Chasing Your Dreams with Greater Self-Esteem

You’ve probably had this challenge sometime too – your self-esteem felt low. What if you could re-write that story? Often, low self-esteem comes from stories we tell ourselves.

After meeting this extraordinary woman, Pam Flowers, then having a chance to later interview her, I reflected on what can we learn from Pam about being fully engaged for our own lives:

I met Pam while road-tripping across America. Pam told me that, before she started this trip, she’d been left in a “cruel” manner by the man she was supposed to marry. She knew this experience had eaten at her self-esteem. So, at 46, weighing 100 pounds and standing five feet tall, Pam Flowers would set out on a 2,500 mile expedition, as the first female to mush alone across the Arctic. This journey was, in part, a chance to recover some of her self-worth.

Pam knew this trip would not be easy. A potential sponsor for her journey said he expected a large, aggressive woman. “He was convinced, just by looking at me, that I had absolutely no chance in succeeding.” But Pam said she “had a good feeling about this [dog] team. All of them showed tremendous enthusiasm for running. I knew from my own experience that intelligence, desire and dedication can be more important than age, size, and muscles.”

On the expedition, Pam would face tremendous odds and extreme challenging conditions: violent blizzards, a near-miss with hypothermia, an encounter with a polar bear, and the disappearance of her lead dog, Douggie. Then melting ice and the knowledge that, as she wrote, “if we couldn’t reach the shore before the sea ice melted, we might die…

“My journal entries for this portion of the journey end here. At this point, the dogs and I were struggling so hard for survival that I didn’t have the energy to keep writing…

“I thought very seriously about giving up. [But I couldn’t] abandon my dogs to die.” Ultimately she would decide, “We would make it all together or not at all.”

And when they completed their journey, Pam felt they won the greatest reward of all: self-respect.

Following her expedition, for years Pam shared her inspirational story with schoolchildren throughout America.

During one of her talks, a school principal asked, “When you were out of food, nearly freezing, your lead dog was sick, what really motivated you to keep going?”

Pam paused to give it careful thought.  “I wanted to show that my dogs and I could do it,” she said. “My dogs were all ‘clunkers’; the other mushers said my dogs couldn’t do it. But I knew they could. I wanted to show people that we could…

“And I wanted to show that someone who was a small person with ordinary looks and no sponsors could do it.”

The principal turned away and started to cry. Then she turned back to face a full classroom of students and said to them, “Kids, your entire lives you’ve been told you can’t do it, that you’re not good enough. Next time you hear that, you think about this woman and find strength in her story.”

Pam’s experience shows us that believing in ourselves can give us the strength to share our story, and help others.

How can this spirit of full engagement and confidence help us live our best selves?

I caught up with Pam a few years after we’d meet to interview her.

Three tips she offers:

1.  It’s important to have a dream. Because it gives you hope and lifts us out of the negativity that often surrounds us. If you don’t have a dream, how can you make it come true?
   
   As I reflect on Pam’s comment, I feel having a clear dream helps us be more present. You know where you want to go. Now, how do you want to be in this moment? And is that helping or hindering you from accomplishing your dream?
    
2. ASSUME you will succeed. Pam says to look into your heart about what you want to do: If you don’t think it’s important, make it important. How? ASSUME you will succeed. Pam says, “Based on my own experience, I could look back and remember when I said I would cross the Arctic with a dog team. NO one thought I could do it. I always assumed I would succeed. There was a time when I was the only person on earth who was right about something and that is a very empowering feeling.” She adds, “ASSUMING success is one of the most empowering things I’ve ever done. Just assume you will succeed, and when you don’t it’s always a big surprise.”
   
   Yes…Armed with a Presence Practice you then get to fully enjoy this journey!
    
3. Ask yourself 2 questions to begin. When I ask Pam what happens if you’re afraid of assuming you’ll succeed, she says: “Everyone’s afraid of failure. You have to be honest with yourself and be honest with what you want to do. Ask yourself two questions: 1) Do YOU think that you have what it takes to be a success? (Not what others think…) 2) Are you willing to do what it takes? If so, stop whining, shut up and get on with it.”

I love that.

I then asked her if she had any parting words.

“Yes,” she says. “The title of a book: ‘Don’t tell me it’s impossible until I’ve already done it.’”

Jillian Robinson is a Certified High Performance Coach whose passion is to help people live their best selves with the consistent feelings of full engagement, joy and confidence. She loves to interview and coach changemakers and parents committed to positively impact young peoples’ lives. Her vision is that, someday, personal development will be taught as commonly as math and science. When you participate in her programs, you become part of that positive change.