What Exactly is Self-Esteem and How Does it Work?
By: Jody Friedman, LSW
Just as drinking water is crucial for physical endurance, so is self-esteem for its social-emotional counterpart. While headlines like this one are commonly accepted and asserted, proper promotion and sustainment of self-esteem requires a better understanding of what exactly self-esteem is, how it’s cultivated, and what its effects are.
“Self-esteem” refers to a person’s overall evaluation (actual belief rather than stated or acted out version) of themselves. Moreover, the extent of their self-regard, -respect, and -appreciation for who they are, what they do, what they have, what they look like, and what social connections they have (Bailey, 2003, pp. 389-390). This evaluation of course is a biased one insofar as personal appraisals are a result of personal definitions for these terms and subjective perspectives of how they measure up. Not to mention, self-esteem changes alongside people’s thinking patterns and experiences. So how people see themselves reflects what they’ve blatantly been told about themselves, internalized about themselves from their culture, and internalized through various encouraging and traumatic experiences. Therefore, the ability for a person’s self-esteem to be accurate and positive depends on their insight into, education on, and care for making a fair appraisal. Care of which likely stems from the knowledge of the power of self-esteem.
While self-esteem does simply permit a person’s positive feelings about themselves, what’s more is how self-esteem triggers self-confidence or self-efficacy. These terms refer to a person’s perceived ability to do what they set out to do. It’s clear how poor self-esteem, then, can sway a person away from setting goals and taking steps to meet them. Because if a person doesn’t believe they can complete a task then they can’t (insofar as their attempt will be dulled or perhaps prevented altogether by their lack of encouragement to give it their best shot). This process demonstrates the way self-esteem often makes for a self-fulfilling prophecy, in which people are or become what they believe they are.
We see this in children who are told they are ‘bad’ and how their behavior will continue to align with their now internalized poor self-esteem. Or how people with patterns of depressive or anxious thought will build a version of themselves that doesn’t get better because they believe themselves to be helpless and paralyzed. Imagine what would happen if people, especially, caregiving and role modeling adults, prioritized and taught unconditional positive self-talk, self-respect, self-love, introspection, and gratitude.
The following are ways you can begin challenging the status quo, revitalizing your self-esteem, and fostering the healthiest and happiest version of yourself:
Compare yourself today with yourself from the past rather than to where others are and have been. A success or failure depends on context. Frequently reflect upon how far you’ve come.
Talk back to your own negative self-evaluations and look for evidence the opposite is true. Take time to celebrate your improvements and compassionately address your humane imperfections.
Consider others’ appraisals of you and how their experiences might have led them to this conclusion. Something isn’t true just because it is said so. Trust most in the evaluations of people who respect, appreciate, are grateful for, and love you.
Talk to yourself now as though you’re talking to you as a child. What do you wish you were told about yourself when you were a child? What kind of person would your younger self be proud of having become?
Give yourself disproportionately more positive than negative attention. The more you hear or see something the more likely it’s internalized as true.
Act like you are the kind of person you want to be and you will gradually morph into that person.
Trust yourself, you can do it.
--
References
Bailey, J. A. (2003). The Foundation of Self-Esteem. Journal of the National Medical Association, 95(5), 388-393. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2594522/pdf/jnma/00309-0101.pdf
