Psychologist's advice for people with high self-esteem

“The crown on his head is pressing”, “It is dangerous to underestimate a person who overestimates himself”, “The more a person loves himself, the more he depends on other people’s opinions”, “He who thinks too much about himself thinks too little”...

All these phrases reflect the essence of the same personality quality. Feeling of greatness, inflated self-esteem, self-confidence or arrogance. There are many concepts, but they mean one thing - an inadequate perception of oneself against the background of others. Is this normal or pathological? Is it good or bad? And how to behave with such people? Psychology has answers to such questions, you just need to understand them.

Symptoms of Low Self-Esteem

As a rule, people who lack self-confidence are easily recognized by their external signs. They usually exhibit the following qualities.

Constant indecision, which is associated with the fear of making a mistake.
Passionate desire to please in order to fit into the team and feel a sense of belonging to the group.
At the same time, hostility towards others and envy of others' successes appears.
Pathological jealousy. Moreover, destructive feelings can arise not only towards a partner, but also towards friends.

Also, low self-esteem is revealed by the manner of speech. How does this manifest itself?

Notes of a negative worldview and pessimism may creep into the conversation.
Excessive self-criticism. A person constantly mentions his shortcomings and the fact that he is not satisfied with himself.
People with low self-esteem take a defensive position in conversations and always look for excuses for their actions, even without obvious reasons. This usually looks like an excuse to yourself.
There is a dependence on the opinions of others and a negative attitude towards criticism addressed to oneself. Moreover, even any phrase of the interlocutor can be interpreted as a claim or insult.

How to become more self-confident - practical exercises

Try to make a list of your achievements and successes. Graduated from university or college, got the desired education or job? Put it on the list. Do you know a foreign language? This is wonderful. Are you proud to become a mother? Be sure to record this. Then hang this list in a visible place and re-read it regularly.

Similarly, you can record your daily achievements.

Try to find the reason for your low self-esteem. It's like with diseases. You can reduce the symptoms, but the virus will remain and will again and again poison a person’s life.

The role of self-esteem in our lives

Self-esteem reflects your idea of your own strengths and weaknesses and plays a leading role in relationships with others. A self-confident person always has a wider social circle, as he radiates special positive energy. It is easier for such people to overcome life's difficulties and achieve their goals.

Relationships in the family, at work, in society directly depend on your sense of self. By following the lead of your fear, indecision and uncertainty, you are programming yourself for failure. You knowingly deprive yourself of victories, prospects and achievements.

Correct self-esteem gives a person the opportunity to make decisions based on their own beliefs and desires. Do not depend on the opinions of others. Be confident in your own choice. Don't stop there and strive for success.
Society has a great influence on the self-esteem of every person. Upbringing in a family, communication with peers, friends and colleagues either lowers or increases our opinion of ourselves.
Real self-esteem should be built on your own abilities and skills. You need to be able to accept your shortcomings and increase your strengths.

Self-esteem must be real

Reveal your best sides to society, receive praise for your successes. Any normal person strives to choose friends and interlocutors among self-sufficient people.
Underestimating their capabilities prevents people from living fully. Inflated ambitions often lead to multiple mistakes. In both cases, the person refuses to perceive his real self.
Low self-esteem can quickly turn into high self-esteem and vice versa.

In modern society, low self-esteem has become a common problem. Let's consider several effective recommendations that, if followed, will help you reconsider your attitude towards yourself and improve your quality of life.

Psychology of high self-esteem: signs, consequences

Self-esteem is a measure of a person’s perception of his own personal qualities, strengths and capabilities, external and internal data. The effectiveness of one’s existence in modern society, a person’s psychology, his material realization, and interaction with other people directly depend on self-esteem. What can happen if perception itself creates a picture for the subconscious that is much better than it is in real life? Psychology will tell you what this means.

A distorted perception of one's own capabilities can make a person rude, arrogant, and arrogant. The inability to determine your own potential leads to failure in your endeavors, failures and disappointments. The result of the work of a person with high self-esteem is often a lack of public recognition, and as a result, a depressive state.

In order to understand the consequences and extent of the problematic nature of a person’s inflated self-esteem, you need to understand the reasons for its appearance.

The reasons for such psychological violations can be childhood fears and psychological trauma, an inferiority complex, frequent indulgence of parents to all the desires of the child, excessive guardianship, social conditions in which there is no sense of healthy competition (for example, if you are the only girl in a team among men), wide popularity.

