Many people can have a desire to have good self-esteem and be confident, but get caught up in the worry that they will appear to be full of themselves or then become a narcissist.
Understanding what makes up healthy self-esteem can show you the road map to achieve it in a way that you can feel assured that it will be in a way that is healthy, and means you are still a caring and kind individual.
Healthy self-esteem gives you the freedom to be YOU and fully enjoy life.
When we are comfortable with who we are, we can develop more genuine relationships and seek out experiences that fulfill us. In this way, self-esteem can lead to greater levels of happiness and overall quality of life. It is a critical component of success, life satisfaction, and wellbeing.
Eating disorders, social withdrawal, and depression have all been linked to low self-esteem showing us just how important good self-esteem is to have! Since we live with the thoughts, values, and attitudes that we have about ourselves every second of our lives, their quality matters.
Self-esteem is an individual’s overall sense of value and attitude about themselves.
Signs of healthy self-esteem include:
Pursuing things you enjoy and taking care of yourself (self-care ideas)
Speaking up for yourself and being assertive
Being able to focus on your own life and success without comparing yourself to others
Not making decisions based on the worry of rejection, failure, or not fitting in
Talking and thinking about yourself in a healthy, positive way
Being able to accept yourself and your situation as it is (self-acceptance)
Helping others and spending time with them in a balanced way that allows you to remain true to who you know you are, get your needs met, and for them to do the same as well through healthy boundaries.
Not only is self-esteem crucial for quality of life, but it is also a predictor of performance, goal setting, and success. People with high self-esteem are more likely to set lofty goals, focus on personal development, have high emotional intelligence, and persist in the face of failure. In contrast, those with low self-esteem focus on fixing deficiencies, perform just enough to complete a task, and give up when they don’t succeed (Baumeister & Tice, 1985).
Research has also connected self-esteem with open-mindedness, inquisitiveness, and truth-seeking. Self-esteem is a cornerstone of mental, emotional, and physical development and performance in nearly every aspect of life.
Below is a pyramid, showing the steps to gaining a healthy self-esteem.
Self-esteem's foundation is rooted in a person's ability to first be self-aware in a non-judgemental way of themselves as they are.
When one does this they can then become self-accepting of how they are because they know weaknesses are merely an area of growth and their strengths are what will give them everything they need to be able to do it.
In doing so they then lovingly nurture themselves through the growing process.
The final stage is, then, truly knowing their value/self-worth and continually investing in themselves and this whole process over their lifetime.
All of this combined is what together accumitively creates a heathy self-esteem.
Self-Esteem vs Self-ish
There is an all or nothing mindset that seems to go with the terms self-esteem, self-care, or self-love. That you have to either give up everything and be compeletely self-less or you are self-ish. This just isn't the case.
To be considered selfish it means that one is "lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure predominantly" It means that the majority of your time and energy is focused on the self and often at the expense of others.
Healthy self-esteem, self-love, self-care are all done in a balanced way where they compromise with others, they give and receive love, and they show kindness and compassion to those around them but there is room for themself in the picture as well!
Maintaining Self-esteem
Having healthy self-esteem doesn’t mean that you will never encounter an "at-risk" situation again, that is, a situation where you might be reminded of that old negative view of yourself. It also doesn’t mean that you will never again think of yourself in a negative light.
If you have done some work on your self esteem, then the situations that are risky for you will be less frequent than before, as the threshold for activating a negative view of yourself will now be higher. That means it will take a lot more to ‘set off’ your low self-esteem than before.
Everyone might think of themselves in a negative way or get down on themselves at times. The important thing to remember is not to do it too often. So even after improving your self-esteem, you will still encounter at-risk situations in which the rules and assumptions you have for living are broken or threatened to be broken. But you can handle them differently, cope differently, respond differentl through self-compassion, using a growth mindset, problem solving, and re-framing the negative thought to a positive truth.
Remembers that the effect of your past experiences on how you see yourself today can be worn down by practicing new ways of thinking & behaving day-to-day.
If you feel you need more help with developing healthy self-esteem booking in a life coaching sessions with me is a fantastic way to be guided through the layered process in a positive and productive way.
Book your consult now to get started www.AmaraPrince.com