What is Self-Esteem?
Self-esteem is the way you feel about yourself and your opinion on what you have achieved in your life. Moreover, it is about your self-image and how you perceive things about yourself.
Your opinion of yourself can differ from situation to situation. Sometimes, you may feel you are best and can achieve anything you desire. Whereas, other times, you may feel like you are a loser, you haven’t achieved anything in your life and may criticise yourself for this. Well, these things are normal. You shouldn’t always have high self-esteem or low self-esteem either. A balance of them is a must for your mental well-being.
However, people get confused easily between self-esteem and self-confidence, but they are completely different. Your self-esteem tells you how you are in your eyes, whereas, self-confidence tells you if you can achieve something or do something.
Also read, Important Life Lessons For Young Adults
How is Self-esteem Formed?
When you are a kid, you begin developing self-worth, you perceive things about yourself and your mind creates an image of yourself. Moreover, things like your personal experiences, trauma, interactions with people, and changes in life and surroundings affect your self-worth.
Your adolescence year plays a major role in shaping your self-esteem. It is the phase in which you start to perceive things differently, therefore, any minor event can transform your self-image completely.
Normally, when you perform certain tasks and get an appreciation for them, your mind sends positive signals therefore, your esteem increases. Moreover, if you fail or doubt your self-worth, your mind creates a negative image therefore, it drops.
Things That Cause Self-Esteem to Drop
Many things can cause your self-esteem to drop, some of which are:
Abuse- During childhood or adolescence, if you experience domestic violence in your house, several rebukes and abuse from your parents, you are prone to set a negative image of yourself.
Trauma- Suppose, you saw or experienced something tragic as a child or during your teenage years, it becomes difficult for you to forget that. Therefore, that tragic image creates a negative image in your mind. Whenever you try to perform a certain task, visit a certain place, or meet a certain person, your mind sends you negative thoughts. As a result, you feel low.
Underachievement- Life is a mix of happiness and sadness. Sometimes, you can achieve a target or perform a task successfully but sometimes you taste the disappointment. However, if you are reminded of your loss, you are most likely to not perform that task successfully again in your life.
Comparison- You may have heard somewhere- “Comparison kills talent”, that’s true. If your parents compare you with other children or you compare yourself with others, you may envy them. Moreover, when you feel something is lacking in you, you feel bad about yourself.
How to improve self-esteem?
You can improve it and build self-confidence by exposing yourself slowly to your fears, weaknesses, and trauma. Moreover, you can take the guided help from the professionals if it is necessary.
Believe in your abilities, and surround yourself with people who encourage you. Additionally, you can do the following things:
Journaling/Diary Writing
Writing a journal or a diary daily has a lot of advantages. It makes you reflect on what you did in the day and what you can do to improve yourself. Moreover, you can write gratitude notes and appreciate yourself for your achievements.
Many experts suggest journaling as it provides you with an opportunity to think constructively and pave the way for positivity to prevail. Moreover, you can write anything you want, your feelings or some ideas.
Practice Saying “NO”
Generally, your self-value is diminished by being available to the people. You need to understand that not all are grateful for the acts you do to favour them. Moreover, when you sacrifice something for the people by saying “Yes” to their demands or requests, you damage your ego.
So, it becomes necessary to say “No” whenever it is required. There is no need to please everyone as it is not necessary to be good in everyone’s eye by sacrificing something invaluable. Your time is precious, hence, devote it to doing something fruitful or to deserving people.
Stop Comparison
As discussed earlier, “comparison kills the talent”, when you compare yourself to others, you demoralise yourself. Nowadays, social media has become a prominent part of our lives. We get charmed and attracted towards the false appearances of the people. We believe whatever we see there, thus, we start comparing ourselves to them.
You need to understand that you are special, you are quite different from others. Moreover, be grateful for whatever you have. Instead of comparing yourself to others, compare yourself to what you were in the past to be a better person.
Celebrate Your Achievements
It becomes quite necessary to celebrate your achievements when you toil to achieve something. Furthermore, ask your dear friends and family members to join you in the celebration. All such acts will uplift your confidence and empower you to be ready for the next goal.
Beat the negativity- Let go of negative people
People around you play a crucial role in shaping your mindset and personality. Therefore, it becomes imperative to surround yourself with positive people who appreciate your achievements, support you during difficult times and are always there for you.
Nonetheless, get rid of the negative people who always try to pull your legs and never want to see you happy. You can identify such a person by their acts. They generally backbite, never appreciate you, demean you and try every possible way to demotivate you hurting your self-esteem.
Conclusion
Self-esteem is your perception of your self-worth. It plays a significant role in shaping your personality. Moreover, it can have a great impact on your life. Thus, it becomes important to have a balanced self-esteem.
Several factors influence your self-worth, some of which are your interaction with people, your friends, family and your surroundings. Nevertheless, there are things like abuse, trauma, comparison and other factors that can negatively affect it.
To make sure you remain high-spirited, surround yourself with supportive people, write a journal, practice saying no, stop comparing yourself and let go of negative people from your life. These things can help you boost your morale, empowering you to achieve great success in your life.