Inflated self-esteem, popularly referred to as narcissism, acts as excessive self-confidence, human psychology does not allow him to recognize the likelihood of his opponent being right, an obviously empty desire to reach an unattainable peak, a person does not recognize criticism, does not tolerate statements that do not coincide with his point of view. Such people rarely accept outside help; they try to hide mistakes and failures from prying eyes and accept defeats with desperate pain.

Causes

Most often, inflated self-esteem is formed in childhood, in the process of upbringing. But it also happens that a person comes to it much later, when he achieves certain heights in his career and can no longer lower the bar for himself, even if at some stage he does not meet it. Psychologists give different reasons:

Raising one child in a family, who becomes the center of the universe, when all his desires are satisfied, his merits are exaggerated, and his shortcomings are hushed up.
Raising the first-born, on whom all aspirations and hopes are pinned.
Psychological traumas and children's complexes. Inflated self-esteem is a way of receiving positive emotions that the child did not receive from his parents.
Inferiority complex. When a person sees successful and beautiful people around him, but he himself is not, he begins to invent qualities for himself that he does not possess. This serves as a protection against self-destruction.
External attractiveness that leads to narcissism.
Excellent student syndrome.
In working conditions, when there is only one girl in the team (a guy/person with a higher education/specialist, etc.).
Career take-off, reaching certain heights.
Excessive wealth.
Leadership skills.
Fame and recognition: psychologists diagnose 99% of stars with high self-esteem.

These are the most common reasons, although situations in life are much more multifaceted. For example, a child may not have excellent external characteristics and may not be an excellent student, but if teachers, for some other reason, single him out from the rest of the class, he develops inflated self-esteem. Or the hobby for selfies, when all the photos are retouched through Photoshop and get thousands of likes, interferes with an adequate perception of one’s own real image, which is actually far from ideal.

Signs of low self-esteem

Low self-perception has very specific symptoms:

constant self-criticism;
dissatisfaction with oneself;
excessive sensitivity to the opinions and criticism of other people;
feeling of anxiety, fear of making the wrong decision;
envy of other people's successes;
justifying one's own actions;
pessimism and negative attitude towards the world around us.

If you feel that problems and failures are your constant companions in life, if it seems to you that the decisions you are making are wrong, delve into the study of the topic - how to believe in yourself and increase self-esteem. Otherwise, emotional disorders and depression are possible.

How to find yourself and learn to manage your self-esteem - 5 important tips

And now 5 short tips for managing self-esteem:

Stop comparing yourself to others;
Stop scolding and criticizing yourself;
Communicate with positive people;
Do what you enjoy;
Take action, don't think about action!

Remember that you are a unique individual with enormous potential and unlimited possibilities. Increasing your self-esteem is one way to realize your full potential.

Heightened self-esteem

Recently I saw this picture at a gas station. A new, tinted Audi pulled up. A boy of about eighteen got out of it. Very fashionable, wearing sunglasses. And with a lordly air he began to give instructions to the gas station employees. What do they need to do, where do they need to wipe. After it was refueled. With a careless gesture, he tossed fifty rubles for tea to the girl who was serving him and drove off.

It was clear from the guy that he was simply bursting with a sense of his own importance, which he strives to show always and everywhere. And from the outside one gets the impression of a confident, tough guy. They say about such people that they “caught star fever” or they say that the person has inflated self-esteem. He really comes across as an overconfident person who thinks very highly of himself.

But this is just an impression. In reality, I believe that there are no people with high self-esteem. In my opinion, this is a variant of unstable self-esteem. It’s just that a person, creating his own internal classification of people, somewhat incorrectly determined his place.

Very often, young people who project their parents’ successes onto themselves have inflated self-esteem. That is, money, connections, social status of parents, this is my status. Since a person considers the successes of his parents to be his successes, he finds a seme place in the classification, on the same level as his parents. Accordingly, he behaves as if he had reached such heights. At the same time, other people see the picture more objectively. And they rate him lower than he rates himself.

Therefore, a certain imbalance arises between how a person evaluates himself and how others evaluate him. And others get the impression that the person evaluates himself inadequately highly. That’s why the expression “inflated self-esteem” came into being. Although not all people understand this. Usually, around a person with high self-esteem, there are always people hanging around who are flattered by such a cool acquaintance.

Being actually in the roles of sixes, they use this connection to compensate for their insecurities. Well, it’s good for a star, there is always someone who admires you, who you can control and feel even more significant.

