To have or not to have self-esteem
How to think about your self esteem
It is said that people who have high self-esteem are more confident, they are more successful, and they manage to do more of the things they set their mind to.
And those who have low self-esteem face low confidence in themselves and are less successful.
These are generally known opinions, but is it so?
What is this self-esteem? It is an opinion about us, about our abilities, about what kind of person we are. It is an assessment of your worth as a person.
High self-esteem means that I have a good opinion, and low self-esteem means that I have a negative opinion.
In itself, self-esteem is a collection of thoughts you tell yourself about yourself, based on your experiences, your values, and the way you were raised and formed.
The key word here is "opinion".
I’m inviting you to a little experiment:
Take a few minutes and think about your qualities. You can even close this email or you can look away so you can focus.
Now take a few minutes and think about the things you don't like about yourself. Give yourself the same time.
I can't read your mind, but if you're like most people, you've found it much easier to find the things you don't like about yourself than the things you like.
It is easy to think like this because our mind has that negativity bias that makes us see very quickly what is not going well.
And let's be serious, no matter how hard we try to get things, there will always, but always, be something we will miss.
Your mind will tell you: "Yes, you did it, but you could have done it faster"; "Yes, you went for a run, but you could run faster or you could go out more often."
"Yes, you have this job, but a promotion or a raise would be great."
What does this have to do with self-esteem? A lot.
Considering that self-esteem is what we think about our abilities, about our value as humans
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the mind always shows us what is not going well, what defects we have, and what other things we still have to take care of
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then it seems that we will never reach stable/ high self-esteem.
That we will never have enough. We will always have things to do, and goals to achieve to consider ourselves good enough.
Basically, the lower my self-esteem, the worse I feel.
But if I have high self-esteem, then I feel bad too because I'm afraid of doing something to lose it.
Doing things to boost self-esteem doesn't help.
But it keeps me stuck in a vicious circle where it will be more important to have a positive story about myself than to live in line with what is important to me.
If having high self-esteem is not good, having low self-esteem is not good, what should I do?
There are people for whom self-esteem is not demotivating.
For most, on the other hand, self-esteem is a game in which you are constantly behind.
What I'm suggesting is to stop relating to self-esteem altogether.
Instead, connect to your values, and the directions that are important to you, and take small steps in that direction.
What your mind tells you is just a story, an opinion that may or may not be true.
Because this substack would have become too long, the next substack will introduce you to a cool & simple exercise to manage your negative self-talk.
