What most people don't realize about self esteem

(credit goes to @Moana22, who wrote this post)

Hello lovely people!

Todays forum discussion for the Self-Esteem Awareness Week is going to be - what most people dont realise about self-esteem.

What is covered in this forum thread:

What is self-esteem?

low self-esteem

high self-esteem

Healthy self-esteem

Some things that you may find interesting about low self-esteem

What most people dont realise about self-esteem?

What is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is an individuals subjective evaluation of their own worth. In simpler terms, their opinion of themselves and their abilities. The need for self-esteem plays an important role in psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which portrays self-esteem as one of the basic human motivations. Maslow suggested that people need both esteem from other people as well as inner self-respect. When considering self-esteem, it is important to note that both high and low self-esteem levels can emotionally and socially affect an individual in an equally harmful way.

Relationships with those close to you — parents, siblings, peers, teachers and other important contacts — are important to your self-esteem. Many beliefs you hold about yourself today reflect messages you've received from these people over time.

If your relationships are strong and you receive frequently positive feedback, you're more likely to see yourself as worthy and have healthier self-esteem. If you receive mostly cynical feedback and are often scrutinised, ridiculed or devalued by others, you're more likely to struggle with poor self-esteem.

But past experiences and relationships don't have to be the guide to the future, they shouldnt dictate your journey. Your own thoughts have perhaps the prominent impact on self-esteem — and these thoughts are within your power. If you tend to focus on your weaknesses or flaws, working on changing that can help you develop a more balanced, authentic view of yourself.

Low self-esteem

Low self-esteem depicts a persons lack of confidence and negative feelings towards oneself. People who have low self-esteem highly doubt their abilities and often feel unloved, unvalued, worthless, incompetent, awkward, etc. Many psychologists consider people with low self-esteem to be hypersensitive as they have a flimsy sense of self and are easily prone to believe negative things about themselves. Rejection and criticism can affect these individuals very severely than it may to most people. Of course, both rejection and disapproval are hard for everyone but for a person with low self-esteem, it tends to be serious and more deadly due to having a feeble sense of self beforehand.

Signs of Low Self-Esteem:

You may have low self-esteem and consider working on them if you exhibit any of these signs of poor self-esteem:

Negative outlook

Lack of confidence

Inability to express your needs

Focus on your weaknesses

Feelings of shame, depression, or anxiety

A belief that others are better than you

Trouble accepting positive feedback

Fear of failure

Self-victimisation

Everything is your fault

(Too) High self-esteem

High self-esteem means a person who is confident in ones abilities and believes that theyre worthy of good things. People with high self-esteem, like people with low self-esteem, have weaknesses but believe that their strengths are what really shapes them. Usually, people assume that people who have high self-esteem dont have flaws, on the contrary, they have just as many flaws like any other human but they are also very aware of their strengths and recognise their weaknesses. High self-esteem may be considered to be healthy but its not always the case. People with high self-esteem may be confident to a fault. They find it hard to relate to other peoples feelings and may often get overly competent. Having high self-esteem is important but extremes of anything can be extremely harmful to both the individual and their environment.

Signs of (too) High Self-Esteem:

You probably have a (too) good sense of who you are if you exhibit the following signs:

Confident to a fault

Say ‘no a lot

Too optimistic

Ability to see overall strengths and weaknesses and feel overly proud of them

Negative experiences don't impact the overall perspective

Put their needs first

Highly competent

Find it hard to relate to other people

Mock others

You can never be wrong

Healthy self-esteem

Healthy self-esteem is an ideal level of self-esteem which is considered to be an absolute evaluation of the self. People who have healthy self-esteem tend to be open to both levels of extremes self-esteem. They have a balanced sense of self and arent either too confident or lack confidence altogether. They are aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and not let them be the dictator of their entire being.

Signs of healthy self-esteem:

They speak the truth as they see it, without fear of rejection and with no intent to harm others.

They know how to separate feelings from the message being delivered.

They recognize the role that emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt play in peoples lives.

They dont simply follow the followers. People with healthy self-esteem feel confident in their own opinions, interests, and beliefs.

They look for reasons to release others and believe in the ability of others to make decisions.

They know the past is the past and the present is the present. They recognize that to be emotionally healthy they must move from victim to victor. The strong person with growing self-esteem is the one who refuses to let the past control what happens today.

Some things that you may find interesting about low self-esteem is -

Having low self-esteem makes us resistant to every compliment and positive feedback that could improve our feelings of self-worth. When our self-esteem is low we feel unworthy of praise and actually get stressed out by the heightened expectations we believe the praise will bring. Many people try to enhance their self-esteem by giving themselves compliments in the form of positive affirmations, however, positive affirmations make people with low self-esteem feel worse. Sadly, the very people with low self-esteem, who need positive affirmations most, tend to feel worse about themselves when they recite them. Here's why: When a statement falls too far outside our belief system we tend to reject it. When someone feels fundamentally weak and disempowered, reciting how strong and empowered they are will only remind them how much they actually feel the opposite. Ironically, the only people who tend to benefit from positive affirmations are those whose self-esteem is already high.

Most of the damage to our self-esteem is self-inflicted. Unfortunately, we often respond to rejections and failures by becoming self-critical, listing all our faults and short-comings, calling ourselves names, and basically kicking ourselves when were already down. We then use ridiculous justifications to justify damaging our self-esteem when it is already hurting—I deserve it, I am unworthy, I cannot do anything or The whole world is conspiring against me and Im going to lose

What most people don't realise about self-esteem?

Self-esteem is important because it heavily influences people's choices and decisions. In other words, self-esteem serves a motivational function by making it more or less likely that people will take care of themselves and explore their full potential. Aside from a long list of self-esteems significance - what most people dont realise about self-esteem is that it fluctuates. Now, you may think you already know it, but if you are someone who has low self-esteem, youre likely to keep believing that it cannot change. Many people pay too much attention to their current level of self-esteem that it makes it hard for them to believe anything but that. To make this clear, lets consider a scenario - you are a person who has high self-esteem, you tell other people that you do and you tell yourself that too. Whenever a negative situation or constructive feedback is thrown at you, youre likely to dismiss it. Not always but usually. People with high self-esteem find it hard to accept certain things if they, for instance, are very confident about it. Similarly, people with low self-esteem are highly prone to self-victimisation. The more you believe you have low self-esteem, the more likely you are to have low self-esteem - what I mean by this is, you will constantly be questioning yourself and will think the whole world is plotting against you. You will not find it hard to accept negative feedback but you are prone to believe them entirely and often make it worse in your own head.

You see, because self-esteem fluctuates theres an equally likely possibility that you have neither of the extremes. In most cases, if not all - you dont even have low self-esteem, just a period of circumstances where you feel powerless and doubt yourself. The problem isnt having a high self-esteem or even low self-esteem but being too focused on either. Your current level of self-esteem doesnt design your fate.

Forum Discussion Questions:

How many times have you found yourself wondering how high or low is your self-esteem? Why do you think people worry about it so much?

What is your take away from this forum discussion or what new thing you learned today?