Improving Your Self-Esteem
Recognize that many people suffer from low self-esteem. You are not alone. In a recent study, research found that only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful.
Identify the thoughts, feelings, physical symptoms, and behaviors associated with low self-esteem. Many people mistake these thoughts, behaviors, and feelings with personality characteristics. However, negative thoughts are not the same as actual characteristics. These types of thoughts, feelings, physical signs, and behaviors are like “symptoms” of low self-esteem. Recognizing the symptoms will help you know what thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to target for improvement.
Listen to your inner monologue. When many of the following thoughts occur, it’s like you’re hearing a voice inside your head. These thoughts are often automatic, almost like a reflex. I’m too weak/not skilled enough/not smart enough. I hope they don’t think I’m a jerk. I’m too fat/thin/old/young/etc. Everything is my fault. I think I have to be perfect when I perform at my job. My boss doesn’t like my report. I must be a total failure at my job. Why try meeting new people? They won’t like me anyway.
Pinpoint the way you feel about yourself. Feelings, like thoughts, often stem from an inner dialogue that does not accurately reflect the facts. I feel so ashamed that my boss didn’t like my report. I’m so angry at myself that my boss didn’t like my report. I’m so frustrated at my boss for criticizing me. He never likes anything I do. I feel anxious/panicked when I’m with people I don’t know because they’re probably thinking about how fat I am. I’m not strong enough to compete, so I won’t even try. I feel anxious most of the time.
Look for physical signs that relate to low self-esteem. The following may be physical signs that you have low self-esteem. I can’t sleep most of the time. I am tired most of the time. My body feels tense. When I meet a new person (or I’m in another uncomfortable situation): I sweat profusely. The room spins. I can’t catch my breath. I blush a lot. I feel like my heart is going to pound right out of my chest.
Assess your behavior to see if your self-esteem is influencing your life. If you find that one or more of these behavioral statements apply to you, your self-esteem may be having a greater impact on the way that you live than you realize. I don’t go out/I don’t like people to see me, or me them. I have trouble making decisions. I don’t feel comfortable expressing my opinions or speaking up for myself. I don’t think I’m capable of handling a new job, even if it is a promotion. I get upset very easily. I argue with the people in my life a lot. I get defensive and yell at my family. My friend calls me “Cat” all the time and I don’t like it, but I’m afraid if I say anything, she won’t be my friend. I’m too self-conscious to have sex. I have sex even when I don’t want to. Everything I do has to be perfect. I eat well past being full. I can’t eat more than one meal a day or I’ll get too fat.
Identify your negative thoughts. Whether you realize it or not, your own thoughts in your head are trapping you inside the cycle of low self-esteem. To feel better, it’s productive to identify when these types of thoughts are happening, and find ways to overcome them. There are some typical negative self-statements you can become familiar with, so if you come across some of them, you can target them for elimination.
Don’t be a nagger, putter-downer, or a name-caller. Imagine you have a “friend” who is constantly by your side, and this friend constantly berates you. He or she calls you bad names, tells you that you are doing everything wrong, you’re not worth anything, you’ll never achieve anything, and you’re unlikable. Wouldn’t that get you down?
Avoid being a generalist. The generalist will take a mistake, an occasion where he or she did not perform to expectations or excel, or other things that go wrong and generalize it to their entire lives. For example, if a person steps into a pothole, she might have these thoughts if she were generalizing: “Why do things like this always happen to me? I’m just cursed. I never have any good luck at all.”
Fight the urge to be a comparer. People who compare always feels inadequate because people with this type of thought pattern are always busy comparing themselves with other people, and believing that everyone around them are better than them. For instance, a comparer might say this: “Look at that. My neighbor has a Hemi truck. I don’t think I could ever afford one of those. I’m such a failure.”
Shun the voice that turns you into a catastrophizer. People who catastrophize make determinations about their entire lives based upon one incident. Here’s what a catastrophizer might think: “I got a B in this class instead of an A. Now I’ll never find a job.”
