Confidence is a vital personality trait. What does it give to a person? Firstly, a feeling of happiness. Anyone who has low self-esteem is prone to constant self-criticism and doubts about their actions. It is not surprising that in such cases life flies by and there is no need to talk about happiness and success. A self-confident person has a positive assessment of his skills and abilities, which means he can more easily achieve his goals.
In this article we will talk about what causes self-doubt and analyze effective methods for increasing self-esteem. First, let's talk about the concept of “self-esteem” and its functions.
What is self-esteem?
Self-esteem is a person’s understanding of himself, his qualities, feelings, positive and negative sides. This is an awareness of the importance of one’s personality and one’s actions in society.
Self-assessment performs the following functions:
- Regulatory - allows the individual to make his own decisions.
- Developmental - encourages a person to develop.
- Protective - ensures stability and independence of a person.
- Emotional - helps to feel satisfied with one’s qualities and other characteristics.
- Signal - shows a person’s true attitude towards himself.
- Adaptive - helps to adapt to the environment.
- Predictive - controls activity at the start of the task.
- Corrective - allows you to regulate the process of completing a task.
- Retrospective - gives you the opportunity to evaluate your activities and behavior at the end of the task.
- Motivating - encourages you to act in such a way as to receive praise.
- Terminal - forces you to stop any actions if self-criticism and dissatisfaction with yourself appear in the process of their implementation.
In essence, self-esteem is a person’s opinion of himself, which can be influenced by others: family, friends, work colleagues.
It is important to distinguish adequate self-esteem from self-confidence. Self-confidence is an overestimation of one’s importance to others, arrogance. Adequate self-esteem is the correct balance of one’s own strengths and goals, the most accurate assessment by a person of one’s skills and qualities.
Low self-esteem manifests itself in excessive self-criticism, self-doubt, and shyness. It is difficult for such people to communicate, they are often prone to depression.
Correct self-perception is a healthy assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, a competent presentation of yourself to society and, of course, self-love. A confident person focuses his attention on successes and conducts a constructive analysis of his mistakes without unnecessary self-examination and criticism.
An important point: if a person wants to be loved, he should first love himself. According to psychologists, people are drawn to successful and self-confident individuals.
Let's look at the typical signs of low self-esteem in the next section.
Signs of low self-esteem
What signals a person with low self-esteem? There are several classic symptoms of low self-confidence:
- Constant anxiety and fear of making a mistake, due to which all important matters are postponed “until better times.”
- Excessive criticism of oneself, comparing oneself with others.
- Reliability. Behind this lies the desire to please and please others.
- Envy towards other people.
- Painful perception of the evaluation of others.
- Pessimism, negative outlook on life.
- Jealousy.
- Self-pity, positioning oneself as a victim.
- Presence of problems in communication, fear of new acquaintances.
- Stiff movements, stoop, hesitant speech, etc.
A person with low self-esteem takes all failures in life for granted, which creates incorrect behavior. In this case, others also begin to evaluate him negatively, which can lead to depression.
It is important to understand that there are certain reasons behind such self-perception. Let's look at them in more detail.
How to increase your self-esteem: do not communicate with “parasites” and tyrants
Want to know how to boost your self-esteem? Avoid communicating with people who overload with requests, point out your obligations, whine, or, conversely, put undue pressure on you.
Parasitic people use others to solve their own problems. They regularly ask for some kind of help, services, and then completely sit on the neck, shifting their responsibilities to a more flexible and obsequious person. As soon as you tell them “no,” you will be subjected to a barrage of criticism and reproaches.
Such people often turn out to be tyrants and begin to exert psychological pressure - whining, cursing, gossiping and intriguing. Cut ties with them, otherwise you will live someone else’s life, not your own, and constantly suffer because someone was not pleased in some way. Get rid of the complex of a bad friend, wife or husband, sister or brother, ungrateful son or daughter.
Reasons for low self-esteem
According to psychologists, several factors can influence a person’s self-esteem: relationships with parents in childhood, assessment of others, fixation on a specific failure, appearance. Let's look at typical reasons.
Comes from childhood
Often parents surround their child with overprotective care, fearing that the child will take the wrong step, fall, or hurt himself. This influence creates a feeling of helplessness and ineptitude in the child, making him completely dependent on mom and dad. The result of such upbringing is that in adult life it is difficult for a person to make a decision and do something on his own.
