Low self-esteem is a common issue that brings a lot of people to counselling with many people want to explore and understand where their low level of self-esteem came from and how they can raise their esteem level.
What is self-esteem?
It’s a value judgement you make about yourself and your worth. Self-esteem can fluctuate, so when it’s high you might feel confident, capable and positive about yourself. When you experience low self-esteem you can develop feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt and negative self-talk. Although you might vary how you feel about yourself in different areas of your life or over time, patterns do develop and colour how you see all interactions. If you get stuck in a cycle of low self-esteem you can feel unlucky, almost like you’ve been dealt a bad hand, but there are things that you can do to work on changing how you see yourself.
If you focus on your internal self-judgement it is also likely that you also judge others and consequently expect others to be judging you too.
Why is self-esteem important?
People with high self-esteem do tend to be happier so it makes sense to think that increasing your self-esteem will naturally lead you to be happier. It is also has been linked to positively impact several important areas in life such as:
1. Relationships tend to be healthier and more fulfilling
2. Reduced risk of anxiety and depression.
3. Increased resilience – knowing that you can handle challenges.
4. Improved motivation – which could result in greater outcomes and success in life.
Having said that, it is important to question which came first? Did a high level of self-esteem create the conditions in which you can thrive or did thriving result in you having high self-esteem. It is almost a which came first the chicken or the egg. For the inverse, which came first your low self-esteem or your perceived lack?
Where does self-esteem originate?
Self-esteem is an amalgamation of a complex interplay of thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Our personal history, including early life experiences can shape how you see yourself. Societal and cultural expectations and norms might be something that you compare ourselves against when you try to determine your level of worth. Common areas you might base your self-esteem assessments on are attractiveness, peer approval, competition with others, success at school or work, family support, feeling virtuous. Sometimes people prioritise one category, for example if you base your self-esteem on your weight, the downside of this is when that area isn’t going well it will affect how good you feel about yourself. Other people strive to be good at everything which brings with it a lot of pressure which either leads to exhaustion or opting out altogether to escape judgements, this is often present for people who have perfectionistic tendencies.
The higher you go the further you have to fall, this is you see people that externally look like they have it all but still they struggle with low self-esteem. Once you achieve some success it can feel addictive, like you just want more as your compare yourself to the person on the next level above you. The higher you rise, the further you will fall and if you have low self-esteem imposture syndrome might creep in where you fear people might unearth the “truth” about who you really are.
The issues with self-esteem
At times, pursuing self-esteem as a cure all misses some key issues with self-esteem as a concept and using self-esteem as a foundation upon which to build your sense of self-belief and worth is quite shaky and unstable.
1. If you look for self-esteem by pushing others down to raise yourself up you will always been on the look out for revenge from others and perceive others as competition and threat ready to get one over on you.
2. Externally focused - what are you measuring yourself against? Commonly, it is social/cultural expectations or your ideal fantasy self, which is often not realistic or achievable.
3. Comparison – because self-esteem is based on our own subjective judgements, you can always find someone else above our below us to compare ourselves to.
4. Opinions are seen as facts – you convince yourself that your judgement is true rather than something you’ve created based on selective evidence or how you feel.
5. Overly concerned with others – the perceived judgement of others, especially strangers affect your self-esteem levels and impacts the decision-making, the more emphasis you had on protecting yourself from external judgement the less likely you will be living a life true to who you really are.
6. Can take the joy out of otherwise pleasurable activities - if you don’t do well, as defined by your own judgements then you will be disappointed and feel worthless.
7. Reduce trying new things – if you have to protect how you are perceived by others so you don’t lose your sense of self-esteem you might not try things that you don’t know the outcome of if you will be good at.
This shows that an emphasis on self-esteem based on social comparison and measuring up results in a constant state of flux, the goal posts can be changed at any moment and it can be taken away leading to constant striving and a lack of stability.
This is an unhealthy way to increase self-esteem not least because so much of it is out of your control. Other negative consequences include a need to gain power over others, to compare favourably or be better than them which can lead to isolation and loneliness.
Building your self-esteem
Self-esteem based on traditional understanding of measuring yourself up to specific standards and judgements has had a lifetime to develop so raising your level of self-esteem will also take time. An important starting point is considering tweaking ideas around self-esteem and what you really want to achieve, maybe aiming to feel good about yourself and increasing your ability to be in the world taking risks to increase your skill set (whether that be socially, for work or through fun activities and hobbies).
1. Reduce negative thoughts – judgemental thoughts, keep self-esteem low. You also don’t need to replace negative thoughts with positive thinking because as we have seen, high self-esteem isn’t the goal. Instead reduce and remove the inclination towards judgements and criticism to allow yourself (your values and what drives you) to naturally emerge.
2. Work on self-compassion – develop a kind, compassionate voice because it will enable you to care for yourself which will enhance how you view and connect to yourself.
3. Learn meditative techniques – this will help you to develop the skill of recognising the noticing or observer part of you. This is really helpful to realise when negative thoughts or a judgemental inner critic are being active. Strengthening the part of you that can observe and notice these patterns is really helpful because it empowers you because you can watch how your thoughts impact your feelings which then informs your response to situations. When you take a step back and recognise that an old story you have believed about yourself (your old low self-esteem story) is showing up, by observing and slowing the process down you have an opportunity to chose a new response, even if its just taking a breath and acknowledging that how you view yourself is internally generated and can change.
Changing your relationship with the self away from judgement and competition and instead direct it towards developing a compassionate, curious, non-judgemental stance will help you to like yourself more. To accept where you are at and allow you to stretch into unknown areas to increase your growth and mastery which will increase your sense of purpose, satisfaction and confidence.
If you are interested in having counselling, and would like to know more about how I work, arrange a free introductory call by emailing contact@carolynleith.co.uk