People are often confused about what it means to have self-esteem. Some think it has to do with the way you look or how popular you are with your friends or others. Others believe that having a great body will help you gain self-esteem, while others think you actually need to have accomplished something in order to have good self-esteem.
Boiled down to its simplicity, self-esteem simply means appreciating yourself for who you are — faults, foibles and all. It seems like other cultures don’t grapple with self-esteem as much as Americans do, perhaps because of the emphasis we seem to put on materialistic indicators of self-worth (like what kind of car you drive, what school your kids attend, what your grades are, how big a house you have, or what your title is at work).
The difference between someone with a healthy or good self-esteem and someone who doesn’t isn’t ability, per se. It’s simply acknowledgement of your strengths and weaknesses, and moving through the world safe in that knowledge.
Which brings me to the question I’m often asked — how can I increase my self-esteem? Here’s how.
People with a good and healthy self-esteem are able to feel good about themselves for who they are, appreciate their own worth, and take pride in their abilities and accomplishments. They also acknowledge that while they’re not perfect and have faults, those faults don’t play an overwhelming or irrationally large role in their lives or their own self-image (how you see yourself).
1. Take a Self-Esteem Inventory.
You can’t fix what you don’t know. This is one of the core components of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Before you get to work on putting CBT to work, you have to spend a fair amount of time identifying irrational thoughts and what-not.
The same is true for your self-esteem. To simply generalize and say, “I suck. I’m a bad person. I can’t do anything.” is to tell yourself a simple but often convincing lie. I’m here to tell you that it’s not true. We all suck from time to time. The solution isn’t to wallow in suck-age as the core of your identity, but to acknowledge it and move on.
Get a piece of paper. Draw a line down the middle of it. On the right-hand side, write: “Strengths” and on the left-hand side, write: “Weaknesses.” List 10 of each. Yes, 10. That may seem like a lot of the Strengths side if you suffer from poor self-esteem, but force yourself to find all 10.
If you’re having difficulty coming up with a whole 10, think about what others have said to you over the years. “Thanks for listening to me the other night when all I did was talk your ear off!” “You did a great job at work with that project, thanks for pitching in.” “I’ve never seen someone who enjoyed housework as much as you do.” “You seem to have a real knack for telling a story.” Even if you think the Strength is stupid or too small to list, list it anyway. You may be surprised at how easy it is to come up with all 10 when you approach it from this perspective.
This is your Self-Esteem Inventory. It lets you know all the things you already tell yourself about how much you suck, as well as showing you that there are just as many things you don’t suck at. Some of the weaknesses you may also be able to change, if only you worked at them, one at a time, over the course of a month or even a year. Remember, nobody changes things overnight, so don’t set an unrealistic expectation that you can change anything in just a week’s time.
2. Set Realistic Expectations.
Nothing can kill our self-esteem more than setting unrealistic expectations. I remember when I was in my 20s, I had thought, “I need to be a millionaire by the time I’m 30 or I’m going to be a failure.” (Don’t even get me started about how many things are wrong with that statement.) Needless to say, 30 came and I was nowhere close to being a millionaire. I was more in debt than ever, and owning a home was still a distant dream. My expectation was unrealistic, and my self-esteem took a blow when I turned 30 and saw how far away such a goal was.
Sometimes our expectations are so much smaller, but still unrealistic. For instance, “I wish my mom (or dad) would stop criticizing me.” Guess what? They never will! But that’s no reason to let their criticism affect your own view of yourself, or your own self-worth. Check your expectations if they keep disappointing you. Your self-esteem will thank you.
This may also help you to stop the cycle of negative thinking about yourself that reinforce our negative self-esteem. When we make set realistic expectations in our life, we can stop berating ourselves for not meeting some idealistic goal.
3. Set Aside Perfection and Grab a Hold of Accomplishments… and Mistakes.
Perfection is simply unattainable for any of us. Let it go. You’re never going to be perfect. You’re never going to have the perfect body, the perfect life, the perfect relationship, the perfect children, or the perfect home. We revel in the idea of perfection, because we see so much of it in the media. But that is simply an artificial creation of society. It doesn’t exist.
Instead, grab a hold of your accomplishments as you achieve them. Acknowledge them to yourself for their actual value (don’t de-value them by saying, “Oh, that? That’s just so easy for me, no big deal.”). It may even help to keep a little journal or list of things you accomplish. Some people might even do this on a day-by-day basis, while others might feel more comfortable just noting them once a week or even once a month. The key is to get to your smaller goals and move on from each one, like a connect-the-dots game of life.
It’s just as important to take something away from the mistakes you make in life. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, it simply means you made a mistake (like everyone does). Mistakes are an opportunity for learning and for growth, if only we push ourselves out of the self-pity or negative self-talk we wallow in after one, and try and see it from someone else’s eyes.
4. Explore Yourself.
“Know thyself” is an old saying passed down through the ages, to encourage us to engage in self-exploration. Usually the most well-adjusted and happiest people I meet are people who have gone through this exercise. It isn’t just about knowing your strengths and weaknesses, but also opening yourself up to new opportunities, new thoughts, trying out something new, new viewpoints, and new friendships.
Sometimes when we’re down on ourselves and our self-esteem has taken a big hit, we feel like we have nothing to offer the world or others. It may be that we simply haven’t found everything that we do have to offer — things we haven’t even considered or thought of yet. Learning what these are is simply a matter of trial and error. It’s how people become the people they’ve always wanted to become, by taking risks and trying things they wouldn’t ordinarily do.
