Self-Esteem from Achievement

It's tricky separating self-esteem from approval-seeking, but I'm working on it.  I know that one difference consists of the motivation through which I do things.  I have a gallery of my photography on display right now at the Journey sim, the opening for which taking place on Tuesday June 12.  My mentor said to put it out, and so I did.  The main feature is the artwork depicting my mentor's submission: there is a picture in that collection that makes me tremendously proud for having achieved it.  Art for art's sake, is the point there: I didn't do it for anybody else, this one particular picture.  I just let my mind and skill loose on the artwork to see what would happen; experimenting and teasing out the final result.  I did it for me.  So often I catch myself thinking, "so and so will enjoy this when it's finished..." or "such and such a group will get a kick out of this..." and I think those are the nascent thoughts of approval-seeking to a certain degree.  Only to a certain degree.  But when I am occupied in deep concentration, working at a particular piece, and I say to myself, "good job" then I know that it is my own achievement, and my own self-esteem talking.  And then, when so and so ALSO happens to say "good job," my self-esteem sky-rockets.  It is not approval that I sought.  It was spontaneous praise, and I feel like a million bucks.

If I were mentoring other submissives in the world, I would say to them, "Have something that you strive to do exceptionally well, regardless of how well you do it at the moment....  Strive for something big."  I would suggest they have a passion, something character-defining, something that builds self-esteem that is hard, real, tangible and evident.  Something that allows for measurable progress.  (The photographs at the beginning of my journey are measurably inferior to the ones today, which themselves are measurably inferior to the photographs of the future.)  Something that a future owner or Master or Dom (or equivalent) can look at and examine to know parts of her that aren't otherwise visible.  Something about which to say, "Here are ways that you are different; here are ways that you excel; here are ways that you improve; here are ways that you shine."   I would say, "Stretch.  Flex.  Do something that will make yourself proud first.  Then, when someone else says, afterwards, 'Great work,' you can believe in the praise, and you have already felt it, and you can look into so and so's eyes and say proudly, 'Thank you, Sir' and feel like a million bucks, which is in one way connected to your submission and in another way connected to your soul-core."  No matter how good you are now, or no matter how much you suck at it, practice makes better and better and better.  Better and better self-esteem, that is.