Self Esteem

Self-esteem can be defined as “the way you look at yourself”. Despite popular belief, having a healthy self-esteem is not about being boastful and intimidating, it is about feeling good about yourself and accepting the way you are.

According to better health, having a healthy self-esteem means that you are content with yourself and recognise the good that you do. Whereas having an unhealthy self-esteem tends to mean you feel unhappy with yourself and are rarely satisfied with anything that you do.

Many things in life can cause our self-esteem to go up and down but what is important is taking notice of things that make your self-esteem soar and eliminating, or finding ways to deal with, those things that make your self-esteem plummet. Self-esteem is such an important part of us as having low self-esteem can cause further problems such as anxiety and depression.

How Does Self-esteem Affect You?

Self-esteem can affect everything from how you feel about yourself to how you interact with others.  In order to truly feel happy with yourself and get the most out of your relationships with others, you need to have a high self-esteem. If you have low self-esteem there can be a tendency to have one-sided interactions with others where you tend to go along with things even if you aren’t interested or want to.

This can lead to a “circular” effect as the worse people treat you the worse you will feel about yourself and convince yourself that you don’t deserve better. Also, having low self-esteem affects your ability to move forward and take on new opportunities, as there is a constant worry about “failing or looking stupid”.

A low self-esteem also affects how you interact with the world on a daily basis as it can cause you to worry excessively about what others think about you. As a result, low self esteem can be a “self-fulfilling prophecy”: the feelings of inadequacy lead to becoming withdrawn, which further distances you from others.

This cycle, according to Reachout, looks much like this:

BELIEF - 'I Am Not OK'

BEHAVIOUR - Don't initiate conversations or look people in the eye.

FEEDBACK - Other people make little effort to be friendly towards you.

PERCEPTION - People don't like me; I am not OK.

(Therefore, the original belief is reinforced)