Recently I have stopped praising my children for success in athletic achievement, but rather asking them how they would grade themselves. If they grade themselves highly, and I agree, they get a high five.
I tell them that only they can fairly judge their level of effort, and if they know it was high, then they don’t need external reinforcement, which in any event will often not be forthcoming in the “real world” of adulthood. And if they know they didn’t do their best, then praise is saccharine, unnecessary, and unhelpful.
Surprisingly, they often don’t grade themselves that highly. My oldest recently gave herself a 20% on a cross country run. This seemed unfair to me, but I didn’t dispute it. I suggested that evaluation be remembered, and taken into account in the next race.
John Wooden once commented something like “I never got 100% out of my teams even when we won the national championship, and asking for 110% is just stupid.” He of course would never have been so unkind (at least, when not under direct competitive pressure) as to say stupid, but the sentiment was clear enough.
Action precedes affect. What you do tells you who you are. You cannot “be” in a moving world, without action of some sort. There is no essential self which is external to action, at least until one penetrates to the very core of Being itself, which is not what the Self Esteemists are talking about.
I think it is useful to get your ass kicked sometimes by events, especially as a child, so that you can learn the basic movement of getting back in the saddle and going again. Too much, of course, and you cringe and shrink from life; but too little and you are a superficial, silly little human being, who has nothing to offer to anyone that is worth a damn.