How to Build A Healthy Self Esteem- A Complete Guide

“How You View Yourself is How The World Will Learn To View You.”

In order to have a healthy self esteem, we must look at these questions below.

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How many times have we compared ourselves to others?

How many of us have this limiting belief that,

“I am not good enough.”

“I’m defective.”

“I am unlovable.”

How many times people have crossed your boundaries and how many times you could not say “NO”?

As a child, our existence depended on the choices our adults made in childhood. What all things they deemed fit defined our way until we grew to use our brains to fully take conscious decisions.

When somebody told that,

“You look pretty.” We believed it.

When somebody told that,

“You are good at maths.” We believed it.

When somebody told that,

“Your nose is too small.” We believed it.

When somebody told that,

“You can become an astronaut & whatever you dream of.” We believed it.

Right?

Whenever someone told us something, be it good or bad, we started accepting it and making it a part of our identity.

Our Thoughts + People’s Thoughts —-> Acceptance —-> Belief —-> Self Esteem

When we heard the bad and didn’t know how to dissolve that bad thought, we accepted that too, thinking that that will be our fate, our life. We didn’t fight that thought, rather accepted it.

So to understand self esteem & how to truly look yourself in the mirror for who you are, I’ll be covering,

1. What does esteem mean?
2. What is self esteem?
3. Where does it come from?
4. Is self esteem important?
5. Types of self esteem
6. Causes of low self esteem
7. Is self esteem same as self image?
8. How to build a healthy self esteem?
9. Final thoughts

What does Esteem mean?

I never knew what esteem meant, let alone self esteem. Esteem is a word used to describe high amount of respect and admiration. It can be for others or for self.

What does Self Esteem mean?

In the journey of fully understanding yourself and making the best version of yourself, you need to understand the importance of self esteem in your life. We may discover a lot of things when we know about what is self esteem, why self esteem is important and how we can move towards a healthy level of self esteem.

So, self esteem means,

“The way you look at yourself in the mirror and give a definition to what you saw.”

It’s not just physical attributes but also the entire whole person that you are. What you feel about your life or what you feel about your nose is self esteem.

The values, beliefs, perceptions, & thoughts that you hold about yourself, whether great, good, or bad.

You may hold good feelings or thoughts about you. Even if you don’t, you can develop it. Just read this blog for support.

Where does it come from?

Childhood.

It was the time that you were born. It is the experiences that your brain started registering while you were small. This works as a foundation on which other thoughts regarding yourself are born.

The school you joined as a kid, the parents you had, their beliefs, the friends, teachers you had, your growth, failure, success, relationships, breakups, career setbacks, societal engagements and many more shaped the life you are leading.

Remember. What you thought before can be changed. Your life is elastic. It can change when you make efforts to change your thoughts and actions.

Apart from childhood experiences, there are other factors that contribute to your self esteem. Read below.

Importance of Self Esteem

The question is, is it necessary?

Is it worth it?

The answer is YES. It is one of the important step in discovering ourselves and building a better version of ourselves. Even if you have achieved immense growth in life, you will still feel like it is not enough. You will feel a vacuum which will never be filled as there is low self esteem. Your own thinking about yourself will become a block on your road. It might also stop you from getting into the unknown, taking risks or getting newer opportunities and outlook.

It impacts your entire well being.

So it is important to have a healthy self esteem. There will be a positive outlook towards life, better choices, and better mental health. That is how it affects your life.

Types of Self Esteem

If you want to understand where you are and where you want to be in your self esteem game, then here is how you can distinguish.

There are 3 types of self esteem. There is low, high and extreme self esteem. Let’s look at them one by one.

