Self-Esteem

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is how a person evaluates themselves both emotionally and their self-worth. It is how one judges oneself.

A person can apply and evaluate their Self-esteem both on an individual subject or globally. An example of a specific individual subject would be, “I am good at helping others,” and a global evaluation might be something like, “I never do anything right.” Self-esteem can also be positive or negative. So having a high self-esteem or a low self-esteem. This is also closely linked to our beliefs about our self.

So where does our self-esteem come from?
When we are young, much of how we evaluate ourselves and our beliefs abut ourselves are formed and attained from interactions with our friends, family and schooling. How we interact with people as we grow up can have a major impact on our self-esteem later in life.

Did your parents always support you and tell you how wonderful you are? I have seen and heard many times how parents shout at their children and even swear them. Saying things like, “You are a stupid F…. little brat.” I can assure you that does nothing to enhance a child’s self-esteem. I am not saying you should falsely praise the child. What I am saying is that there are better ways of helping the child on the right path if they have made a mistake. Did your parents tell you that you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it and support you in your endeavors?

Have you ever heard a teacher say to student, “You are stupid and will never amount to anything.” I certainly have. In our house, the word stupid is not allowed. You are not your behavior and as such we should judge the behavior and not the person. So if a child makes a mistake, we can say that, that behavior was wrong, and help them to change their behavior. I have heard many people with low self-esteem tell me that their teacher said they would never amount to anything. In fact, that is also one of the reasons why many people don’t like further education, because they don’t believe that they will be successful. Did your teacher support you and offer to give you additional help when you needed it?
Did you have supportive friends when you grew up, or were you bullied? Unfortunately many children are bullied about their weight and as such they have a low self-esteem in regards to their weight when they grow up. In turn that demotivates them to do anything about it as they believe they would never be their ideal size. They unfortunate thing is that this is not only done by bullies, but also by family. I had one client who had such a low self-esteem, because her mom said to her at the age of 3 that she was fat and that she always would be. Talk about setting your child up for failure.
As we get older and we get into the workforce our self-esteem can still be either positively or negatively affected. This can happen in many ways, not least of which a manager that has inferiority complex and as such then consistently puts everybody under them down. I suppose they never heard the saying, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

Low self-esteem affects us in many different ways. One of the most usual ways is people who think they are not good enough to have the job they really want. Then of course our relationships can also be detrimentally affected if we have low self-esteem. This as an example is when your partner takes out all their issues on you and puts you down, because they don’t feel good about themselves. It could also be that you don’t feel confident in yourself and then keep wondering if they are looking at another man or woman instead. Many relationship issues stem from low self-esteem.

In closing for this particular article, self-esteem is an important part of our lives and can both positively and negatively affect us. So what can we do about it? In the next article we will look at ways you can enhance your self-esteem and live the full and happy life you deserve. There are a number of ways to assist you to improve your self-esteem with life coaching and hypnosis.

If you struggle with self-esteem issues and would like to speak to somebody, simply contact us for more information on how we can help.