Your Self-Esteem and Self-Worth - How To Improve Them and Feel More Confident!
Self-esteem (or self-worth); Self-Image and Self-Confidence
(We'll use the two terms self-worth and self-esteem to mean the same thing. If you have a high self-esteem, you feel good about yourself. You have high feelings of self-worth.)
Mostly, people don't stop to think how they feel about themselves. However, in times of stress or in difficult circumstances, a person may begin to think things like: "I hate myself." "I can't do anything right." "Oh, what's the use? I'll never be able to do it."
Thoughts like these show a person has a self-esteem lower than it could be. In essence, low self-esteem is a low opinion of oneself. Someone with a poor self-esteem will tend to experience feelings of depression and anxiety more often and to a greater extent than someone with a stronger sense of self-worth. In addition, he or she will try to avoid any situation which could adversely affect his or her self-esteem - especially anything to do with the possibility of failure and rejection.
Your self-image is the total of all the impressions which you have of yourself. It is built up of your impressions about your body, age, sex, intelligence, personal ability, personality traits, job, achievements and so on, and also how you feel about those impressions.
In addition to your self-image, you will have an image of a set of ideal characteristics: the ones which you would choose for yourself, were it possible to do so. These characteristics make up what is called your "ideal self". This is based on real or imagined people whom you envy or admire.
As you probably realize, there is usually a discrepancy between a person's self-image and his or her ideal self: the smaller this discrepancy, the happier he or she will be. In fact the size of this discrepancy is a rough measure of a person's self-esteem. Thus someone with a large discrepancy between his or her self-image and ideal self will tend to have a poor self-esteem.
Of course, there may be a real difference between your ideal self and your self-image. On the other hand, your self-image may be based on your own wildly inaccurate perceptions and beliefs about yourself. Depending on the nature of these inaccurate perceptions (do you see yourself in a favorable or an unfavorable way?), the gap between your self-image and ideal self may be either smaller or greater in your mind than in reality.
Here are some of the psychological techniques which a person can use to develop a more positive self-image and so develop a higher level of self-esteem. These include:
1 Spend time with people who have the values and aspirations that you do, and who support you in what you are trying to achieve. These are the people who will reinforce and build up your self-image.
2. Don't engage in negative thinking. Spend time every day visualizing, meditating, or praying.
3. Reinforce the positive aspects of your behavior, appearance or personality. Focus in the strengths and abilities you have.
4. Behave in a way completely in line with the highest values and ideals to which you aspire.
Doing this will help build your self-confidence, because we feel less confident when our self-image is threatened. And of course the loss of confidence increases in proportion to the importance which we attach to the part of our self-image that's threatened.
Next page: EXPECTATIONS AND SELF-IMAGE
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Answered by
Yoga
at
12:36 PM on October 17, 2008
