Poor Self Esteem

Self- esteem can be described as being central to our thoughts, feelings and behaviours. It can be seen as the medium through which everything else is experienced, like seeing the world through a self-doubting filter.

People with low self – esteem tend to have some common traits such as, feeling bad about themselves, being inhibited, low expectations of success, lack of assertion, poorer physical health and denigrating others.

In contrast people with high self – esteem, feel good about themselves, are more likely to achieve their potential, have high expectations of success, are more assertive, better physical health, and are able to tolerate and accept differences in others.

Low self - esteem may have its origins in our childhood, but those who reach adulthood with the same view of their selves are not necessarily stuck in a dead end. Many steps can be taken to help us feel better about ourselves.

STRATAGIES FOR BUILDING SELF – ESTEEM

The following strategies can help to build self- esteem by countering the automatic thoughts that work to undermine you.

Attack the prejudice

Low self-esteem is like a prejudice about ones self, seeing ones self as unworthy or unacceptable. This self perception is biased and flawed, but it can be very difficult to see this because we tend to discount, deflect and distort information that suggests that we are worthy. In learning to fight the bias involves three ideas:

1) Acknowledging your qualities and talents rather than discounting them.

2) Accepting compliments rather than deflecting them.

3) Recognising that you do matter, rather than distorting the evidence.

Stifle the critic

The critic inside you is always looking for opportunities to criticise what you are doing. For example, if someone who was feeling tired and frustrated shouted at their children, the internal critic would say things like “you are a hopeless parent….they will never learn to behave…… it’s all my fault”. Try instead to remember what really happened, remind the critic of your good moments and talk back to that part of you that can keep the critic in perspective. Finally put the critic, the exaggerator, in a box and close the lid shut!

Bury the judge

The judge is the part of you that says “I am in the way” and “I don’t matter”. The judge is very unfair, applying different standards to different people. For example it may say to a friend “well done for getting that job” but if you got the job it would say “you were just lucky they will get rid of you when they get to know you”. When you bury the judge you learn how to replace the judgements with facts. So once again challenge those thoughts and put the judge in the box with the critics!

Do the best you can do

There is an important difference between having an ideal and having a rule to live by, The ideal may be perfect and unflawed such as, “I must be a perfect person” But really this is not realistic, all human beings are fallible and make mistakes, so such idealistic rules can never be achieved, and we are setting ourselves up to fail. It is far better to use such ideals as a guide, rather than a rigid daily standard. So in this case a far more realistic statement might be, “I should try to be as honest and caring as I can be in each situation that I find myself in”

Develop friendships that make you feel good

Other people play an important part in your feelings about yourself. If your self esteem is low look at your current relationships, it might help to draw up a list of who helps you to feel good about yourself, and who undermines your self esteem. Making changes in your relationships could be one of the most important and effective ways of increasing self-esteem.