Self-esteem. (1)
Self-esteem refers to the overall opinion of yourself and how you feel about your abilities and limitations.
Self-esteem, simply put, refers to the level of confidence you have in yourself, the general sense of your self worth or value.
A person's favorable or unfavorable attitude towards themselves.
Self-esteem can be influenced by different factors such as genetics, thoughts, age, health, reactions gotten from others, but basically: "comparing self to others."
Just as we have factors influencing self-esteem, we also have three basic types of self-esteem, which are:
Low self-esteem.
High self-esteem.
Inflated self-esteem.
All of these self-esteem's listed above are quite common in our day to day living. Let's delve into its divers explanations, starting from the first.
Low self-esteem: This is quite common in the world today, various people feeling bad about themselves for one reason or the other. Low self-esteem simply means having little or no confidence in yourself.
Not believing in yourself, your value,
feeling intimidated by the successes of others.
Feeling so bad about yourself or your appearance.
Not trusting in your abilities, talents or what you can do.
People who have low self-esteem are prone to always trying to please others even at their own expense, they have the tendency of not being able to resist or maintain their ground by saying "no" to things they are not pleased with. They think of others before thinking of themselves, not mincing words: "they love others, more than they love themselves."
They always feel intimidated and keep agitating themselves with demeaning questions.
Am I good enough? Isn't my butt too small? Why do I have chubby cheeks? Oh! My tummy isn't flat, would they pick me? Is it good enough? My words are meaningless, why is there so much pimples on my face? Maybe I should go for an enlargement!. Oh! I feel so terrible, does my breath stink? Why did she leave her seat?, do I have body odour?...
Someone with low self-esteem is hardly ever outspoken. They are timid kinds of people because they fear that their opinions won't matter, they are scared of being laughed at, so they never try speaking up.
I'm among this type, I won't deny it, maybe that's the reason why I have so much to say about it.
Comparison is one of the greatest factors that affects the esteem of a person.
Comparing one sibling to another.
Comparing your child to another person's child.
Comparing the level of intelligence your child has to the level of intelligence of a different party.
Comparing yourself to another person (this is not a source of motivation in anyway). There's a difference between:
Esther did it so well, I definitely should be able to do it if I study much more
And
Oh! Esther has done it again, and I'm just here, failing over and over again.
Did you note the difference? The former is quite motivational, while the latter is a complete and toxic comparison.
Low self-esteem is really harmful to one's health, and could also lead someone into anxiety and depression, it could even lead the person into doing things that are way overboard. It could also lead one into commiting suicide.
Ways of overcoming low self-esteem.
Start affirming positive words.
Start saying pleasant things to yourself.
Surround yourself with people that would feed your ears with encouraging words.
Slowly desist from people of negative minds.
Close your eyes to those depressing things you see on the media, close your ears to those depressing things you hear from people, places and the media, close your mouths to negatively and open the door for only positivity.
Create a timetable to say different lovely words to yourself every morning and before you sleep.
Learn to say no...
No, to things you're not okay with.
No, to people's negative opinions.
No, to your own negative opinions about yourself.
No, to anything that stands against your happiness and fulfilment.
I would have written on the other types of self-esteem's, but this is lengthy enough. I'd pick up from this in my tomorrow's article.
Thanks dearest readers, feel free to air your views as regards the chosen topic.
Till we meet again in my next article and in yours.
Thanks for reading.
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Amazing content. It made me even more stronger