The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself”

Mark Twain

Self-esteem is our own perception of self-worth or personal value, it is essentially the opinion we have about ourselves. This perception can influence the meaning we give to life events, situations and the way we respond to them. Self-esteem could influence the jobs and the risks we take (or we don’t), the decisions we make, and whether we get assertive, defensive or avoidant when dealing with others.

Esteem is one of the levels Abraham Maslow added in his pyramid of needs, right before self-actualization, making it both an internal (self-esteem) and external factor ( the need to be recognized and respected by others) for our fulfillment.

It is important to not mistake self-esteem with confidence in doing things. Being able to perform well doesn’t mean we value ourselves correctly. For instance, we may confidently present in front of people and still have low self-esteem, we can be the kings of the party and still have low self-esteem; it is known that some of the world’s most beautiful catwalk models admit to having low self-esteem, especially in regards to body image – self-esteem is what we consider as our total worth, not our capability to complete tasks.

What causes low self-esteem?

• Negative life experiences (adulthood) can bring our self-esteem down and make us temporarily fragile. When we have fragile self-esteem we’ll generally feel good, however when a life event negatively impacts us (eg: loss of a job, status, health or experiencing rejection) it may trigger strong feelings of inadequacy that could last from a couple of day to few months. However, as better experiences come along, our self-worth rises up. Successfully achieving a goal, positive encouragement and recognition will help recover faster.
• Early life experience (childhood) that could be related to being punished, neglected or abused, not being loved, praised and accepted – these actions and non-action behaviours that we experience in childhood will make us form beliefs or perceive ourselves as not being good enough and could cause our self esteem to be permanent impaired.

For some of us who continuously experience difficulty in life, starting early childhood and continuing into adulthood, there is a higher chance of having our self-esteem permanently impaired. Our experiences can create prolonged struggles in different life situations and interpersonal relationships become a key problem. Self-help alone may not achieve the desired results in this situation and could be considered short-term fixes. If you continuously experience low self-esteem issues, contact a professional to help you through the journey.

Because of these two major experiences, we form negative beliefs that can eventually be broken down into sub-categories and can influence every part of our life, being it personal or social.

What fuels the low self-esteem?

• Self-demeaning talk –You should’ve done better, you piece of s#@t! Why do you keep making the same mistake?! That was pathetic! You never learn, do you?. What you focus on is what you get, so by reminding yourself that you never learn, guess what happens? You never do.
• Shoulds – I should have done this. I should’ve known better. The problem with using ‘should’ is that it creates something fantastic, ‘perfect’ and it keeps you in the loop of negativity; instead of moving to the solution, you will focus on the things you haven’t done right or haven’t done at all.
• Anticipating disaster (anxiety towards events that didn’t happen yet) – If I do that, I will get hurt; If I say this, they won’t understand. You’re setting yourself up for disaster: firstly because you won’t do or say what you wanted to or you do it so hesitantly that the result will actually be as anticipated.
• The invisible safety net – avoiding things that make you uncomfortable and shake up your self-esteem, will only keep you safe short term. As comfy as the comfort zone is, the growth is outside of it.

Get back on track!

1. Set self-enhancing goals – Setting unrealistic or hard to achieve goals, thinking that pushing through is the way, can make you feel inadequate when you don’t achieve them. It’s good to have big goals, it’s better to be kind with yourself.
2. Acknowledge your strengths and qualities – Write a list of as many strengths and qualities as you can think of. If you haven’t done this before, it may seem hard to find some at first. If it’s in your culture or family upbringing “not to brag” it’s even harder. But have a go at it!
3. Be flexible with yourself – Recognise that your perception of how it should be, it’s exactly that: your perception. So next time you think to yourself “I should’ve known better” maybe you could try “I’ve done my best with the resource and knowledge I had at that time. I will do better in the future”

Maintaining self-esteem depends on how often we practice these 3 steps. Having a healthy self-esteem doesn’t mean we won’t encounter negative events or have negative thoughts ever again– it only means that we know our worth and recognise a balance in our strengths and weaknesses – life events bring lessons and growth opportunities!

You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection

Buddha