Remember that you are not a mind reader. Mind readers always think that people think the worst of them. In actuality, we don’t really know what other people are thinking. Mind readers have a tendency to make assumptions about what other people are thinking or the reasons they are doing things, and the mind reader thoughts are always skewed negatively: “That guy is staring at me. He’s probably thinking what a freak I am.”
Commit to eliminating negative thoughts. With all this negative input, it’s no wonder self-esteem suffers. If you recognize your own unproductive thought patterns, you can combat them. It takes time and patience, because changing old habits takes a lot of work. Taking it in small steps is very helpful. It’s easier to do little bits of progress, and it’s easier to get in the habit of treating yourself well by thinking positively.
Differentiate between opinion and fact. Many times, it can be difficult to recognize what is an opinion and what is a fact. Our inner thoughts are often opinions, even if we think they are facts. A fact is a statement that is irrefutable, such as: “I am twenty two years old.” You have the birth certificate to prove it. Opinions are not irrefutable. An example of an opinion is: “I’m always stupid.” This statement is refutable. Some might think it’s not, and they will offer evidence of times where they feel they were stupid, such as, “I’m so stupid, I fell off the stage when I was eight.” However, when exploring this experience, a person can learn a few things, such as: If an adult was responsible for overseeing the project, that person should have considered your safety. People are not perfect and make mistakes. Even Einstein has admitted some mistakes in his career. This shows that no one is really stupid if they make mistakes. Even geniuses make mistakes. And not just one or two, but lots and lots of them. Even if you have experiences supporting your negative beliefs, you should also have experiences supporting when you’ve made great decisions and have done some very smart things.
Using a Journal to Improve Self-Esteem
Start a self-esteem journal. Now that you know some reasons why loss of self-esteem occur and the basic negative thoughts that are responsible for perpetuating low self-esteem, you can begin the process to change your beliefs about yourself. This process might be easier to do on the computer, so you can change the organization around so it makes sense to you without having to start your journal over again. A spreadsheet format is a good way to keep your thoughts organized and allows you plenty of room to experiment.
Become a negative thought detective. For a few days, keep track of your negative thoughts. You can keep these in a paper notebook, on a word file on a laptop, or your iPad. Observe all the negative statements you notice that you make to yourself. If you don’t recognize them by type, it’s okay. Write down the statement anyway. For example, One of the items on the list was, “I’m going to fail if I try to make it as a writer,” along with associated thoughts: “Why even bother? No one will like it anyway. No one has anything original to say anyway. It’s all been written before.”
Organize your list. Title this column “Negative Thoughts.” Put the thoughts into order, the top of the page containing the ones that bother you the most, and the bottom the thoughts that make you the least upset. If you see different types of statements that have something in common, group them together. For example, “I’m going to fail if I try to make it as a writer” is at the top of the list. All associated negative thoughts can be included with this thought, but the lead sentence can be thought of as the title for this sentiment.
Find the root of each negative thought. Make a column next to your Negative Thoughts column and call it “Memory/Experience Associated with This Thought.” A person or experience might come to mind. Write it down. If not, just leave it blank. Understanding where you’ve been will help you realize why you feel the way you do. For example, “My father told me I would fail if I tried to be a writer.” Remember, if you remember someone stating a negative comment to you, this is not a fact! It’s only their opinion, and you will be able to find a way to refute it. Note: If this step makes you so upset that it’s difficult for you to function for the rest of the day or week, or makes it difficult for you to continue, stop and seek professional therapy.
Identify feelings associated with each thought. In the next column, titled “The Way This Thought Makes Me Feel,” write down any feelings you might have associated with this negative statement. This will help you realize that your thoughts affect your emotions. For example, “It makes me want to give up.”
Identify your behaviors. In the next column, write “How I Act When I Think and Feel Like This.” Then try to think of a recent event that will help you realize how you behave. Do you get quiet? Do you yell? Do you cry? Do you avoid eye contact with people? This will help you see how your thoughts and feelings are interconnected with the way you act. For example, “When I saw contests or invitations to write, I ignored them even though I want to be a writer more than anything else.”
Adjust your thinking. Now it’s time to counter your negative opinions and experiences with positive ones, which will help you realize that the negative statements are opinions that keep you down, and that you should stop believing in these negative opinions you have formed of yourself.
