Self esteem
- July 5, 2020
- Posted by: MAYURI
- Category: Articles
Self esteem
It is a word less known, instead, ego is used more often. Dictionaries equate both…while defining ego…self esteem is used.
It is a sense of self worth. An emotional description of positive affect towards our selves is good self esteem. I have often referred to it in my blogs as important part of personality.
Why is it important?
- Understanding the self is the first step towards understanding the world around us
- It determines most of our interpersonal relationships
- It controls our behaviour in most situations
- It determines our choices in career
- It determines the kind of person we choose as life partner
- It influences the kind of friends we choose to make
- It has a great influence on the way we raise our own children
- It is the fundamental personality factor that decides whether we are customarily pleasant or unpleasant persons
- It has great effect on how we handle crisis situations in our life
When it is so terribly important, why is it we hardly ever regard it? Here are some characteristics of self esteem that may help understand this phenomenon better
- Self esteem could be fragile or it could be strong, noticing where we stand on this is very hard for most persons
- It is something that can be seen by us only if we have the habit of introspection
- We are never very sure when it will be offended or when it is boosted…it could vary from situation to situation
- It is very much affected by who we regard as important in our life…they can boost it or destroy it
- Self esteem is completely dependent on what we consider important in our life and where we are in achieving them
- Self esteem is highly dependent on what our immediate social environment expects from us
Characteristics of persons with positive self esteem
- Persons with good self esteem are happier individuals
- They see the ridiculous side of life and are capable of appreciating the setbacks at face value
- They see problems as challenges and not as obstacles
- They take criticism head on without their self esteem going for a toss
- They take responsibilities seriously and attend to them
- They work to please themselves and not others
- They make decisions that fit in with their abilities and circumstances
- They show better empathy and understanding and cooperate with others
- They are realistic in their expectations of others as well as themselves
- They do not hold others responsible for anything negative in their lives
- They do not hold unrealistic expectations from others, their subordinates, their spouses, their children…or others.
Persons with negative self esteem do not possess these above characteristics. The opposite is true with them.
What are the repercussions of holding negative or poor self esteem?
- At a minimum effects level, we don’t like ourselves and are unhappy with almost everything in our life.
- At a severe level, it can turn us into bitter humans and make us do great damage to ourselves and others, mentally, physically and even socially. Constant criticism for everything and anything, hitting and other forms of physical damage to persons, spoiling others’ social and career chances come to mind as examples
- Many psychological problems have their base in poor self esteem
- As persons of poor self esteem we can make others lives miserable around us; suspicious spouses, highly demanding parents, inconsiderate bosses come to mind
- Self esteem that is gone beyond realistic assessment is a major problem of personality; such persons exhibit narcissistic tendencies and discount others as worthy humans
- In its extreme form, poor self esteem can lead to suicidal feelings
What can be done?
When it has so many needs, self esteem can face serious constraints. Developing and retaining positive self esteem is fraught with problems. There are many self esteem boosting programmes across the world for this reason.
- When we are young children, parents, teachers, peers and others need to help us greatly to understand our selves. If they fail to do so, we are likely to have problems with self esteem. Parents must help a child understand its strengths and build on them and not harp on its weaknesses. Most parents across the world fail in this act. They want the child to be this or that…not realising that that child is born with potential abilities that may not be what the parents expect.
- Teachers must stop comparing children. There are no two children in the world who can be compared with each other. Building to the strengths of each child is the responsibility of teachers. While school system does not give much scope for this, encouraging children to learn their own way is still possible in all schools. Teachers must ensure that
- As we grow older, we become responsible for our self assessment…therefore introspecting at every important turn in life is imperative, and accepting that we need to work on our self esteem.
- We must only compete with our own last effort and not compare ourselves with others ever in life. Hard thing to do, but very necessary if we want to safeguard ourselves from negative self esteem.
- Paying undue attention to what others say about us is another thing that is bad for our self esteem. Mind you, due attention is still beneficial, undue attention is not. Seeing the difference between these two is pure intelligence
- Aspiring to become someone we are not cut out to be… this is a terrible mistake that many make. Recognising our own particular abilities, interests, inclinations are very important before setting out to become someone in the society. Parents are to be seriously blamed in pushing their youngsters into education and career programmes that are not clearly suitable for them.
- Idolising someone is not a bad thing…but trying to emulate that individual is fraught with problems. We can try that only when we have the resources; both mental and physical.
- We must take responsibility for all our actions…work out problems, conflicts, surmount difficult circumstances on our own strength to boost our self esteem. If we wait around for someone to uplift us all the time, self esteem takes a toss. Again hard one, but necessary.
- Watch and observe others as real humans apart from you…then only their personality can be understood and if necessary lessons of life must be learnt from their behaviour and achievements
- Maintain basic integrity; am I asking too much? Yes. This is a tough call. It means we must face our selves squarely and honestly in trying situations and accept our shortcomings. Only that understanding will help us get out of the rut of self pity, self aggrandisement and self deception!
Tough call… I know. But holding a positive self esteem is critical for your overall personality, your life as well as the life of others who participate in your life. Working on self esteem at any point in life is all for the good, there is no age limit for that…and ‘I can’t change now!!’ is an excuse not acceptable!
Positive and -ve sides of self esteem nicely dipicted.
Again it is attitude and ego or rigidness not to accomodate which matters for -ve or poor self esteem
Beautiful article akka explaining both positive nd negative aspects of self esteem. Very very educative.
A good insight about self esteem madam. This is an important personality trait . Thanks to William James who has first talked about this concept . He simplifies self esteem that equals our success divided by our pretentions. To some extent society and social interactions also contribute to our self esteem. If we meet the social expectations then it values us high thus boosting our self esteem. If we exceed our own expectations also self esteem rises. So as truly said we all should set our goals and aims keeping in mind our potentialities to safeguard our self esteem.
well said Bilquis.
Topic very nicely covered. People can introspect themselves reading this article.