From the time a human being is conceived, there is an urge to discover self identity in the social world. As a result, one is able to acquire and relate information about themselves in such a manner that allows self discovery and definition. This information allows them to have a better understanding of their immediate social surroundings and how they relate to it. Thus, a developmental process that promotes learning, identification of goals, affective and cognitive skills, social skills, and psychological relations (Myers 2010).
Therefore, the concept of self can be defined as a process where one is able to gather relevant knowledge in the respect of abilities, societal role, belief in personality, and generally how they feel about themselves. Simply, it is a way in which a person can define himself or herself according to self knowledge and how other people regard the person. Hence, levels of identity differ as the person grows due to information gathered with time. As a young child the idea of self is more centralized to knowledge of skill, possession, and physical prowess. During middle childhood the child develops a psychological approach and begins to socially compare himself with the immediate surrounding. For example, one can say that he has blue eyes, I am tall, and I like crying. Another example about self is ‘I want to be a doctor because I perform well in sciences’. About the social surrounding a person can learn that ‘people say that I am very gullible’ or ‘people think I do not like jokes’. Concept of self is focused, learned with time, and organized in a dynamic perspective that infers an innate expression of a person (Omrod 2006).
When I began to wonder about my inner self, sometimes I was sure to understand the real me and have a divided definition of who I am. Amazingly there were close connections to my immediate surroundings and this helped me have a vivid identity. The foremost things in my mind gave me a brief definition of who I am. This is related to my university friends, my favorite games, and the focus on being an upright person. The reality of self gives a yearning to have self esteem. The importance of self is that I always learn in a deeper sense when I get angry and ashamed about various happenings. Certain pressing features like social identity and self ego really improve my personal, self, and spiritual growth. This all culminate in my day to day authentic life experience. The ideas that I regularly receive from myself and a few from friends dictates my life experience.
I came to learn about three reasons why self identity dictates my life experiences and its relation in developing my self esteem and self efficacy. The self definitions that I had about myself were sometimes irrational. The ego of what ‘I thought I am’ came to give me the realization that ‘I am not always what I think I am’. There was always something larger in the mere description of myself. A deeper reality of me was being revealed at a greater depth than what I identified myself with. For example, what friends think about me or my abilities and beliefs. Of course this led to my optimism in life.
Thus, having this reality of an extra concept of identity farther than my own ego made me focus on self esteem and efficacy. One guiding principal about self esteem is that, it is a ‘do it your self process’. In other words, it is always at my finger tips to take charge of what I want I want to be. Franken (1994) defines self esteem to be the changeable self worth, the choice between the ego and the big picture of identity. Different psychologists have a similar approach to self efficacy theory. Franken (1994) explains that efficacy is a directed connection from self esteem. A cognitive individual confidence that is nurtured and focuses on realistic accomplishments of goal set during the self esteem stage. This has for sure been realistically. That is, I can now know my shortcomings, work on them, and know the perfect limit on accomplishing tasks that are meaningful in my life.
One of the life experiences that nearly changed my efficacy was when my friend introduced me to the baseball team. Although it sounded great but it tried to alter my academic efficacy a great deal. My friend was always conspicuous in school and this made me socially out of place. Baseball has for many decades become a source of livelihood for many people but it could not just fit in what my inner identity sought after. Later, I opted for ‘first things first’ and won over the influence of peer pressure and chose a realistic goal. Secondly, my love relationship seemed jeopardized when a close family friend began to nose pick. My anger seemed a challenge for me to control. My ego was tempting to control the situation, but my deeper inner self send a chilling effect that changed my mind. I approached him in a civilized manner and later became one of the good friends that I have kept. Hence, these social experiences have helped me to have the ability to switch from my ego and focus on my inner identity and approach issues with agility of self esteem and efficacy.
References
Franken, R. (1994). Human motivation (3rd ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.
Myers, D. G. (2010). Social psychology (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Ormrod, J. E. (2006). Educational Psychology: Developing Learners (5th ed.). New Jersey, N.J., Merrill: Upper Saddle River.