Counter the negativity. Add a column to your journal called “Reality Check.” In this column, put down any trait, good memory, success, or anything else that is positive to counteract your negative belief. If you find a counter to your belief, then your negative belief will not hold any truth or validity in your life. The thought you believed to be an absolute rule is no longer the rule. For example, “I have had five poems published, internationally! Ha! Take that! I have also had four magazine articles published. It’s not true after all. I won’t fail. I’ve already succeeded!”
Make a positive action plan. In your last column, you can put what you know into action with “What I Will Do Now.” For this column, be generous with your ideas on what you are going to do from now on. For example, “I will do everything I can to make sure I succeed. I will go back to school for my masters degree. I will research where I can write and get my articles published, and I will not give up until I get paid work. I will seek out a writing job. I will enter contests. I will not give up until I win one.”
Focus on your positive attributes. Devote a section of your journal (or a new tab in your spreadsheet) to writing positive things about yourself. Freewrite or create a list of your positive characteristics. Anything that will make you feel good about yourself and help you appreciate who you are, what you’ve accomplished, and how far you’ve come in your life can be written or typed on this page. You may choose to focus on some or all of the following: Your achievements (for the day, week, month, year). I saved my company seven million dollars this year. I spent time with my kids every day. I learned how to manage my stress so I feel good most days. I won an award. I smiled at someone else I didn’t know today, even though this is difficult for me. Your attributes and strengths. I have a bubbly personality. I can give a great compliment. I am a great listener. I really know how to make the ones I love feel special. Your appearance. My favorite features are my eye color, my straight teeth, my shiny hair, and when I wear my favorite color (royal blue), it makes me feel great. I have an approachable face and smile, which makes people feel comfortable when they speak with me. Someone told me how pretty I looked today!
Identify areas that you would like to improve. It is important to address ways that you would like to improve without overly focusing on ideas of strength or weakness. Believing we are weak or deficient in some way is another self-esteem trap. It’s unfortunate that this self-defeating idea is supported throughout our society. Stop thinking of yourself in terms of weaknesses and instead think about areas you would like to improve, and only because changing them will make you happy. Making goals for change is not about fixing something that’s broken. It’s about doing things that will help you work more efficiently in your life, and help you have healthy relationships, which in turn helps your self-esteem and happiness.
Write down areas that you would like to improve. In your journal, either make another tab in your spreadsheet file, or another page in your paper journal, and call it the title of this section – “Areas I Would Like to Improve.” Then write underneath it – “Because it will make me happy.” Some examples of improvement goals that are not overly focused on weakness are: I would like to… Manage stress more efficiently Work on organizing my paperwork Work on becoming more organized Remember to do something I really enjoy once a day and not feel guilty about it Improve my parenting skills
Changing Your Relationships
Surround yourself with positive people. If you have negative thoughts in your head, it’s possible you have people around you who are stating the same types of negative messages about you, even close friends and family. As you’re improving your self-esteem, if it’s possible, minimize contact with people you notice are saying negative remarks to you, even if they are close to you or are at work. Think of negative statements from others as ten-pound weights. If you put on a ten-pound weight for every negative statement, and you are surrounded by people who put you down, eventually it becomes more and more difficult to lift yourself up. Removing yourself from the burden of having to listen and relate to negative people will make you feel lighter because you do not have to bear the weight of their negative comments, their negative judgments towards you, or their unwillingness to treat you with respect.
Be more assertive. Learning how to be assertive can help increase self-esteem. Assertiveness helps encourage other people to treat you with respect, which will help encourage positive self-esteem. In short, assertiveness stops people’s other bad behaviors from having an effect on you as well as helps you have healthy communications with the people around you. You can utilize a few different techniques to practice assertiveness:
Use the word “I” instead of “you.” Instead of saying “You didn’t take out the trash last night,” you can state, “I feel upset when promises are made and they aren’t carried through.” The first statement can be taken as an attack and increase the listener’s defensiveness. The second is sharing your feelings, and letting the person know what he or she did to contribute to those feelings.
