Grade 6 or Grade 7 because that was the level of content, and pedagogies what as available 40 years ago. I have done the research. I have read the primary resource documents. I know that politicians use teachers as a punching bag in Australia to avoid some of the real issues that are coming along like that facct that 40% of Australia jobs will be computerised in the next 10 years, and it is not immigrants or refugees or anyone stealing their jobs. It is not the teacher's fault that they are not training students for the jobs that they will have during their lifetimes because those jobs literally don't exist at this time. And this was like ahhhh crunch time because I wasn't goign to listen to absolute f*cking garbage about teachers again. The politiciams are the problem, and them slagging out teachers is not something I will listen to, and I will pull apart each and every bit of bullshit that someone has listened to. Standardised testing NAPLAN had failed in the U.K, and the U.S long before we even considered it in Australia, and there is a Lateline interview with the head of the American education system saying we went down this path and it didn't work, even before we started to implement, and as predicted, teaching to the test has decimated our literacy and numercy levels. Sure the kids can pass NAPLAN but coming out of primary school quite a lot of them can't read and write enough to do their year level work. I had kids in Year 8 who were Year 2 reading levels. I had Year 11s and Year 12s who couldn't write as well as I could in Year 7. So yeah I was as polite as I could be, but no backing down, and if that woman had kept going it would have possibly been the end of us in the social network, but I won't listen to that bullshit. What that woman as saying was so goddamned f*cking stupid and ignorant that I just couldn't do it. I have read and looked at the primary source documents. I know what it is like in the classroom, and I have seen my cohort fall apart this year from the ridiculous expectations and bizarre amounts of paperwork and demands.
On the other hand, if you can sandwich your challenging or negative point between two positive or helpful points, that can get your message across a bit more, and some people won't hear you no matter what you say because once they are in their fight, flight, freeze or fawn response they won't take anything in, so my partner and I have worked on "Catching people doing good things!" and complimenting them on that. And also when someone is quite relaxed explaining your point to them, not in front of other people, but in a low key way explaining your point of view. Until that person gets it, which with different abilities, skills, IQs, and lack of social awareness can take varying amounts of time.
Each situation, is of course, wildly different.
One of the top bosses got sacked recently for being patronising and condescending to the two main bosses, he kept blowing up at them and telling them what they were saying/doing was stupid. Whilst what he was saying is actually true, the way he expressed it was not helpful to anyone.
When there are serious Occupational Health and Safety issues you really have to get in their quickly and make your point. So there is a "you do this and you will be sacked" edict going around at the moment, and seriously that is the wisest course of action for that particular problem.