Small-amplitude oscillations occur, above the level of reality. Peaks of confidence with fantasies may or may not occur. Some people with high self-esteem are so beside themselves that they don't even have fantasies. Why fantasy if I already live like in a fairy tale.

But peaks of uncertainty are uncharacteristic for them. Because when faced with failure, they begin to look for the reasons for failure. And they are usually found either in other people or in external circumstances. And such an explanation helps maintain self-esteem. There is one notch in the graph of falling self-esteem. This can happen if a person is faced with a serious problem and fails, or receives condemnation from one of the small number of people whom he places above himself.

But this hole in self-esteem, as a rule, does not last long. The man quickly flies upward again. Since we have determined that high self-esteem is a variant of unstable self-esteem, then behavior towards other people will be the same as we described above. Only it can be in an even more exaggerated form. If a situation occurs in life in which one’s place in the classification changes, then the result is a change in the self-esteem graph.

Often self-esteem becomes typical for a person with unstable self-esteem. That is, peaks of uncertainty appear, accompanying tendencies towards depression. During which a person can abuse alcohol.

How to deal with high self-esteem

To get rid of high self-esteem, you need to do a tremendous amount of work on yourself and have a strong desire to change for the better. A professional psychologist can help with this.

However, there are simple self-help methods:

Learn to take into account

During a conversation, you need to listen to your interlocutor and respect his point of view. Take criticism calmly and draw conclusions. If something doesn't happen the way you wanted, take responsibility rather than blaming someone else for the failure. It is important to learn to determine a person’s true attitude, to distinguish sincere praise from flattery. Before embarking on a risky project, it is necessary to evaluate all possible options for completing the work started. You should not start something new if you are not sure of the successful implementation of your plans. After the successful implementation of the project, you need to analyze and think about how you could achieve even better results. To improve, you need to treat yourself with a certain amount of self-criticism

Without this, it is impossible to lower self-esteem and make it adequate.

High self-esteem in children

Adequate self-esteem begins to form in early childhood, if during this period parents praise the child too often for everything he does and never cease to admire him.

This attitude leads to the fact that it is difficult for the child to find a common language with peers and to go through the stage of socialization in society.

When he gets into a team (kindergarten, school), it is difficult for him to come to terms with the fact that “he is one of all” and not “the best”. Such children are conflict-ridden and emotional. This situation can cause psychological trauma and the development of low self-esteem.

You can and should praise children, but it is important to do it correctly. You cannot praise a child in the following cases:

You cannot praise a child in the following cases:

for its external data: this is what is given by nature, and not created by a child;
if the child has achieved something without putting in any work;
for toys, books, clothes - they were bought or given to him, there is no merit in this.

High self-esteem in teenagers

The reason for adolescent high self-esteem is that the child wants to appear better than he is, to achieve recognition from acquaintances and friends.

Another basis for the formation of an incorrect assessment is narcissism, impunity, when parents continue to indulge an already adult child and exaggerate the scale of his achievements.

To develop healthy self-esteem in a teenager, psychologists advise adhering to the following recommendations:

Give the child a feeling of security, support, do not be shy to demonstrate your love, and at the same time stop strictly controlling and making them love you.
Learn to set realistic goals and achieve them step by step.
Don’t solve all the problems for the teenager, give him the opportunity to feel responsible for his actions and actions.
Teach your child discipline.
Praise for real achievements.
Make it clear that mistakes are normal: made once, they will provide the necessary experience and help get rid of mistakes in the future.

Main manifestations

The fact that an individual is inclined to underestimate his own merits can be judged by various “symptoms”. Main manifestations:

An individual allows others to manage his life, give advice, interfere in personal affairs, and manage the process.
Doesn't hear intuition, doesn't trust his own sensations and feelings.
He often finds himself in a situation where he is used for personal gain.
Hides feelings, cannot open up to others.
Tries to please everyone and in everything, does not know how to say “no”.
Doesn't know how to achieve goals or implement plans.
He does something he doesn’t like for the sake of someone’s praise.
Subject to excessive self-criticism.
Represses his own needs to please others.
I'm worried about outside opinions.
Treats others in a disrespectful manner.
Cannot break off a “failing” relationship.

READ Negative character traits and ways to correct them

Once a person learns to put himself and his needs first, he will gain self-esteem and respect from others, and changes for the better will occur.

