Is self-esteem real? Does it exist or is it just an excuse to judge ourselves and others? While the answers to these questions may seem obvious, self-esteem is only as real as we make it. Self-esteem cannot be as easily measured as someone’s height, weight or strength. Self-esteem is a mental phenomenon with no standard or objective way of measuring. We are all left up to our own internal yardstick of what is high or low self-esteem.

Typically it is much easier to detect self-esteem in others than it is to measure or detect our own. The irony is that most of our interpersonal judgments are determined by our self-esteem. For instance we may admire someone who is successful in business, wealthy, has a nice car and wears nice clothes as someone who has high self-esteem. However, their success could be a way of compensating for low self-esteem.

As much as we are tempted to assess self-esteem by external conditions such as title, position, wealth, and even beauty, self-esteem is best determined by how we interact with and respond to situations, circumstances and other people. In general a person with high self-esteem will respond by being:

• Understanding and supportive of others
• willing to listen first
• giving
• eager to learn new things  
• able to change beliefs and behaviors based on new knowledge.

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