Listen and be willing to compromise. Consider how the person you are speaking with feels, and be willing to strike an agreement that pleases both of you. For instance, if your friend asks you to drive him to the store, you can say, “I can’t right now; I have a class. But I can drive you afterwards. Would that be okay?”
Be persistent without getting aggressive. You can certainly say no, and you can stand up for your rights without having to yell, and without having to give in. If you’re having trouble getting your point across, Psychology Tools recommends using a “broken record” approach, where you maintain politeness and a pleasant tone. For example, if your local supermarket sold you a bad piece of meat and will not accept returns, you can always say, “I understand. I would still like a refund.” If after several attempts you don’t see your results, you can always try a statement like this, “If you do not want to issue me a refund, that’s your choice. I can always choose to call the Health Department, though I’d rather not. Which would be easier for the both of us?”
Set personal boundaries. It’s your responsibility to let your family and friends, as well as acquaintances, peers, and coworkers, the way you want to be treated. Some behaviors from other people can have a direct impact on your self-esteem if you hear it long enough. For instance, if you decide you don’t want other people calling you names, you can let them know you don’t like it and you will take action if they do not stop: “I don’t like it when you call me Shorty. It upsets me. I would appreciate it if you would stop.” If this form of verbal abuse does not stop, take action and tell someone with authority that can help you. If you’re at work, file a harassment complaint. If you’re a student, tell your parents, a teacher, or your principal. If it’s a friend, your friend might not have realized that his or her actions were getting you upset. It’s always worth it to let people know how you feel.
Improving Your Lifestyle
Make time for yourself, even if you are a parent. Many parents mistakenly take themselves out of the equation when caring for their children. It’s natural to want to focus only on them to provide them the best environment possible. However, if you stop focusing on yourself and neglect yourself, this can detract from being the parent you really want to be. Parents are teachers to their children. In order for teachers to be truly effective, teachers must have some sort of expertise. Moreover, your own personal habits might eventually rub off on them, and this includes the bad ones as well as the good ones. Choosing to take care of yourself a few minutes a day is all it takes not only to raise your own self-esteem, but also to serve as a great example for your kids. If you don’t have kids, taking care of yourself will help you feel better and is worth the effort.
Choose healthy foods. Eating healthy food alternatives might take some initial planning at first if you plan to do an entire lifestyle makeover. However, this can be daunting for already busy, stressed out people. Instead of keeping complicated lists of things you eat or things you should be eating, make a choice to choose healthy at every single meal and snack. Avoid foods such as candy bars, soda, cake, doughnuts, and pastries, which lead to massive energy crashes, possible headaches, and offer no nutrition, possible illness, and added calories.
Eat more fruits, veggies, lean meats, and legumes. Think of them as all-day energy and abundant nutrition for your body, that will enable you to keep up with your job and kids, protect your body against illnesses, and extend your life so you can enjoy more time with your family.
Strive for a balanced diet. A balanced diet will provide the nutritional needs to keep you healthier and happier. Here is a general guideline for what you should strive to eat: 1 serving of fruit or veggie at every meal. Veggies and fruits also offer a bit of protein, carbohydrates, and plant-source fiber. 1 serving of lean protein at every meal (legumes, lean meats, low fat dairy). Legumes and low fat dairy offer some carbohydrates. 2 servings of carbohydrates per day (sweet potatoes and whole oats are less processed and better than whole wheat) A bit of healthy fats, such as olive and canola oils, avocados, nuts. Nuts provide some carbohydrates as well as healthy fats.
Think about your food choices. At every meal, stop yourself, and ask why you want to put unhealthy foods in your body. Most commonly, some reasons for straying from a healthy diet are: Healthy food choices are not available at gas stops. I’m hungry now and I don’t have time to run out/make a healthy meal. Because I just want it. A little planning at the grocery store could help prevent this from occurring: Buy chopped veggies, such as chopped lettuce and baby carrots for a quick salad. Buy nuts or sunflower seeds for a quick fiber/protein/healthy fats boost. You can add them to your salad for extra crunch. Many fruits are portable, such as bananas and apples.