Constant soul-searching

Fear of condemnation guides the behavior and life of an individual. Everything is done to look perfect and no one gets to the bottom of it

It is important for an individual what others say and even think. Self-examination does not give rest, since a person every day looks for mistakes and shortcomings in her own actions, blames herself for stupidity

World in shades of gray

Rejection of oneself and unfair treatment of oneself by others leads to the formation of hostility and aggressiveness. A person sees the shortcomings of the world without noticing the bright colors and positive aspects. With such a worldview, it is difficult to find happiness and build a personal life.

Shopaholism

The desire to look perfect leads to the fact that a person buys things without realizing his actions, buys clothes that he never wears. Shopaholism is an opportunity to express yourself and look perfect.

Promiscuous intimate relationships

With a low self-image, a person has an affair with the first person he meets. Such people get married at a young age because they are afraid that they will be left alone. They cannot break ties in which there has been no love and happiness for a long time. Failures in your personal life further reduce self-esteem.

Obsessive states

A person is tormented by fear, panic, anxiety. The nervous system is directly affected by self-perception. Such people are characterized by problems with sleep, a nervous state, irritability, and suspicion.

Lies in everyday life

They lie to present themselves in the best light, to avoid excessive attention to their own person and responsibility for their actions. Lying out of nowhere sometimes reaches the point of absurdity. People around them understand that they are being lied to.

Communication with bad people

An insecure girl always has a confident friend who will stand up for her. Guys to look cooler. Such people tend to enhance their own “I” at the expense of others.

What is high self-esteem

What is high self-esteem? It refers to an individual’s overestimation of their own potential. In other words, a person thinks of himself as better than he really is. This is why they say that people with high self-esteem are often out of touch with reality. They evaluate themselves biasedly and most often notice shortcomings in others rather than advantages. To some extent, this can be associated with the individual’s reluctance to see the good in others, against the background of which they will notice their own shortcomings.

High self-esteem means seeing only your strengths, ignoring your shortcomings. At the same time, other people seem weak, stupid, underdeveloped. That is, a person sees exclusively other people’s shortcomings, not paying attention to the existing advantages.

However, not everything is so simple with high self-esteem. Its appeal lies in the fact that a person with such self-esteem experiences absolute self-confidence. He does not doubt himself, does not humiliate, does not suppress. He is confident in his own abilities - this is the positive side of high self-esteem.

The negative side can be:

Disregard for other people's opinions and interests of others.
Selfishness.
Overestimation of one's own strengths.

It is noted that high self-esteem, like low self-esteem, can plunge a person into a depressive state. This occurs when multiple failures occur. And a depressive state can be described as “I-, You-”, that is, a person sees bad things in himself and in others.

Is there really no benefit to self-esteem?

There is, but not at all where they usually look for it. For example, in patients with asthma and rheumatoid arthritis, the level of stress and severity of symptoms negatively correlate with self-esteem: the better the patient feels about himself, the easier he tolerates the disease.

In general, we tend to develop and improve something in ourselves all the time. However, it can be assumed that the large “self-esteem” concept will break down into many small “self-”: self-control, self-efficacy, self-compassion...

Thus, Baumeister, summing up, notes in his work: “Self-control is much more effective ... as a cause of personal success.” And scientists from Berkeley J. Brines and S. Chen, demonstrating the results of experiments, assure that “self-compassion” makes us move towards improvement.

Factors influencing the formation of self-esteem

Inadequate self-esteem is always bad; it creates discomfort and problems for both the person himself and his environment. But can an individual be blamed for having a wrong self-image? Under the influence of what is self-esteem formed?

Social factors

The foundations of self-esteem are laid in childhood, from the moment when the baby becomes aware of his “I” and begins to compare himself with other children and adults. But in preschool, and even at primary school age, children cannot yet adequately analyze their qualities and their behavior, therefore the evaluative sphere is formed entirely under the influence of adults. Remember how V. Mayakovsky wrote: “The little son came to his father, and the little one asked: “What is good?” And what is bad?

Therefore, it is the wrong actions of adults that give impetus to the formation of inadequate self-esteem. Here are some of them:

unfair or excessive punishments;
unreasonable and too frequent praise;
constant comparison of the child with other children to show his weaknesses, inability, disobedience;
the position of a “king” in the family or a favorite at school;
emphasizing and focusing the child’s attention on his failures and mistakes.

