What is the danger of inadequate self-esteem and how to recognize it

How is self-esteem formed and what is it like?

Self-esteem depends Self-esteem check: Too low or just right?
from many factors. First of all, it depends on the environment in which a person grew up, what kind of relationship he had with his parents, what attitudes and values were transmitted in his family. It also matters how other people important to him treated him: friends, teachers, classmates. And we must not forget about the social status and financial situation of a person, about his external data, state of health and life experience that he received at school, in college, at work, in society.

If the world as a whole was favorable to a person and supported him in the idea that he was beautiful, smart, capable and generally doing everything well, there was a greater chance that self-esteem would be high.

If everything did not go well from the very beginning: parents criticized, teachers found fault, classmates bullied, the career did not work out, there was little money and the appearance did not meet the standards - it will be difficult to maintain self-confidence.

Psychologists usually distinguish four types of self-esteem.

Underestimated: a person evaluates his qualities worse than others evaluate them.
Healthy: its owner is confident in himself, knows his positive and negative sides well, does not minimize or exaggerate any of them.
Overestimated: a person believes that he is underestimated, ascribes to himself talents and qualities that have almost no relation to reality.
Fluctuating: a person’s self-perception is different all the time and can jump from “God, I’m magnificent, the whole world is at my feet” to “what a nightmare, I’m a complete insignificance and unworthy of living.”

Self-esteem is not a constant; it can and does change depending on the psychological state and life circumstances. But in general, healthy or slightly inflated self-esteem can be considered adequate. Low or, conversely, very high leads to problems.

Ways to increase self-esteem

There are 2 methods to increase your opinion of yourself:

achieve achievements in any area of life;
create a corset of success.

In the first case, you need to show diligence and patience, since the result will be noticeable after several victories over yourself. With the second method, the formation of self-esteem occurs at a subconscious level. Proud posture, leisurely movements and a confident gait can change a person’s worldview in a fairly short period of time. It is important to constantly monitor your body position and voice. For long-lasting results, you need to use both methods.

There is a category of people who suffer from self-doubt more often than others. Any attempts to help them or support them turn into failure. This comes from the desire to be in a victim state. This role makes it possible to shift responsibility for your life to others. But the fact is that this is just an illusion coming from childhood. It is enough for a child to show his mother that something is not working out for him, that he is weak and helpless, in order to receive empathy and love. But an adult is always responsible for himself.

To stop playing the role of a victim and thereby increase your level of self-esteem, you need to adhere to the following rules:

Adapt to the positive.
Speak well of others and give them compliments.
Watch your speech. Avoid negative words addressed to yourself, even as a joke. You also need to erase phrases with negative predictions from your vocabulary, for example, “nothing will work out.”
Try to pay attention to the moments when you have to make a choice. This will help you realize full responsibility for your life.

Within a month, the level of self-esteem will increase noticeably, and the person will stop trying on the role of a victim. However, no one is immune from situational failures. Everyone sometimes gives up and runs out of energy to maintain self-confidence. What to do in this case? Sometimes, to normalize the situation, just one small victory is enough, after which faith in one’s strength and taste for life returns. In a more complex situation, a larger achievement will be needed. It is also very important to surround yourself with people who will find the right words of support in difficult times.

Exercises to gain confidence

The concept of self-esteem in psychology is subjective. Often the way others see a person and how he himself sees him is very different. The key to successful work on self-confidence is the correct attitude. Don't get too caught up in preparing to gain confidence. If you feel that your vision of yourself is not adequate, you should try to immediately correct the situation.

There are several rules, following which you can gain self-confidence, and therefore increase self-esteem. Here they are:

You should not influence the most vulnerable aspects of the personality. This will only make the depression worse. Instead, it's better to focus on improving your existing skills. The feeling of your own mastery will bring positive emotions (pride, joy), which will become a resource for achievements in other areas.
The role of relatives cannot be underestimated. Talking to them often helps you see your abilities differently. You shouldn’t ask your loved ones about your weaknesses; it’s better to find out what traits they consider strong. It is best to write down the answers so that they can serve as additional support at the right time. In this way, you can often find out about your positive qualities that you had not previously thought about.
Evaluate your own actions objectively, but at the same time do not scold yourself for mistakes. One cannot deny the obvious, focusing only on the positive aspects of what is happening. It is important to change your habitual thinking pattern. Having insufficient ability or knowledge for something is not a reason to engage in self-deprecation. So a person risks remaining at the same level forever. You need to allow yourself to be imperfect. This will help redirect energy from self-flagellation to personal growth.
Periodically, you need to write down in a notebook those circumstances of everyday life that provoke feelings of weakness, helplessness and uncertainty. Next, you need to find the reason why this happens. Next to it you need to make a list of those moments that bring satisfaction and happiness. Having decided on the cause of positive emotions, you should re-read both entries and form a holistic picture of your strengths and weaknesses. This exercise helps you move from global self-doubt to the realization that there are separate problems that require solutions.
Goals must be realistic. Perfectionism is not for ambitious people. This is a factor that gets in the way of achieving your goal. People prone to perfectionism deprive themselves of the right to make mistakes, which leads them to suffer from the slightest failure. Often it is the inability to complete what was started perfectly that leads to abandonment of the plan. In addition, perfectionism contributes to the fact that any failure negatively affects self-esteem, and therefore self-confidence.
Draw clear boundaries between specific, temporary and unattainable goals. We must not forget that a long journey begins with a small step. Therefore, you should not neglect minor goals. After all, it is they who will ultimately help complete tasks that previously seemed impossible.