Stave off sweet cravings. This can seem like an insurmountable task to some people. Not only do we become attached to foods because it gives us comfort (like mom’s chocolate chip cookies), but once your body is in an unhealthy cycle, processed foods like white sugar play hormonal havoc on your body and the craving for sweets cycle becomes self-sustaining. When you’re fighting your body to end the sweet cravings, this can make us feel like we’re not in control of what we eat, which can lower self-esteem. If you have frequent cravings for something sugar-laden, here are some tips to wean yourself off of that white sugar: Crave something sweet in the morning? Replace your pastry, sugar-laden cereal, and coffee cake with oatmeal topped with stevia, cinnamon, fruit, and milk. If you don’t like oats (some people don’t like the mush factor), try brown rice instead. Need an afternoon shot of sugar? Try some dates and nuts. Want an after-dinner dessert? Try a couple of squares of dark chocolate (choose the brand with the least amount of sugar) and peanut butter. Need to add a little more sweetness? Melt your chocolate, stir in the peanut butter, and add some agave nectar or stevia. Not sweet enough? You can also mix in some raisins. To increase the yum factor even more, put in a pinch of unsweetened shredded coconut.
Get your body moving. Taking time to go to the gym might seem infeasible for busy working moms and dads. That’s okay. You don’t have to go to the gym to be in decent shape. It’s not necessary to look like Atlas to have more energy, feel good, fight illness, and be able to keep up with the demands of your busy life. There are even routines available that are ten minutes or less. You can do these routines every day because they will not overtax the body. Here are a few examples of quick yet effective workout programs: Daily Workout Free: This is a downloadable app available on iTunes. Chatelaine Ten Minute Fitness: This downloadable app from iTunes is an international bestseller. The 7 Min Workout: This site tells you which simple exercises to do and times your entire seven-minute session for you. It’s so fast, you don’t even have time to spell out the word minute. Also, it offers the 7 Min diet if you offer your first name and email address. Warning: These workouts are short, but they can still be rigorous. Therefore, it’s best to check with your doctor if you have a condition you are being treated for, or if you are over forty.
Stay well-groomed. It might sound strange, but brushing your teeth, taking a shower, styling your hair, wearing clothing that is comfortable, giving yourself a manicure, and taking care of your body in general boosts your self-esteem. If you physically feel good and make efforts to maintain your appearance, knowing you smell great in your favorite perfume or cologne, or that your hair is soft and touchable, or your eyes look extra green because you’re wearing your favorite green shirt can give you a boost for the day.
Finding Appropriate Therapy
Go to therapy to help your self-esteem. If you are having trouble with raising your self-esteem or would like to see quicker progress, consider going to professional therapy. Effective therapy has been shown to have a large effect on raising self-esteem. You might also want to get help if in keeping your journal, you realize that there are subjects that you cannot face, or if you are trying to face them, they set you back enough to cause a disruption in your life as you write about them. Also, if you have a mental disorder such as depression, anxiety, or other types of disorders, this can have an effect on your self-esteem. Getting treatment for a mental disorder can improve the quality of your life.
Try cognitive behavioural therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been shown to be effective at improving self-esteem. CBT addresses automatic negative thoughts. These thoughts are the thoughts that happen almost like a reflex when confronted with life situations. For example, if a person with low self-esteem needs to study for an exam in school, the person might say, “I don’t know why I’m bothering. It’s not like I’ll get an A anyway.” When undergoing CBT therapy, the therapist, who will most likely be a counselor or psychologist, works in partnership with the client to change those automatic beliefs. The counselor might suggest testing the client’s hypothesis—the client will fail no matter how hard the client studies. The counselor might help the client with time management and stress skills and track studying progress until the student takes the test. Other techniques used for CBT are relaxation techniques (breathing exercises), visualization (mental rehearsing), and going through childhood experiences to identify where the negative thoughts originated. Identifying the origin of the negative thoughts helps prevent self-esteem “relapses.” CBT is good for people who do not have complex issues. Moreover, CBT is only good for treating some types of disorders such as depression and anxiety. CBT might also be too structured for some people.