Child psychologists believe that, in general, praise and encouragement are more beneficial, while constant reprimands and punishments are harmful. The fact is that we experience negative emotions more strongly than positive ones. And unpleasant sensations are stored in memory longer and have a stronger impact on our behavior. This happened in the process of evolution.

The opinions of people around us have a great influence on the formation of self-esteem and of an adult, especially when it comes to socially significant people whose opinions are important to us

Personal factors

The formation of self-esteem is also influenced by a person’s individual characteristics, the uniqueness of emotions, temperament, and character.

People with a sensitive psyche worry more about their failures and about the assessments of others than those who are less emotional.

A person whose melancholic traits predominate tends to get upset even over a minor random remark and remember it for a long time.
A phlegmatic person may not even pay attention to the remark.
Closed, unsociable introverts worry less about the assessments of others than sociable extroverts. On the other hand, extroverts, due to their tendency to demonstrate behavior, often suffer from inflated self-esteem. But people who avoid people and prefer solitude often consider themselves superior to others and despise those around them who are unworthy of communicating with them.

That is, individual personality characteristics certainly influence the formation of self-esteem, but its vector is determined primarily by the social environment. There is another important factor related to a person’s assessment of his own “I”.

Level of aspiration

We all strive for something in life, we set goals for ourselves. And these goals are different: some want to earn money for a new apartment, some want to create their own thriving company, and for others a trip to the sea is the ultimate dream. The degree of complexity, difficulty of a goal or task that a person defines for himself is the level of his aspirations.

Just like self-esteem, the level of aspirations can be adequate or inadequate. Adequate is one where goals correspond to human capabilities. If a school graduate with poor knowledge and low Unified State Exam grades decides to apply to a prestigious metropolitan university, then he clearly has an inadequate, inflated level of aspirations. And when a good student refuses to enroll in a higher education institution because he is afraid of failure, then his level of aspiration is too low. Both are bad.

The level of aspirations is formed under the influence of successes and failures that accompany a person on the path of life, and, in turn, affects the formation of self-esteem. After all, an athlete, constantly setting a bar for himself that he cannot jump over, will very quickly become disappointed in his abilities and in the ability to achieve success. And a low level of aspirations does not contribute to the development of self-esteem and self-confidence.

But psychologists still believe that a low level is worse than a high level and has a bad effect on the formation of personality and its position in society. It makes a person a socially passive loser who does not strive for success.

How to Increase Self-Esteem and Confidence - 7 Powerful Ways

How to increase self-esteem and love yourself? There are many ways to make yourself believe in your own abilities, but I have chosen seven of the most reliable and effective options.

Method 1. Change your environment and communicate with successful people

Since man is a social being, he is completely dependent on his environment. How to believe in yourself and increase self-esteem with the help of other people? It’s very simple – you need to change your environment.

I already wrote above that communicating with uninitiated, sluggish and lazy people without ambitions and desires for change is a direct path to decreased self-esteem and lack of motivation in life.

If you radically change your social circle and start communicating with successful, purposeful, self-confident people, you will almost immediately feel yourself changing for the better. Gradually, self-respect, self-love and all those qualities without which it is impossible to achieve success will return to you.

By communicating with successful and prosperous people, you will learn to value individuality (including your own), begin to think differently about your personal time, find a goal and begin to achieve success on your own.

Method 2. Attending events, trainings, seminars

In any city, events, trainings or seminars are held where specialists teach everyone to gain self-confidence and increase self-esteem.

Experts in applied psychology will be able to turn a timid, indecisive individual into a strong-willed, self-satisfied and purposeful person in a few months: the main thing is to have an initial impulse and desire for change.

There are many competent books that talk in detail, with examples and explanations, about the need for self-love and respect: if you want changes, familiarizing yourself with such literature will be very productive.

I recommend reading the following books: Brian Tracy “Self-Esteem”, Sharon Wegshida-Cruz “How Much Are You Worth? How to learn to love and respect yourself."

The books “The Charm of Femininity” by Helen Andelin and “Heal Your Life” by Louise Hay will be especially relevant for increasing female self-esteem.

It is also useful to watch video content on this topic - documentaries and feature films that help increase self-esteem.

Method 3. Leaving the “comfort zone” - performing unusual actions

A person’s desire to escape from problems into a personal comfort zone is quite understandable. It is much easier in difficult situations to console yourself with sweets, alcohol, and savoring your own powerlessness. It is much more difficult to face the challenge and do something that is unusual for us.