By doubting oneself or overestimating, a person wastes time and resources for developing personal potential. Any type of self-esteem, other than adequate, depresses both morally and physically: increased fatigue, a feeling of helplessness or a feeling of hostility of the world appears. As a result, even ordinary tasks seem impossible. Normalizing self-esteem is not a matter of willpower. To correct the situation, you need to reconsider your settings and guidelines.

How to understand that self-esteem is unhealthy

A psychologist will help you understand more or less how things are going. You can also take a special questionnaire to determine your level of self-esteem, for example Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale questionnaire.

How low self-esteem manifests itself

Here are a few of its main signs Signs of Low Self-Esteem.

You constantly scold yourself, talk about yourself in a negative and derogatory way.
You avoid relationships, new acquaintances and communication, because you are sure that no one will like you anyway and nothing good will come of it.
You are convinced that other people treat you poorly. It gets to the point of absurdity: if strangers laugh nearby, it seems to you that they are laughing at you, and not at some joke of their own.
Every problem you have seems like a disaster: you are sure that you cannot cope with it.
You are jealous of your loved ones: friends, partners, children - and try to tie them to you more tightly, including through manipulation and psychological violence. Because deep down they are sure that otherwise they will leave you.
You do not trust your decisions, you believe that you are wrong, even if the facts indicate otherwise, you are afraid to express your opinion among other people.
You devalue yourself, belittle your merits, consider them insignificant: “Just think, I got a higher education, everyone can do that” or “Just think, you got promoted at work, it’s probably for lack of fish, because there are simply no other candidates.”

Greetings, dear readers!

Have you ever wondered, “Why do we judge others?”

Evaluating other people and the events happening around us turns out to be a common behavior of each of us.

Here I would like to draw your attention to this nuance: evaluating and condemning are completely different categories. Let's not get confused in terms.

Today we will only talk about our assessment of other people and the events happening around us.

What is the difference between these two seemingly similar concepts: evaluation and condemnation?

In my opinion:

To evaluate is to give your assessment of the behavior, actions, and words of another person.

Evaluate an event.

We evaluate - we weigh the world around us on our internal scales of values.

We evaluate - we compare the elements of the external world with our ideas of the same external world.

We evaluate - we compare elements of the external world (other people, for example) with ourselves!

To judge is to show your disagreement with the actions, behavior, and words of other people.

To condemn is to believe that a person is wrong.

To condemn is to blame a person for his behavior.

Why we judge other people and that condemning is a meaningless and unworthy activity, we will talk next time.

And today we will look at why we evaluate other people.

There are several reasons why we evaluate other people.

Today I propose to consider two reasons of a psychological nature:

The first reason we evaluate others is:

- a natural, natural protective reflex is triggered; the need to fulfill our natural needs

Let's look at Maslow's famous pyramid of needs, hierarchy of needs theory.

Wikipedia: Maslow distributed needs as they increase, explaining this construction by the fact that a person cannot experience high-level needs while he needs more primitive things.

The basis is physiology (quenching hunger, thirst, sexual need, etc.).

A step higher is the need for security, above it is the need for affection and love, as well as the need to belong to a social group.

The next step is the need for respect and approval, above which Maslow placed cognitive needs (thirst for knowledge, desire to perceive as much information as possible).

Next comes the need for aesthetics (the desire to harmonize life, fill it with beauty and art).

And finally, the last step of the pyramid, the highest, is the desire to reveal inner potential (this is self-actualization).

“I am absolutely convinced that a person lives by bread alone only in conditions when there is no bread,” explained Maslow. “But what happens to human aspirations when there is plenty of bread and the stomach is always full?

Higher needs appear, and it is they, and not physiological hunger, that control our body.

As some needs are satisfied, others arise, higher and higher ones. So gradually, step by step, a person comes to the need for self-development - the highest of them.”

Maslow was well aware that satisfying primitive physiological needs is fundamental.

In his view, an ideal happy society is, first of all, a society of well-fed people who have no reason for fear or anxiety.

If a person, for example, is constantly lacking food, he is unlikely to be in dire need of love.

However, a person overwhelmed with love experiences still needs food, and regularly (even if romance novels claim the opposite).

