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.

On the other hand, low self esteem can generally be characterized as

• Overbearing and demanding
• self absorbed and small minded
• a taker instead of giver
• frightened of risk, challenges and uncertainty
• Resistant to change and self-growth.

You see, as your self-esteem increases you become less dependent on your external circumstances and more centered in your true ‘self.’ Low self-esteem is highly dependent on what happens to you and your surroundings. People with low self-esteem judge rules, regulations, structure, and other people as limiting and attempt to ‘win’ by overpowering or manipulating external conditions instead of cooperating with them.

All too often people believe that self-esteem is created through praise - both self-praise and the praise and recognition from others. While praise is good, it is not sufficient to create a permanent increase in self-esteem. If your self-esteem is dependent on the recognition of others then what happens when that recognition goes away. For instance, a young woman who is constantly praised by her parents may struggle when she gets married only to find that her husband is not as praise-conscious as her parents and her self-esteem is likely to tumble. 

For me, self-esteem has as a foundation in competence which leads to confidence that can increase your self-esteem. If you feel you need a boost in your self-esteem, start by truly believing that your actions make a difference, that your actions shape your destiny. By that I mean, believing that by doing something you can make a difference in your own life and the lives of others. Self-esteem is not static, you can change it and one big step to improving it is to set a goal and accomplish it and from the accomplishment learn that you are a competent and capable person. When you do this over and over again you start to increase your self-esteem and to see yourself differently. You become confident through competence.

Tags: Cultivating Optimism, Emotional Addiction, Happiness, praise, self-esteem, self-worth, validation

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 2:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, self-esteem. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.