At first it may seem that outside your comfort zone there is a hostile and inhospitable world, but then you will understand that real life, full of beauty, adventure and positive emotions, is exactly where you have not been before.

Staying in familiar conditions is like living in an invisible cage, from which you are afraid to leave simply because you are accustomed to it. By learning to leave your comfort zone and still remain calm, collected and balanced, you will gain a powerful incentive to raise your self-esteem and shape your new image.

You can start small - for example, stop sitting in front of the TV after work, and buy a gym membership, go jogging, yoga, and meditation.

Set a goal - to learn an unfamiliar language in six months or to meet the girl you like tonight. Don’t be afraid if you don’t succeed the first time – but new sensations and increased self-esteem are guaranteed.

Method 4. Refusal of excessive self-criticism

By stopping self-flagellation, blaming yourself and “eating” for mistakes, flaws in appearance, failures in your personal life, you will achieve several goals at once:

Release enormous amounts of energy. You will not lose your attention to self-criticism, and there will be time for other, more creative and worthy tasks;
Learn to accept yourself for who you are. You are the one and only person on this planet. So why compare yourself to others? It is better to focus on achieving your own goals according to your potential and your idea of happiness;
Learn to see the positive traits of your personality . Instead of dwelling on the negative, purposefully find your strengths and work on developing them.

In the end, any failures, disappointments and mistakes can be turned to your advantage by using them as life experience.

Method 5. Playing sports and leading a healthy lifestyle

In the course of experiments conducted by European scientists, it was found that one of the simplest and most effective ways to increase self-esteem is to engage in sports, physical exercise, or activities aimed at improving health and well-being.

A healthy body is a container for a healthy spirit and correct thoughts, and vice versa: it is difficult for a person who is heavy to lift, with an untrained body, to make decisions and act independently.

Having started playing sports, a person begins to perceive his appearance less critically and treat himself more respectfully. At the same time, increasing self-esteem does not depend on the results of training: even if the changes are minor, the process of training itself is important.

The more actively you exercise, the better you begin to feel about yourself.

Any physical activity (especially for a person working in an office) is an opportunity to gain confidence and love yourself. There is a completely scientific explanation for this phenomenon: during sports, a person intensively produces dopamine - neurotransmitters responsible for reward (in bypass they are sometimes called “joy hormones”).

Biochemical changes have a positive effect on the psyche and increase our self-esteem.

Method 6. Listening to affirmations

Affirmations are one of the most effective ways to reprogram your own consciousness. In psychology, affirmations are understood as short verbal formulas that, when repeated many times, create a positive attitude in a person’s subconscious. In the future, this attitude contributes to changing character and personality traits towards improvement.

Affirmations are always formulated as a fait accompli, which forces a person to accept them as a given and think accordingly. If our subconscious considers us self-confident, successful and purposeful, then gradually we really become so.

Typical examples of affirmations for increasing self-esteem: “I am the master of my life,” “I can have everything I want,” “I believe in myself, so everything comes to me freely and effortlessly.” These linguistic formulas can be repeated independently or listened to in the player: the main thing in this practice is regularity.

Helpful advice
Read these phrases into the microphone, record a track of several minutes from them and listen to them in your free time. This technology is recommended by Western psychologists and has proven to be highly effective.

Method 7. Keeping a diary of successes and achievements

A diary of your own victories and achievements will help teenagers, men and women, to raise their self-esteem.

Start such a diary right now and write down everything that you managed to achieve in a day (week, month). A success diary is a powerful stimulating tool that will make you believe in yourself and allow you to increase your own effectiveness many times over.

Every day, write down any victories you have, no matter how small.

Example
I took my grandmother across the road;
I wanted to eat junk food, but I restrained myself;
Woke up and went to bed on time (according to plan);
Gave a gift to my beloved (beloved);
Earned 10% more than the previous month;

All these “little things” relate to your personal successes, be sure to include them in your success diary and read it regularly.

If you write down only 5 simple things a day, then this will already be 150 of your achievements per month!

Not so little for one month, would you agree?!

One of our articles was written about how to become rich and successful from scratch, and keeping a success diary can be the first step towards this.

Types and levels of self-esteem

In psychology, there are two types of self-esteem: adequate and inadequate. Sometimes they also talk about optimal and suboptimal self-esteem, thereby emphasizing that many people tend to evaluate themselves slightly above average, and this is more the norm than a deviation. Another thing is how highly we value ourselves.