1. Low Self Esteem- Here, a person thinks lowly of himself and life. There is low energy, enthusiasm and any self belief to propel things in life. They highly doubt their capabilities and what life can bring to them. This affects not just one area of life but other areas too. They also happen to face mental issues like anxiety, panic attacks, depression, addiction, substance abuse and lack of healthy relationships.
2. High Self Esteem- Here, a person thinks highly of himself and life. They know who they are, what they bring to the table and how capable they can become with the self belief and zeal to achieve things in life. They truly love and accept themselves. Even if they face troublesome situations in life, they will tackle them with confidence. They can carry out their life and don’t need anyone’s validation. If there is something that they want to improve in their life, they have the belief that they can do it.
3. Extreme Self Esteem- This level of self esteem has exceeded it’s healthy level and now has become toxic for themselves and for others. Here, a person only thinks highly of himself and is ready to do things at the cost of other’s happiness and success. They don’t mind letting relationships go. They are hostile and act superior. This is an act they do in order to hide their insecurities.

With this you must have understood about where you stand. If you are here with me till now, let’s jump to the next segment and i.e., what are the characteristics of low self esteem.

Causes of Low Self Esteem

If you are someone who struggled with basic things of life and found no place to better yourself or make your identity, I can understand. It is not easy to see our own shadows and understand what beliefs we are carrying and how much are they really helping us move forward in life.

Coming to low self esteem, I would say it isn’t your fault. You may have formed an identity of yourself based on some harsh experiences or challenges. It is not easy, but you need to know the causes of low self esteem to get it on high level self esteem.

1. The first cause is someone who made you feel (knowingly or unknowingly, worthless /unlovable/unworthy/defective)
2. Someone’s harsh words and criticism about you
3. An illness that has downgraded your life of has taken away you abilities
4. Lack of attention warmth, applaud, and encouragement
5. Discrimination of any kind
6. Poor academics
7. Low quality relationships
8. Family disputes
9. Stressful experiences
10. Comparison
11. Emotional Unavailability

And many more. That is how you will know what affects you and how you can work on building a healthy self esteem.

Is Self Esteem Same as Self Image?

Is it same?

No. These two are different. Self esteem is what you feel about yourself and your abilities. On the other hand, self image is how you feel about yourself in relation to how others feel about you.

For example, if someone called you beautiful, you would believe that you are beautiful. So here, this is your self esteem which you formed based on external compliments and achievements.

On the other hand, self image is how you see yourself. Do you think you are beautiful? Do you think you are attractive? How do you look in the mirror? What are your thoughts about your beauty and many more such questions.

To know more about self esteem and self image, you can visit this helpful website on self image and related concepts.

How to build a healthy Self Esteem?

THIS IS THE FINAL JUICE OF THIS BLOG.

After knowing the issues and gaps, let us finally understand the ways to improve how you feel about yourself.

1. Start with one thought at a time- We get thousands of thoughts daily. Some of them are repetitive while some are not helpful. Spot those thoughts that don’t feel good. Get one thought from them and ask yourself, “why do you think this way?” Go deeper in this and quickly change it into a positive one. Now whenever you get a negative thought, you switch it to the right one.
2. Improve self talk- No matter what has happened in the past, you still have the opportunity to transmute it. Self talk is powerful. It can change your life. Once you spot something negative, you can start speaking good to yourself. Even if you have a limiting belief system, you can work on that thought. For example, you can start saying that, “you can achieve your fitness goals,” or you can say, “my legs are getting slimmer everyday.”
3. Be patient with yourself and give time- Don’t be harsh on yourself. Be calm and cool. You can build daily habits to improve self esteem. For example, you can journal your thoughts and understand where you are thinking in a certain manner. If you do it for even 7 days, you can see how clear you are in your head, as most of the problems were just in the head and needed some release.

Final Thoughts

I hope you understood what self esteem means and got an overview of this topic. I hope this helps you in your transformation journey as my purpose is to help you evolve!

Thank you!

For more resources on personal development, read my previous blog on How to keep healthy boundaries.

Thanking to the reference- https://esmarildad.medium.com/self-esteem-vs-self-worth-vs-self-image-whats-the-diffs-e253670d5472