Everything that happens to us today, what we do is critically evaluate ourselves, either good or bad on how we think we did, that’s our self-esteem. This measurement constantly shifts, becoming a difficult moving target to meter, depending on your mood.
The improvement of usually a low self-esteem as a result, has also become a multi million dollar industry on how to improve it.
Guidance which promises to pump you up, to improve your feelings of low self-worth to glorious heights.
But what is the true definition of self-esteem, what’s its functions and the radical dimensions it provides.
How You Feel About Yourself
It’s a vast territory of finding out who you truly are and fit into this world, a subject most have difficulty to pinpoint.
What’s agreed however, is there are different variances of self-esteem.
Most agree it’s how we feel about our self-worth, this based both on our macro and micro actions we display.
A macro viewpoint on how we generally feel about ourselves and our life overall.
The micro viewpoint on how we feel about ourselves on a daily basis, based on how we react or feel.
Our Macro View On Self-Esteem Varies
The more important and meaningful a given domain of a specific self-esteem result is to you, the more it’ll impact your overall general feelings of self-worth.
For instance, if you enjoy golfing and have a bad round, it won’t have that much affect on your self-esteem, as it’s not that important to you.
But it will damage your confidence greatly, if you’re a pro golfer.
Your Fluctuating Self-Esteem
Self-esteem can waver on a daily basis, or for some by the minute, as it’s driven by your confidence.
Similar to having a “bad hair” day, we for various reasons will wake up feeling great one day and miserable the next.
We also think of our self-esteem as being either good or bad, which is also confirmed based on our internal feelings from our external events that we’re faced with.
Is Having High Self-Esteem An Advantage
Ideally, we want our self-esteem should be high, but not to narcissistic levels.
Those who are narcissists usually has unreasonably high feelings of self-worth and praise about themselves, which ironically, is because of a low self-esteem.
Even just a small sarcastic insult that’s directed their way, can make a narcissist feel wounded.
This the reason why those genuine people with a stable self-esteem, appears to be healthier psychologically than those who has a big ego.
Self-Esteem And Being Physically Attractive
If someone thinks they’re attractive, it might be that they’re narcissistic, and they could also actually be attractive, which also doesn’t say much about their self-esteem.
Those with low self esteem, who are judged to be just as attractive as someone with a high esteem, will view themselves differently.
The difference comes down to how they present themselves.
If there are two people who are considered equally attractive, the one who happens to have high self-esteem, will dress better, be more confident, than someone who doesn’t.
Those who dresses less attractively are usually more insecure and lack worthiness.
What most also think attractive people naturally feel better about themselves, since they’ll get more attention and compliments.
Those With Low Self-Esteem Resist Positive Feedback
Most with low self-esteem, resist compliments and positive feedback that’s thrown their way, which should be improving their self-worth.
If someone has low self-esteem, they feel unworthy and may feel all the praise is in jest.
Some will also attempt to improve themselves, by giving themselves self compliments and positive affirmations. such as “I am worthy of love,” or “I’ll soon have success” etc. Most find that doing so doesn’t work.
Positive Affirmations And Low Self-Esteem
Those with low self-esteem, who needs all the positive affirmations that they can get, will tend to feel even worse about themselves if they self recite positive affirmations.
The reason being because these positive affirmations falls far short of their current beliefs, that they just tend to reject it. When someone has low esteem, reciting strong positive words only reminds them of how bad they actually are.
It’s found that those who benefit from positive affirmations are those who already have high self-esteem.
Most Self-Esteem Programs Don’t Work
Studies support that ones self-esteem doesn’t actually improve after using self improvement programs, which are intended to raising ones confidence. Yet, “self-improvement” remains a billion dollar industry.
After one goes through a self-esteem improvement program, what’s distorted are their memories of how they felt in the past, while recalling their self-esteem being lower than it actually is. What’s also believed is that their self-esteem improves, when it actually doesn’t.
Improving Self-Esteem
Once our self-esteem becomes higher, we’re less affected by stress and anxiety, while our failures and rejections aren’t as painful, and we recover quicker from them.
Our self-esteem also fluctuates back and forth much like our immune system, which buffers us from emotional injury. What we should be doing is everything that we can to protect and improve it.
Self Inflicted Self-Esteem
How we unfortunately respond to any rejection or failure is by becoming self-critical of ourselves, this by listing all of our short comings and faults. We think how “stupid” we are.
What we basically do is kick ourselves when we’re already down, this by using ridiculous self justifications which only justifies damaging our self-esteem even further, this when it’s already hurting.
“I deserve to fail,” “This will keep me humble,” “It’s completely true and I hate myself!” You find ways to keep your expectations low.
If there’s one thing that we could do for ourselves that will do wonders to improve our self-esteem, that’s by ending all of the needless self-criticism and damaging self-talk. Instead, just feel more worthy of yourself, which it’s free.