Adequate self-esteem

Adequate self-esteem, to one degree or another, correctly reflects the abilities and qualities of an individual, that is, it is a person’s idea of himself, which corresponds to the real state of affairs. Such ideas can be either with a + or a − sign, because people are not ideal. For example, when a person says that a bear stepped on his ear, this may not be a belittlement of his own abilities in music, but an adequate assessment of them.

Self-esteem influences all human behavior and his attitude towards himself and towards other people. Thus, with adequate self-esteem an individual:

correctly assesses the relationship between his desires and abilities;
sets realistic goals that he can achieve;
able to look at oneself critically from the outside;
tries to foresee the results of his actions.

In general, for a person with adequate self-esteem, the people around him are important. But he also evaluates their opinion adequately, focusing more on his own ideas about the benefits or harm of his actions.

Inadequate self-esteem

Inadequate self-esteem comes in two forms: low and high. The degree of inadequacy comes at different levels. Self-esteem at a level slightly above or slightly below average is a fairly common phenomenon, and they almost do not manifest themselves in an individual’s behavior and do not interfere with his life and interaction with others. The deviation in this case can only be determined using special psychological tests. And self-esteem that is slightly above average does not even need correction, since a person can quite deservedly respect and value himself, and self-esteem has never bothered anyone.

But it happens (and often) that self-esteem is far from optimal and significantly above or below the average level. In this case, it has a serious impact on a person’s actions and can lead to inappropriate behavior and conflicts with others.

Individual characteristics of people with high self-esteem

People with excessively high self-esteem can be quickly noticed in any team - they strive to be visible, advise everyone, lead everyone and dominate everywhere. Such people are characterized by the following characteristics:

they estimate their capabilities and their importance too highly;
they do not accept criticism, and they are irritated by other people’s opinions that do not coincide with their own;
often have a superiority complex, considering themselves to be right in everything;
emphatically independent and even arrogant;
reject the help and support of others;
blame other people or circumstances for their failures and problems;
do not notice their weaknesses or pass them off as strengths, for example, stubbornness as perseverance, and arrogance as determination;
are often distinguished by a demonstrative type of behavior, they like to perform actions for show;
They tend to be selfish and disrespectful towards others.

There is an opinion that it is better to have high self-esteem than low self-esteem. But here it all depends on the level - people who value themselves too highly can be very unpleasant.

Low self-esteem

People with a level of self-esteem significantly below average cannot always be immediately noticed, especially in a team. They do not strive to be visible and seem simply modest. But in the process of communicating with them, their far from pleasant qualities are revealed:

indecisiveness and excessive caution; dependence on the opinions of other people and the constant need for their support; the desire to shift responsibility, including for one’s actions, onto the shoulders of others; an inferiority complex and, as a consequence, excessive vulnerability, touchiness, and quarrelsomeness; excessive demands on oneself and others, perfectionism; pettiness, vindictiveness and envy; Suffering from low self-esteem, they nevertheless try to prove to everyone that they are “cool” and commit inappropriate actions.

Low self-esteem also makes people selfish, only this is a different kind of selfishness. They are so immersed in their failures and obsessed with self-pity that they do not notice the problems of their loved ones. Very often, those who have too low a level of self-esteem do not know how to respect or love.

High self-esteem and self-confidence are an important factor in achieving success.

Before I talk about ways to increase self-esteem, I want to emphasize the importance of self-love for achieving success and well-being. For some reason, it is believed that selfishness is a sin, or at least something that should be avoided.

In fact, the lack of love and respect for one’s own personality is what gives rise to numerous complexes and internal conflicts.

If a person has a low opinion of himself, it is unlikely that others will think differently. And vice versa - self-confident people are usually highly valued by others: their opinions are listened to, people strive to communicate and cooperate with them. Having learned to respect ourselves, we will gain the respect of others, and also learn to adequately relate to the opinions of others about us.

Signs of high (+) self-esteem

People with healthy, high self-esteem have the following benefits:

accept their physical appearance as it is;
self-confident;
are not afraid to make mistakes and learn from them;
calmly accept criticism and compliments;
know how to communicate, do not experience shyness when communicating with strangers;
respect the opinions of others, but also value their own view of things;
take care of their physical and emotional well-being;
develop harmoniously;
achieve success in their endeavors.

Self-confidence and self-esteem are the same necessary factors for achieving success and happiness as sun and water for a plant: without them, personal growth is impossible. Low self-esteem deprives a person of perspective and hope for change.