What did James mean by self-esteem? What, according to James, could be done to enhance one’s self-esteem?
James as a psychologist was the first person, who worked on the concept of the self-esteem. He has examined different circumstances to develop the idea that how a person feel bad or good about himself. He defined the self-esteem as the ratio of the things attempted by an individual to the things achieved him.
Without any attempt, failure cannot be experienced. In the absence of the failure there is no humiliation exists. Self-feeling is entirely depends on what we do and what we back for ourselves. It is calculated as the ratio of our supposed potentialities to our actualities. It is expressed as a fraction of our success with our pretentions.
According to the James, one can increase his self-esteem by attempting less or by succeeding more. Giving up of pretentions facilitates the relief. Less attempts means lesser experience of the failures, whereas succeeding more towards our goal with pure hard-work always result in the enhancement of our self-esteem.