Find psychodynamic therapy. With psychodynamic therapy, treatment plans are tailored to each person and their individual needs. In a psychodynamic session, the client is allowed to explore any and all issues arising for that day. The clinician helps the client look for behavior, thought, and emotional patterns related to that issue. Childhood issues and events are often explored to help the client understand how the past affects them and ties in with their present. For people who have complex issues or would like a more individualized plan tailored to their needs, psychodynamic therapy might be better than CBT. Psychodynamic therapy is an effective technique to use with a variety of conditions and with patients with issues of varying complexity.
Identifying Low Self-Esteem
Understand low self-esteem. Self-esteem, in short, is how we feel about ourselves. High self-esteem means that we love and accept ourselves for the way we are, and generally feel satisfied most of the time. Low self-esteem means that we are not happy with the way we are. The Centre for Clinical Interventions describes people with low self-esteem as having “deep-seated, basic, negative beliefs about themselves and the kind of person they are. These beliefs are often taken as facts or truths about their identity.”
Evaluate your self-esteem. Knowing that you have low self-esteem is the first step to improving and overcoming that mental habit. You may suffer from low self-esteem if you tend to do the following: Always criticize yourself. Think of yourself in negative ways. Always compare yourself to your friends or family and feel jealous because you see them as being better than you. Call yourself bad names to yourself and other people. Always scold, criticize, or blame yourself. Think if you do have an accomplishment, you were just lucky. Think everything is your fault, even when it’s not. Think that if a person compliments you, it is not sincere.
Know the potential effects of low self-esteem. Having low self-esteem does not just influence your emotional state at any given moment; it can have long-ranging influence on your life. Understanding the potential effects of low self-esteem may help motivate you to improve your outlook now. Low self-esteem may lead people to do any of the following: Tolerate abusive relationships because they feel they are deserving of the treatment or don’t deserve better treatment. Bully or abuse other people. Be afraid to take on goals, objectives, or dreams because they don’t think they are able to achieve them. Become perfectionists to make up for their own perceived flaws. Always feel self-conscious around other people, be overly preoccupied with their appearance, or think that other people think negatively of them. Constantly look for indicators that other people don’t like them or think poorly of them. Think they are a lost cause. Have a low threshold for stress. Neglect their hygiene or engage in activities that harm their body, such as drinking excessive alcohol, smoking tobacco, or attempting suicide.
Pinpoint the root of your self-esteem problem. Usually, low self-esteem starts with external events. People are not born with low self-esteem. It begins with our needs not being met, negative feedback from others, or thinking that a negative life event is our fault. For example, children may blame themselves for their parents’ divorce or parents feel helpless to help their children process their emotions. Children who grow up in poverty and children of minorities are often at higher risk for developing low self-esteem.
Understand the low self-esteem cycle. When children (or adults) first begin to question their worth, it is possible for other people or life events to reinforce the negative feelings, which can solidify self-beliefs that lead to low self-esteem. The following are three examples that show the cycle in action: A child hears someone call him stupid when he makes a mistake. From then on, he believes he is stupid whenever he makes a mistake. Or, he believes he is stupid just because he makes a mistake. A kid does not receive support or praise from her parents. She starts to believe she is not beautiful, wonderful, or worthy of praise because her own parents don’t even believe in her. A person repeatedly hears derogatory statements because of the color of his skin. He eventually believes he will not be able to succeed in a society that does not accept him.
Remember how your parents treated you. Parents have been found to have the strongest influence on people’s self-esteem. Children’s impressions of themselves are by and large formed with the help of their parents. There are several different types of parental behaviors that contribute to low self-esteem. Most often, when children are raised in a strict home that does not provide children with emotional support, children’s self-esteem suffers. When kids and adults have emotional support, their emotional needs are met. Emotional support can be shown in many ways, such as: saying, “I love you,” or “I’m proud of you”; helping kids with their own feelings and emotions and how to cope; and simply just being there. Emotional needs are real needs people have as they grow, along with physical (food and drink) and mental (learning, problem-solving, and education) needs. Paying attention to emotional needs, as well as physical and mental needs, helps children feel accepted and respected. Parents should be careful about what they say to their children because it will become their inner voice. If they receive negative messages, it will cause their self-esteem to be low. A clear example, if you get a B, C or D grade and your parents scold you in a bad way, Why didn't you get an A, are you stupid? this causes pain and can be harmful to your mental health and obviously to have a healthy self-esteem will require a long therapy.Another way to undermine self-esteem is through comparisons, such as Why can't you be like your brother/cousin who was always an excellent student, always got straight A's and graduated with honors or You can't possibly not know how to do what that boy who is smaller than you is doing. This is also painful and detrimental to mental health.
