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Mentoring and Self-Esteem

Couple of weeks ago I was in Toronto to attend a very special event -G 20- and no, not Group of 20, but GIRLS 20 Summit…20 girls aged 18-20 from each G20 countries gathered in Toronto to start a global conversation about the economic prowess of girls and women and commitment to creating a space where girls voices can be heard globally.
As a part of this summit, I had a privilege to attend a group discussion with Jess Weiner, the Self-Esteem expert about Mentoring young women in your life.

Do you know any young women in your life? Maybe you have a daughter or a sister? What is mentoring? What are we supposed to do?
Jess’s talk was amazing, I could have posted the whole talk here, but here’s the snippet of what I really loved.

It was great to see Erica Ehm again, she was sitting beside me in this video, and on my other side was another amazing woman I met that day-Kim MacGregor who started this amazing website www.IBelieveShesAmazing.com . She brought her 11 year old daughter, who was such a sweetheart.

After Jess’s talk, G(irls)20 Summit’s delegates came in and told us what their advice would be for a 13-year-old, as we believe 13 is the pretty important age when we think about woman’s self-esteem.
These young women were so mature beyond their age and I was so inspired by them. Here’s one advice from Julie from USA, which I particularly enjoyed.

“Challenges will shape you into the person you will be in the future” What a great reminder.

Everybody I met that day inspired me so much and got me thinking about Self-Esteem…I know of a beautiful, absolutely gorgeous woman-she is in her late 30′s- but she has extremely low Self-Esteem. She is very thin already, but she is constantly worried about what other people(by people, I mean men) would think of her. Every time I think about her and her lack of Self-Esteem, it breaks my heart, because that is NOT something I can just give her. She has to gain the confidence herself and she has to start loving herself.

What can we do to stop seeing women like her?
I believe in talking to young women and mentoring them. Talk to them and listen to them. Teach them to love themselves just the way they are.

I encourage you to join the Dove Movement and share your advice on building positive self-esteem.
What would you tell your 13-year-old self?

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 4th, 2010 at 5:29 pm and is filed under Dove Movement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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  • http://www.bodykarma.ca Kanna

    Absolutely amazing and I wish I had this Dove Movement when I was 13.
    Positive self-esteem is still much underestimated in my opinion and would love to do anything to help to gain it for those young girls with lots of great opportunities! I am joining the movement right now!

  • http://www.napkindad.com The Napkin Dad

    It all starts with the parents. The parent (or mentor) obsessed with what people will think raise girls (and boys) who are obsessed with what others think. Adults able to talk and think through what one thinks to see if it is valid, right, useful, helpful, true, (or some part of one of those) and acts accordingly help raise children who do the same.

    Sometimes I think it’s not so much about self-esteem as it is about self evaluation. Instead of evaluating what someone somewhere may or may not think of you, evaluate what you think of yourself. Did you do a good job or a lousy job? Are you healthy, fit and active, or are you an inactive lump on a coach, doing nothing? Don’t answer it with ‘well, my mom would say….’ or, I know this girl who is on the track team and in the student government and compared to her….’. Answer it with your own self-evaluation. That is the only way to truly gain strong self-esteem. It has to come because you have understood yourself and taken steps to become who you want to be.

    When I was doing a certain photography project years ago I would ask the people what they thought their best facial feature was. Almost on cue they would respond ‘Well, most people think…’ and I would stop them. I would respond ‘I don’t want to know what most other people think, I want to know what facial feature YOU think is your best. Which one do YOU like the most’. Sometimes it would be the same, sometimes different. But the mindset is completely different when you evaluate yourself instead of when you just believe how others have evaluated you.

    TND

  • http://www.yukaripeerless.ca Yukari

    Thanks for the comments and so sorry for late reply.
    Kanna, thanks for the support!
    Marty, great insight. Yes, I agree that parents play such an important role in raising kids with healthy Self-Esteem, or Self-Evaluation. Us adults often get so caught up with what others think, and it is so important to remember the most important person in your life is YOU.