What Low Self-Esteem Is and How You Can Deal With Yours

My journey with low self-esteem began as a kid. I did not grow up in a wealthy home and as a child, most of my friends and classmates grew up in wealthy homes. I did not want to be the odd one out so I tried hard to look like them, buying expensive accessories and clothing that I could not afford. At first, it wasn’t easily noticeable, but soon it grew to become evident.

My whole life was centred around making sure they never found out I was not rich. My friends never received an invitation from me to come to visit me in our house and I never video call them when I was home. I was committed to keeping up a false image of myself because I felt that I did not measure up and that I was not enough.

Being liked and acceptable to people were things that I wanted badly and I had to keep up that image. I saw not being rich as a flaw and a big deficit. So I believed that if my rich friends believed I was like them, they would respect me and see me as one of them. A pity, right?

You may have low self-esteem too but it may not be exactly like mine was. Maybe you are insecure about a part of your body or you are unconfident about the way you speak. The good news is you do not have to be sentenced to live with that insecurity for the rest of your life. I was able to work through my low self-esteem to become more confident and I will show you how.

What is Low Self-Esteem?

Low self-esteem is having a low opinion, view, or regard for yourself. If you have low self-esteem, you will tend to think more negatively and very critically of yourself. In the long run, low self-esteem can affect your mental health causing issues like anxiety and depression.

Not Sure If You Have Low Self-Esteem? Here Are Some Signs:

You compare yourself to others:

This may not be an unhealthy habit when it comes to business and academic scores, but when it relates to one’s personal life, it can be very detrimental to one’s overall self-image. It is important to have in mind that everyone is different; we all have our strengths and weaknesses. It is very damaging to compare yourself to someone else because most times, you would only see their positive attributes and the good things that happen to them.

An example of a platform where comparison breeds are social media. Very rarely would you see someone posting something terrible that happened to them. Everyone puts their best foot forward. Secondly, we are all on different journeys. You have no idea how long and how hard that friend of yours who you compare yourself to, has worked on that skill you admire. Struggles are rarely shown, only the results.

You do not accept compliments given by others:

You do not believe them because you have allowed your negative thoughts and beliefs to dwell in your mind. So when someone says something positive to you they seem patronizing. Thinking negatively will never leave room for positive thoughts to thrive.

Being Extremely Affected by Criticism or Disapproval:

This is quite tricky because a person that has low self-esteem puts themselves down but when they are ‘put down by other people, they become even more convinced of the negative ideas they have of themselves. Once in a while, we receive compliments and likewise, criticism. The best attitude to criticism is to first ensure that they are valid and then take the lessons from them to build yourself or improve your skills as the case may be.

You Negatively Describe Yourself:

If you use words like ugly, failure, stupid, dumb, and so on to talk about yourself, then you might have low self-esteem. Describing oneself with negative words stems from experiences that they had during childhood. Maybe you lived with an aunt who insulted you all the time or repeated a class or had classmates who did not want to be friends with you. All these scenarios could be the root cause of low self-esteem.

Being egotistical:

This seems like the opposite but this is a very common form of low self-esteem. When some people feel they do not measure up in some way and are insecure about themselves, they develop a bloated ego trying to prove to everyone that they are important.

Causes of Low Self-Esteem

Rejection:

One might admire someone and want to befriend them but when this person does not want to be associated with us, we believe that there is something wrong with us and that births low self-esteem. A deep root cause of low self-esteem is the need to be liked and accepted. You buy shoes and bags not because you want them or love them but because you believe others would love them and by consequence, it would make others love you. You want to BELONG. No one wants to stand out. No one wants to be the weird one, the outsider. It’s in the DNA of humans to not be islands. To be part of a community, a crowd.

Pressure:

Some people grew up in homes where their family put a lot of expectations on them and they did not meet up those expectations. For example, a father may demand that his child performs excellently in school and if this child does not meet his father’s expectations and fails, and the father talks him down, the child might start to feel unworthy.

Negative Environment:

Being in a place where people are overly critical of who you are and how you do things can lead to having low self-esteem. Also, some people grew up in homes where there was a lack of praise and appreciation and that could contribute to them feeling like they are undeserving of love. Another form of negative environment is being in a home where people constantly compare you to another person. Bullying can cause low self-esteem because it will cause one to feel that they are inferior to other people.

How Can We Fix Low Self-Esteem?

Now that you have identified from the above that you have low self-esteem, it is not enough to have the information and do nothing about it. Working on it is as important as knowing about it.

A big part of self-esteem is a lack of confidence. You may have tried so hard to work on your confidence before and it did not work out. The way to counter low self-esteem is by being confident.

There are a few things you must understand.

1. The very first step to being confident is to stop negative thoughts and thinking at their source. That is the root of it all. You need to be able to believe in yourself. The low self-esteem you have has come as a result of many years of having, and brooding on very negative thoughts of yourself.
2. Love yourself: This is going to take some practice, intentionality. Accept yourself. You are human and not perfect. You have to learn to genuinely love who you are and what you have.

1. Positive self-talk: Anytime you catch yourself thinking negatively of yourself, counter that thought with positive words, yes words, not just thoughts. Speak out and say words you never heard. You are battling with years of strongholds. You have to be consistent with saying and thinking the positive even when there are no negative thoughts so that positive thoughts become your default. What might help, is having positive affirmations that you would speak to yourself every morning. Be intentional about it, take some time out and think of the negative thoughts that frequent your mind, and write down the opposite of those words. This will form your positive affirmations.
2. Take it easy on yourself: Nobody is perfect. Stop being so hard on yourself. When you see areas of yourself that need improvement, know that it is a good thing not a bad thing. You are smart enough to know that something needs improvement so you will be smart enough to improve it.
3. Stop seeking validation from others. Train yourself to value your opinions of yourself over others’ opinions. You can never be confident if you expect validation from other people. People will correct and criticize, do not take it personally. Sometimes, the criticism from others may not be from a good place and you should learn when to shut out such. Other times, it will be from a good place and when you realize it is valid, take the necessary correction and move on. Stop dwelling on what you did not do right and start dwelling on how you can improve, and what you did right.
4. Forgive yourself: Some people develop low self-esteem because they might have done something terrible in the past. Now they do not believe that they are worthy of love. You need to understand that what happened, has happened. The past cannot be changed, no matter how much you try. You can only make amends for the future. Learn your lessons, make the necessary amendments with the people you need to do so with, and move on. Forgive yourself.

Closing Thoughts

Bad things might have happened to you and you are not responsible for them but, you are responsible for dealing with them.

Think of yourself now, how you shrink. How you try not to make people notice you, how you have a lot to say but cannot say it because you feel everyone would make fun of you or criticize you. Would you like to keep living this way?

Now, imagine yourself being bold enough to walk up to someone to have a conversation with them. How does it feel? Imagine being the first to make a contribution in a meeting instead of waiting for others to contribute first. Imagine being able to oppose something you do not agree with within a group and standing alone. Doesn’t the thought make you feel good and powerful?

Your journey to being confident begins with you deciding to be confident.

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