The child also takes an example from his parents: if he sees that mom or dad are unsure of themselves, then they will reproduce this behavior in the future. For example, mom allows insults in her direction from her father, or dad doesn’t stand up for mom in controversial or dangerous situations, because unsure of his abilities.
Another reason comes from childhood - the lack of love of parents for the child and constant comparison with someone not in favor of the baby. This is the opposite of overprotection. The child is not noticed, is not given due attention, or, even worse, is offended and physically abused. As a result, the child loses faith in his own strengths and abilities. Such situations make a child a “difficult” teenager in the future.
Negative experience
In life, each of us has moments when we fail in business. This could be an unfulfilled relationship, betrayal by a friend, or a fiasco at work. And here it is important to adequately assess the situation, and not excessive self-criticism. Often a person becomes fixated on bad experiences and begins to avoid making decisions.
By the way, failures in childhood can cause serious psychological trauma to a child, which affects self-esteem in the future.
Influence of others
Society plays an important role in the formation of self-esteem. Where initiative and independence are not valued, confidence in the individual will not develop.
Excessive criticism of other people has a particular impact. If a person is initially weak-willed, then criticism has a detrimental effect on him: he gives up, becomes withdrawn, and lacks the desire to do anything. Often, weak-willed people deliberately begin to criticize themselves in public. Their goal is to get their words refuted and increase their own importance. In this case, it is important not to support the opinion of such a person, but to encourage him.
Communication with manipulators also contributes to a decrease in self-esteem. It is important for them to impose their opinion, to gain power over a person by instilling a feeling of self-doubt in their victim and extolling their importance.
External data
Dissatisfaction with one's appearance or the presence of visible pathologies are often the reasons for ridicule by peers and unhealthy criticism from others in adulthood. For example, if a woman is ashamed of her excess weight, then any statements on this matter from the outside will be perceived especially sharply and can even lead to depression, when for a self-confident woman criticism is a reason to become even better at something.
This is the case when it is again worth reminding of a simple truth: love yourself, and others will love you.
Whatever the reason for your loss of self-esteem, there are excellent methods that you can use to restore your self-confidence. Let's talk about the most effective of them.
What makes sense to work on if you want to develop and improve yourself?
Photo by Pixabay
Here is a list of 9 topics, work on which will give the desired results and at the same time fill you with new strength:
- self confidence;
- self-knowledge and self-acceptance;
- self-love;
- personal boundaries;
- development of an adult ego state, psychological maturity;
- assertiveness (the ability to calmly express one’s opinion, defend one’s interests, rely on one’s needs, often used as a synonym for confidence);
- social courage;
- fear of mistakes, failures, defeats;
- dependence on the opinions of others.
It is the development of these personal qualities that will open access to your own internal resources.
Effective methods to increase self-esteem
The most important step on the path to self-improvement is to recognize that there is a problem. Often a person disguises it behind other feelings and deliberately avoids resolving the issue. As soon as awareness comes, you can safely move on to the following methods of increasing self-confidence:
- Keep a diary of achievements. This step does not require any serious financial or time expenditure. It's simple: at the end of each day, take 10-15 minutes to write down your small and big victories that happened to you today. Maybe you read a book or finally got up an hour earlier than usual? You can always find a reason to praise. This will help you develop a positive mindset every day and focus your vision on personal success. It is important to re-read your notes daily.
- Change your environment. Evaluate those with whom you communicate most often. If there are negative people in your circle, refuse to interact with them. More often you are in the company of positive and successful people who are confident and have a positive attitude towards you.
- Play sports. The best way to distract yourself and clear your thoughts of negativity is physical exercise. In addition, if low self-esteem is associated with external data, sports will help you get in shape. By the way, during sports, our body produces the hormone of happiness - dopamine.
- Give up self-criticism and soul-searching. You won’t be able to increase your self-esteem if you constantly scold yourself for something or constantly express dissatisfaction with your appearance and abilities. Praise yourself more often and think positive thoughts.
- Avoid comparisons. Each of you is a unique person with your own individual set of qualities, strengths and weaknesses. Remember that there will always be those who have achieved greater results than you. In this case, it is worth taking an example from them, and not engaging in self-flagellation. Better yet, compare yourself today with yourself yesterday, and track your growth by recording your achievements in the diary we talked about above.