5. Be Willing to Adjust Your Own Self-Image.
Self-esteem is useless if it’s based upon an older version of you that no longer exists. I used to be good at many things I’m no longer good at. I excelled in math while in high school, but couldn’t do a calculus problem today to save my life. I used to think I was pretty smart, until I learned just how little I knew. I could play trombone pretty well at one point, but no longer.
But all of that’s okay. I’ve adjusted my own beliefs about my self and my strengths as I go along. I’ve become a better writer, and learned more about business than I ever knew before. I don’t sit around and say, “Geez, I really wish I could play trombone like I used to!” (And if I cared enough to really think that, I would go and take some lessons to get good at it again.) Instead, I evaluate myself based upon what’s going on in my life right now, not some distant past version of me.
Keep adjusting your self-image and self-esteem to match your current abilities and skills, not those of your past.
6. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others.
Nothing can hurt our self-esteem more than unfair comparisons. Joe has 3,000 Facebook friends while I only have 300. Mary can outrun me on the field when we play ball. Elizabeth has a bigger house and a nice car than I do. You can see how this might impact our feelings about ourselves, the more we do this sort of thing.
I know it’s tough, but you need to stop comparing yourself to others. The only person you should be competing against is yourself. These comparisons are unfair because you don’t know as much as you think you do about these other people’s lives, or what it’s really like to be them. You think it’s better, but it may be 100 times worse than you can imagine. (For instance, Joe paid for that many friends; Mary’s parents have had her in sports training since she was 3; and Elizabeth is in a loveless marriage that only appears to be ideal.)
I know I made this all sound easy. It’s not. Changing your self-esteem takes time, trial-and-error, and patience on your part. Make an effort to be more fair and more realistic with your own self, however, and I think you may be pleasantly surprised by the results. Good luck!
- Looking for more in-depth help with self-esteem? Check out Tips for Building for Self-Esteem
70 comments
Thank you so much for this article!
I’ve struggled with this for some weeks now. After reading this article, and working on the different steps I really feel better. As a naturally ambitious person I realized that i was setting goals for myself that were no near realistic, and certainly not all at once. My big goals actually just stressed me out. You are doing good work here on this site, you can list that in your “accomplishments”- column 😉
Regards.
Advices that do not just force one to do this and that, but simply maintain a conversation and place everything in our mind gently. Very realistic and easily comprehensible. Hope that it helps me bring some change. Thank you.
Thank you for this beautifully written article. Almost every word you have written here resonates with me. Also, reading this at a time where a bad relationship has hit my self esteem out of the park and I am looking to recover from the chain of negative and self-defeating thoughts in the healthiest possible manner. Reading your article reminded me that loving and embracing oneself is always the healthiest way out of negativity.
I am now convinced that building high self-esteem takes patience and effort, particularly when someone has a history of abusive childhood, but getting to a point of higher self-esteem will just make life so much more meaningful. I am glad to have chanced upon your article. Grateful.
I would love to read experiences of those who have taken efforts to work on themselves, made good progress in building self esteem, has faced some challenges etc 🙂
I believe the majority of countries have a society where status/wealth/beauty/education/ etc are sought after and considered to be “success/status”..not just America..
The part on the comparison has really made me feel so much better. I often become very stressed out because of my competitive nature, now I see why (because of the article) I really do not need to compare with others. I have tried so many ways to change my mindset and only your article had the power to do so. Thanks for the great analogy!!
Thank you for this page it is very helpful. I have recently been offered a job with a law firm. I am terrified that i cant pass the exams and that i am not clever enough to do it and that when i get there they will realise this and they wont keep me on and then two years studying (after a first degree) will make me old to start a new career. I dont want to do it because I am so scared of failure. I also hate still being a student and feel worthless because I dont have a proper income and am living at home. I feel like all my friends are moving on now and i am still living off my mum and dad. I feel very guilty and useless when my mum and dad go out work and i am at home studying they never say anything to make me feel like this but i do.
it is very usefull for me
well i dont know who would help me…bttt i m kindly waiting for someone expert or wellwisher to take me out of this problem… i am kind of sensitive person so thats why i face alot of problems, i know this all because i have low self esteem, and base of this is my dreadful memories, my childhood in school, today i perfect girl, having beauty and all other good things which people may wish btt there are thrones or wounds in my mind in unconcious part, my school life, when i was a child i belonged to a middle class family while all other my classfellows were rich and good families, so they and some teachers used to hurt me alot, some teachers and that time is just like wound in my life, i see those scenes in my dreams, that disturbs me alot… make me upset and now i have an opportunity to get a job there, i m not getting the point that should i join that school or not, would that be suitable to face those teachers who used to beat me in front of whole class and making all others to laugh on me because i could not study good because i belong to middle class family and went directly from urdu medium to english medium. should i join that school, will be useful for me to remove all those memories??? i i should join so what should be my beahviour with those teachers who treated me so badly…??? should i be artificial with them, because i totally hate them and dont wanna see them,because those teachers remind me all those memories, that hurt me alot. so wtt should i do???? plz tell me
https://psychcentral.com/lib/about-cognitive-psychotherapy/
you might have selective abstraction, wherein the event is distorted because you focus too intently on it and out of context.
Thank you this is just what i need a breath of fresh air
Self esteem is such an important part of your daily happiness and is a key component that should be addressed in any therapy. The suggestions mentioned above are very helpful.
A good topic presented with simple tips and thoughts. Thank you. We should learn to improve our self esteem. If we do not have respect for ourselves, we cannot expect others to give us the respect that we deserve. Those people with high self esteem are usually accepted by others.
This is really great actually, was kind of having an episode just now and had a realization that all of the things i was worrying and getting upset about were related to my self esteem. Google search for help led me here, and Im grateful it did.
Thanks so much, keep up the good writing.
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