People with a good and healthy self-esteem are able to feel good about themselves for who they are, appreciate their own worth, and take pride in their abilities and accomplishments. They also acknowledge that while they’re not perfect and have faults, those faults don’t play an overwhelming or irrationally large role in their lives or their own self-image (how you see yourself).
But why is building and being able to maintain high self-esteem so important?
- Life becomes simpler and lighter.When you like or love yourself more then things simply become easier. You won’t make mountains out of molehills (or out of plain air) nearly as often anymore. You won’t drag yourself down or beat yourself up over simple mistakes or over not reaching a perfect and inhuman standard.
- You’ll have more inner stability.When you like yourself more, when your opinion of yourself goes up then you’ll stop trying so eagerly to get validation and attention from other people. And so you become less needy and your inner life becomes much less of an emotional rollercoaster based on what people may think or say about you today or this week.
- Less self-sabotage.Most people’s worst enemy are themselves. By raising and keeping your self-esteem up you’ll feel more deserving of good things in life. And so you’ll go after them more often and with more motivation. And when you get them then you’ll be a lot less likely to self-sabotage in subtle or not so subtle ways.
- You’ll be more attractive in any relationship.With better self-esteem you’ll get the benefits listed above. You’ll be more stable and able to handle tough times better. You’ll be less needy and more of a natural giver. Being with you becomes simpler and a lighter experience with a lot less drama, arguments or fights based on little or nothing. And all of this is attractive in any relationships, not matter if it is with a friend, at work or with a partner.
It’s totally normal for people to feel down about themselves from time to time, but when these feelings start to hang around all the time it’s usually an indication of low self-esteem. If you have low self-esteem it means that you have negative ideas about your worth and value as a person. There are various signs of low self-esteem, including:
- Being really critical of yourself
- Focusing on the negatives and ignoring your accomplishments
- Comparing yourself to others
- Not accepting any compliments that you receive
- Negative self-talk
Causes of low self-esteem
The first step to building up self-esteem is figuring out why it’s low in the first place. It is not possible to identify one cause of low self-esteem for everyone. You form your beliefs about yourself over a long period of time and this process is likely to be affected by a range of different things. There are lots of different things that could be the cause of low self-esteem, including:
- Difficult childhood experiences – negative experiences in childhood, such as bullying, difficult family relationships or having a hard time at school, can be particularly damaging for your self-esteem.
- Difficult life events – difficult experiences as an adult, such as the end of a relationship, long-term illness, the death of someone close to you or being unemployed, can lower your self-esteem, particularly if you experience several difficult events over a short period of time.
- Personality and temperament – elements of your personality, such as a tendency towards negative thinking or finding it hard to relate to other people, could contribute to a poor self-image.
- Feeling ‘different’ – feeling like the ‘odd one out’, or under peer pressure to conform to social norms you don’t agree with, can affect the way you see yourself.
- Relationships with other people – other people may feed into your low self-esteem, being negative about you or making you feel like you have little worth. Or you may feel you don’t live up to other people’s expectations.
- Stress and excessive pressure – if you are under a lot of stress and finding it hard to cope, this can lead to feelings of low self-worth.
- Negative thinking patterns – you may learn or develop thinking patterns that reinforce low self-esteem, such as constantly comparing yourself to others or developing high standards for yourself that you can’t achieve.
- Discrimination and stigma – if you are discriminated against for whatever reason, this can affect the way you see yourself.
- Social isolation and loneliness – if you have limited social contact with other people, or find it hard to maintain relationships with other people, this can lead to poor self-image.
- Trauma, abuse or bullying – trauma, physical, sexual or psychological abuse and bullying can all lead to feelings of guilt and low self-worth.
- Mental health problems.
Sometimes it can be hard to identify what the cause of your low self-esteem is. It might be something that you’ve never really thought about, or maybe it’s too difficult to determine when it first started. Whether or not you know exactly what the cause is, there are steps that you can take to build your confidence and bring your self-esteem up to where it belongs.