Recognize instances of shaming in your life. Shaming is a common parenting tool to help control the behavior of kids. For instance, public shaming of kids on social media has become more common. Shaming occurs when someone, such as a caretaker, parent, teacher, or other authority figure, or other peers, makes you feel like you are an awful person for behaving in a certain manner or making a mistake. For example, if you don’t arrive on time to work, your boss might make you feel ashamed if he says, “You are not a reliable person,” rather than, “You need to come to work earlier. Try aiming for arriving to work half an hour earlier. This way, if anything goes wrong, you’ll have that extra time.” While shaming is socially accepted, it is actually an abusive behavior, and often occurs with other abusive behaviors that produce the feeling of being shamed. For example, author Beverly Engel recalls her mother spanking her in front of her neighbors, or punishing her with public displays of yelling and screaming when she made a mistake. These incidences produced feelings of shame.Warning: To Parents: Never reprimand or correct your children in public. This should always be done in private. One of the causes of low self-esteem is being reprimanded, scolded, or punished in front of other people, especially if they tell someone else about the scolding.
Identify abuse in past relationships. Abusive relationship patterns are often the cause for low self-esteem. Patterns such as berating, belittling, controlling, yelling, or criticizing can all contribute to people’s thoughts of themselves. Over time, when these behaviors are repeated over and over, the victim might believe this negative input. Abusive relationships can also affect adults. The relationships we have in adulthood often reflect our childhood relationships. Relationship patterns are formed in childhood, which affects our expectations of our future relationships.
Identify instances of poor performance in your past. When people consistently perform poorly at a task, at school, or at a job, this can lead to a loss of self-esteem. It has been found over decades of research studies a persistent, but moderate, link between poor academic performance and low self-esteem. This is not surprising, considering school is part of most of our lives for a majority of our childhoods and during our formative years.
Understand the impact of life events on your self-esteem. Life events—even ones that are beyond one’s control—often influence self-esteem negatively. Job loss, financial difficulties, a breakup, physical and mental illness, chronic pain, and disability are types of situations that can be chronically stressful and wear away at a person’s self-esteem. Divorce, events that produce trauma, such as being in a car or work accident, being the victim of an attack, or the death of a family member or friend, can affect self-esteem as well. Financial stress and living in an economically depressed area can affect also self-esteem.
Assess your experiences of social acceptance. Social acceptance, or the amount of rejection one experiences, has been found to have effects on self-esteem. This has been found in research when comparing the unemployed to the employed, but other influences, such as having a social stigma (alcoholism, mental illness, for example), have been found to affect self-esteem.
Know that your opinion of your physical appearance is connected to your self-esteem. Physical appearance can affect one’s self-esteem. It has been revealed through research that there is a generally accepted definition of beauty. While these ideals are culturally influenced, there is a socially accepted idea of beauty. If a person receives a lot of rejection or acceptance for their appearance, this could have an influence on a person’s self-worth. Research has found that when people evaluate their own physical appearance, it is consistently skewed towards the negative and may not accurately reflect our true attributes. In other words, most people are overly critical of their physical appearance.
Identify instances of bullying in your past. Because of the constant harassment, bullying contributes greatly to low self-esteem. There are consequences to self-esteem for both the bully and the victim in this vicious cycle. Victims of bullying often have to live for years with the memories of being victimized. They often feel embarrassed about the abuse and attacks. Bullies most often already suffer from low self-esteem and feel more control when they victimize others. Many bullies are likely victims of abuse and neglect in their own homes. To regain a sense of control, they victimize other people.
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