- Listen and say affirmations. Affirmation is a positive judgment that creates the right psychological attitude. These are our statements and beliefs, thoughts, feelings and desires that we want to have right now. It is important to formulate affirmations in the present tense. For example: “I have a prestigious and highly paid job”, “I am beautiful and healthy”, “I am a happy person”.
- Get out of your comfort zone. Yes, many people have heard about this method, but not everyone decides to do it, because it’s so comfortable and safe to be in your “shell.” Face your problem. Do you feel insecure when you are in a new company? Visit crowded places and events more often and be the first to start a conversation. Our online program “Best Communication Techniques” will be an excellent assistant for you, where you will learn how to interact more effectively with people thanks to interesting communication techniques. You just have to take a step and you will understand that everything is not as scary as it seemed at first glance.
- Attend trainings. There are many different training activities aimed at increasing self-esteem and gaining self-confidence, so all you have to do is choose the one that’s right for you. If you are not yet ready to take the training, watch a movie or read a book on a current topic.
- Forgive yourself. Uncertainty is often a consequence of feeling guilty about oneself. None of us are immune from mistakes, and it is important to be able to forgive ourselves for them. Write yourself a note and tell in it about your feelings, emotions, thoughts, problems, failures, and be sure to forgive yourself in writing for everything for which you feel guilty.
- Meditate. Meditation helps you completely relax physically and let go of your thoughts. There are many different techniques aimed at getting rid of self-resentment and achieving peace.
Self-confidence is not an innate quality, but rather formed in the process of life. Your main task on the path to healthy self-esteem is to love yourself, learn to believe in your own strength, which is only possible through daily work on yourself and your thoughts.
Do what you love, do not deny yourself small and big joys, always think about the good and then everything will work out!
Good luck!
We also recommend reading:
- Storytelling
- Overcoming impostor syndrome
- Conditions for character formation
- Formation of correct self-esteem
- How to increase self-esteem: practice from the field of NLP
- Egocentrism
- Three masks of pathological narcissism
- The Complete Guide to Self-Confidence
- Formation of self-awareness
- Psychological picture
- Self-criticism
Key words: 1 Communication, 1 Psychoregulation
Useful materials on the topic
In this block, I want to recommend you several useful courses and psychological simulators that will help you increase your self-esteem. The courses are conducted on the platforms of two different projects, all of them are of very high quality.
Vikium
I recommend Vikium to you first of all simply as a project for self-development. It is dedicated to the development of skills such as thinking, memory, attention, and recently materials have also appeared for the development of emotional intelligence and communication skills.
First, look at the simulators that are available here. They are all free. I provide a link to a general page with exercise equipment, where they are sorted into groups. Select the most interesting ones for yourself.
Now look at the general page with Wikium courses. There are only 18 of them so far, but the project is constantly creating something new, and the list of courses is growing.
To increase your self-esteem, I recommend these programs to you:
- Brain detoxification. This course allows you to remove all negativity, all bad memories from your head. You probably had periods in your life when you constantly thought about something bad, about the insult caused to you, about your failures, guilt before someone and could not get rid of these feelings. The techniques described in Detoxification will help you stop chewing the cud of negativity. Cost – 890 rubles.
- Emotional intellect. The course will teach you to better analyze your emotions and the emotions of those around you. It helps to cope with panic attacks and depression, to “grow” in your own eyes. Cost – 890 rubles.
- Brain fitness. This course is very expensive. But you have to pay not so much for the program itself, but for the “neural interface”. This is a small device that analyzes the electromagnetic waves coming from your brain. Based on the results of the analysis, the neural interface will create unique tips and recommendations for you. According to the developers, it helps with self-esteem, emotional stress, and even improves sleep quality. Cost – 17,990 rubles.
4Brain
There are also interesting materials on the 4Brain website:
- Human psychology. This is a general course in psychology, which also addresses issues of self-esteem and attitude towards oneself. I'm mentioning it here because it's completely free. You can familiarize yourself with the contents of the material only from your personal account. Therefore, register and study for your health.
- Mental self-regulation. A course on how to start liking yourself, how to stop focusing on the negative, how to grow in your own eyes and become happier. It includes 25 lessons, each lasting approximately 45 minutes. The total duration of the program is 6 weeks. The course can be taken from a mobile phone; it is well adapted for mobile phones and tablets.