By satiety, Maslow meant not only the absence of interruptions in nutrition, but also a sufficient amount of water, oxygen, sleep and sex.

The forms in which needs manifest themselves can be different; there is no single standard.

Each of us has our own motivations and abilities.

Therefore, for example, the need for respect and recognition may manifest itself differently in different people: one needs to become an outstanding politician and win the approval of the majority of his fellow citizens, while for another it is enough for his own children to recognize his authority.

The same wide range within the same need can be observed at any stage of the pyramid, even at the first (physiological needs).

So, Abraham Maslow's pyramid of needs:

Physiological: hunger, thirst, sexual desire, etc.

Security needs: comfort, consistency of living conditions.

Social: social connections, communication, affection, caring for others and attention to oneself, joint activities.

Prestigious: self-esteem, respect from others, recognition, achieving success and high praise, career growth.

Spiritual: cognition, self-actualization, self-expression, self-identification.

Nature dictates that you and I evaluate the external world around us, including the behavior of other people, following the natural selection of a biological being, thereby ensuring our safety and living conditions. We weigh how comfortable, useful, and safe it will be for us.

Examples:

When going on vacation to another country, you most likely evaluate the quality, comfort and safety of your stay in the chosen country. And you will not go to a country that is under martial law or to a country whose climatic conditions are not suitable for you. So you assessed the degree of your security.

When you are invited to a party or to a party, do you “weigh”, evaluate how comfortable and interesting you will be with the people present at the meeting?

Do you evaluate the level of kindergartens and schools?

Are you rating your children's teachers? Do you evaluate the experience of the doctors you need to go to?

Do you evaluate a sports coach, the experience and knowledge of a seminar and training leader, the professional experience of a plumber, the personal qualities and habits of your new neighbors?

Probably yes. Because by nature we have a need for safety and comfort.

The second reason we evaluate others:

- psychological “hooks” that subconsciously force us to evaluate other people according to certain parameters.

In this case, the Cosmic Law of Reflection .

According to the Law of Reflection, the World, like a large Divine mirror, reflects to us what we are.

The Law of Reflection, like any cosmic law, is deep and wide.

Therefore, today we will consider only one of the postulates of this law.

When evaluating other people, in the case of the Law of Reflection, we notice and subconsciously “weigh” how much the other person corresponds to our principles, judgments, views, and worldview.

This is a very important point!

Feel:

The Divine Mirror of the World in this case reflects to us what is very significant and fundamentally important for us, as well as our inflated principles and beliefs, our fears and our mental traumas!

When evaluating another person, we compare him with ourselves.

We compare what we consider to be the correct principles and beliefs with the “wrong” principles and beliefs of other people.

We compare our life attitudes with those of other people.

Why is this happening?

There is only one answer: our psychological traumas, fears, our self-esteem, our confidence or self-doubt, trust or distrust in ourselves and the World are reflected in the World around us.

This is our psychology. This is how the Law of Reflection works.

In this case, the Divine Mirror of the World shows us our own inner qualities, our fears and experiences, our inner “hooks”.

When a speaker stutters or burrs a lot, do you just notice it?

Or, when starting the process of evaluating a speaker, note to yourself that “a public speaker would do well to learn the basics of public speaking and work on his diction”?

In the second case, you assessed the person based on your principle that everything that is done must be at a high level. This is your “hook” - everything should be at a high level.

Liz Burbo, in her book “Five Traumas That Prevent You from Being Yourself,” classifies a person with such a “hook” as a “controlling” type who has experienced the mental childhood trauma of betrayal.

By the way, at one time this book by Liz Burbo completely changed my attitude towards people. I began to understand the reasons for people's behavior.

Along with this understanding came the awareness of the concept of “resentment.”

Next example.

If, looking at a person, you instantly assess his weight and your eye catches on the folds of fat under the bra or on the tummy protruding above the belt, then your “hook” is the fear of excess weight or, born from this fear, the belief that the person should watch out. for your weight. And that's it!

At the same time, you can be either the same or even fuller, or slimmer.

But in any case, you are the one who “struggles” with your excess weight, or you have already given up on it, but the “hook” remains.

In this case, the Law of Reflection shows you your own fear of being complete!

The internal state of “poverty” is reflected not only by the poor, but also by seemingly wealthy people who evaluate the appearance and “cost” of others’ clothes.

What to do?

The Law of Reflection helps us uncover our “hooks,” our childhood traumas and fears.

Watch yourself. Catch yourself thinking when you evaluate someone. Recognize the psychological reason for evaluation and look into the Divine Mirror of the World!

What did you see in the reflection?

For example, Liz Burbo’s book “Five Traumas,” which I mentioned above, can help you understand and work through your childhood traumas.

Let's play a psychological game:

In the comments to this article, I suggest you write:

- examples of evaluating other people,

- the psychological reason that caused this assessment

- and the corresponding “hook”.

Identifying these “hooks” may help some of us pay attention to our fears.

To be continued