What is Self Esteem?
The concept of self-esteem represents one’s value or worth. It depends on how highly you regard and value yourself. Self-esteem is enduring and consistent, and it shows in a person’s personality.
It combines emotional states and personal beliefs. Personal beliefs include things like “I am stupid” or “I am blessed,” while emotional states include things like a triumph, pride, and happiness.
It is possible to predict certain outcomes, including happy relationships, happiness, and even illegal acts, using the concept of self-esteem.
With these few details regarding self-esteem, we can see how crucial it is to our achievement and how important it is to our life. How can one develop self-esteem?
Self-esteem does not come from other people, including your family, friends, or your accomplishments. Even strong encouragement from family or friends has the power to increase your self-esteem. However, even the smallest positive and negative self-talk can boost or lower your self-esteem.
The experiences in a person’s life shape their sense of self. People with low self-esteem have faced difficult situations in life, such as being harassed, neglected, mocked, or emotionally abused. What signs would you look for in someone who has low self-esteem?
They see life in a negative way.
- They aren’t able to trust anyone else.
- They are obsessed with perfection.
- They are scared of taking risks.
- They are scared of being mocked.
- They rely on others for making decisions.
On the other hand, those who have positive self-esteem display the following external signs.
- They’re confident.
- They are aware of their own strengths.
- They’re positive.
- They are problem solvers.
- They can handle different emotions.
- They trust each other.
Types of Self Esteem
Self-esteem is divided into three categories. They are low self-esteem, high self-esteem, and inflated self-esteem.
Low Self-esteem
Low self-esteem individuals perceive themselves as being below average. They don’t value themselves, have no faith in their own abilities, and do not believe themselves
A person with low self-esteem hardly achieves any success in their life. Their whole life is miserable. Addiction, despair, anxiety, and poor relationships are some consequences of low self-esteem.
High Self-esteem
The majority of individuals are unaware that having high self-esteem can also result in negative traits like narcissism or arrogance.
High self-esteem individuals normally feel good about themselves without external forces. They are confident in social settings, and happy the way they are. In general, they are self-assured, feel good about themselves, are upbeat, supportive, helpful to others, and have good communication skills.
By nature, they are outgoing and ambitious, and they are quick to learn from their errors. These things offer people the power and adaptability to take control of their lives and learn from their mistakes fearlessly.
Inflated Self-esteem
People who have high self-esteem frequently believe themselves to be superior to others and are quick to devalue others. This kind of self-esteem is actually highly harmful because it prohibits those who possess it from developing deep, fulfilling relationships.
They always want to be in the lead, and they frequently don’t care if doing so means harming others in the process. They do this because they believe it will make them happy.
Obstacles of Self-Esteem
The expectation of success is self-esteem. As we’ve previously stated, self-esteem is a value you place on yourself rather than a characteristic.
When you feel good about yourself, you are driven to put in the effort and time necessary to accomplish your goals. Success comes from your efforts, not your sense of self-worth. Without self-worth, you lack the will to work hard to accomplish your objectives.
Here is a quick list of the challenges to self-esteem.
Critical Authority Figure
If you were constantly told that you are not good enough and that everything you achieved is not good enough, is it possible to develop into a mature adult with positive self-esteem? No, kids with low self-esteem come from families where their parents were judgmental of them and did not see anything admirable in what they achieved.
It’s challenging to be proud of who you are when all you ever heard as a child were words that influenced you. You are subjected to blindingly awful humiliation.
Uninvolved Caregivers
If your parents didn’t inspire you and make you believe that you deserve better, it will be a challenging job for kids to motivate themselves. Parents pay little attention to their children’s accomplishments and when they do, they do not admire their success.
Children who grow up in these environments feel mistreated. Their surroundings may give them the impression that they have no obligations to other people, yet this is a result of holding onto childhood emotions. Unacknowledged emotions may lead a person to believe they are unworthy.
Conflicts within the Authority Figures
Children take the negative environment as a role model when parents or other caregivers quarrel or disagree frequently with them. These frightening circumstances make kids feel bad. These sentiments of contamination continue into adulthood for children. It is challenging to accept and love yourself when experiencing such emotions.
Trauma
Self-esteem is seriously affected by emotional or sexual abuse. Anyone who has been subjected to this kind of abuse finds it difficult to trust them and develops anger toward the rest of the world.
They try to move past the violence by blaming themselves, which makes them feel disgusting and shameful. The trauma of these incidents can impede the growth of one’s self-esteem.
Intellectualizing
When you think, you do not consider your emotions; rather, you consider yourself in a clear and logical way. You assess yourself and consider how you compare to others’ perceptions of you or your accomplishments.
You must engage with your emotions if you want to increase your self-confidence. You need to have confidence in yourself and see yourself as a success rather than an unfulfilling failure. Strong positive feelings should start you thinking briefly about yourself.
Negative Self-Talk
Some of us are self-critical; we do this frequently. People don’t view themselves the same way as they do other people. They care more about others than they do themselves. You need to be a positive role model and avoid negative self-talk.