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Positive self-talk
The way that you think about yourself has a huge influence on your self-esteem. If you keep telling yourself that you’re no good, you might just start to believe it even though it’s not true. If you notice that you practice negative self-talk often, check out some ways that you can challenge your negative thinking and build your confidence levels.
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Don’t compare yourself to others
It can be really tempting to measure our own worth against other people. So what if your friend is awesome at table tennis and gets great marks? You just need to figure out what your niche is. Everyone is great at something – what are your strengths?
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Exercise
Exercise helps to improve your mood. End of story.
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Don’t strive for perfection
It’s really great if you want to do things well, but keep in mind that perfection isn’t possible. Check out one person’s story of coming to terms with their sweet imperfection.
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Don’t beat yourself up when you make a mistake
Everyone on the planet makes mistakes – it’s in our basic human nature. Why should you be any different? When you stuff up, don’t stress, just learn from it and move on.
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Focus on the things you can change
There’s no point wasting all your energy thinking about things that you can’t change. Why don’t you have a think about some of the things that are in your power to control and see what you can do about those?
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Do things that you enjoy
If you’re doing things that you enjoy you’re more likely to be thinking positively. Schedule time for fun and relaxation into every day.
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Celebrate the small stuff
Start small and work your way up – you can’t expect any huge progress to be made overnight.
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Be helpful and considerate
Not only is helping people a great way to boost the moods of others, but you might find that you feel better about yourself after doing something particularly excellent.
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Surround yourself with supportive people
Don’t hang around people who bring you down. Find a group of people who make you feel good about yourself and avoid those who tend to trigger your negative thinking.
Try to build positive relationships. Try to associate with people who will not criticize you, and who you feel able to talk to about your feelings. If you spend time around positive and supportive people, you are more likely to have a better self-image and feel more confident. In return, if you are caring and supportive to other people, you are more likely to get a positive response from them. This will help you feel better about yourself and how other people perceive you.
If you have low self-esteem, there might be people close to you who encourage the negative beliefs and opinions that you hold. It is important to identify these people and take action to stop them from doing this, perhaps by becoming more assertive (see ‘Learn to be assertive’ below) or by limiting how much you see them.
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Learn to be assertive
Being assertive means you value yourself and others, and can communicate with mutual respect. It will help you to set clear boundaries. The following things will help you act in a more assertive way:
- Pay attention to your body language as well as to the words you say – try to be open and confident.
- Try to express your feelings if you have been upset – wait until you feel calm and explain clearly how you feel.
- Say ‘no’ to unreasonable requests.
- Tell people if you need more time or support with tasks that you find challenging.
- Try to speak in the first person where possible – e.g. ‘When you speak to me like that, I feel… ’. This allows you to explain what you want to happen without appearing aggressive or scared.
Assertiveness can be a difficult skill to learn, and you may need to practice by talking in front of a mirror or with a friend. Many adult education institutions, such as colleges or universities, also offer assertiveness classes. There are also several self-help books with practical exercises and tips available to buy or use online
12. Say stop to your inner critic.
A good place to start with raising your self-esteem is by learning how to handle and to replace the voice of your own inner critic.
We all have an inner critic.
It can spur you on to get things done or to do things to gain acceptance from the people in your life. But at the same time it will drag your self-esteem down.
This inner voice whispers or shouts destructive thoughts in your mind. Thoughts like for example:
- You are lazy and sloppy, now get to work.
- You aren’t good at your job at all and someone will figure that out and throw you out.
- You are worse or uglier than your friend/co-worker/partner.
You don’t have to accept this though. There are ways to minimize that critical voice and to replace it with more helpful thoughts. You can change how you view yourself.
One way to do so is simply to say stop whenever the critic pipes up in your mind.
You can do this by creating a stop-word or stop-phrase.
As the critic says something – in your mind – shout: STOP!
Or use my favorite: No, no, no, we are not going there!
Or come up with a phrase or word that you like that stops the train of the thought driven by the inner critic.
Then refocus your thoughts to something more constructive. Like planning what you want to eat for dinner or your tactic for the next soccer game.
In the long run it also helps a lot to find better ways to motivate yourself than listening to your inner critic. So let’s move on to that…