Many people talk about self-esteem. Everyone knows that you have to have it, that it is good, that if you don’t have it… bad. But how many people know what they are talking about? Surely, not so much…
If we search definitions of self-esteem in books, on the internet, in dictionaries; If we ask different professionals… we will surely get different answers each time. The definition may depend on the psychological approach from which it is analyzed, each emphasizing different aspects of the human mind.
But the truth is that many of the definitions end up having more in common than it seems. Here are some:
Appreciation or consideration that one has of himself.
Feeling of acceptance and appreciation towards oneself, which is linked to the feeling of competence and personal worth.
The degree to which individuals have positive or negative feelings about themselves and their own worth.
The ability of a person to value, love, appreciate and accept themselves.
The set of the individual’s attitudes towards himself.
The love that each person has for themselves.
Evaluation that a person makes of himself.
We could find infinite more. But I think that, for the case, they are more than enough. Among all of them, we find key words: acceptance, appreciation, competence, worth, love, evaluation… and we could add some more such as confidence and awareness, always in reference to oneself. Personally, I think that all have to do with self-esteem that all those words, in some way, are part of the concept.
Components that define self-esteem
For my part, instead of developing one more definition for the gigantic bag that we can find, what I am going to do is talk about each of its components separately. First, let’s give a “why” to spending time writing and reading about this. Where lies the importance of self-esteem? Without a doubt, it is to the great extent that it influences and manifests itself in our lives. Without realizing it, our self-esteem makes an appearance through our thoughts, perceptions, behaviors, emotions… and that is a lot of presence. Self-esteem has great power over our minds and, consequently, over our lives. Therefore, many of the causes (but not all) of poor mental health, whatever its pathological manifestation, have something to do, however remotely, with low self-esteem. I won’t beat around the bush anymore. Let’s talk about its components, to try to understand everything that this powerful concept encompasses.
1. Acceptance
We can say that it is a sign of good self-esteem acceptance of oneself. The word acceptance has several meanings in its definition. Those that interest us: admission and approval.
Admission It would refer to admit what I am… that is, not deny what we are. We must recognize our defects, virtues, abilities, weaknesses, competencies, limitations… As well as never deny that we have certain needs, rights, obligations and responsibilities as human beings in a world in which we live in society. And keep in mind that these aspects that we must recognize, we must not magnify or belittle them. Let’s value them in their fair measure and with proportion. When we recognize all these aspects in ourselves we will recognize and respect them in others. This will make us live in peace with ourselves and with the rest of the people around us. We will be happier and we will make others happier.
If I admit that I have a defect such as laziness, I will tolerate and respect those people in whom I perceive that defect; and instead of judging and criticizing them, perhaps I encourage them to overcome that defect to help you improve if you want or need it.
If I admit that I have rights such as express my opinion legitimately, I will recognize that right in others and will not censure anyone.
If I admit that I have needs Like having the support of a loved one in difficult times, I will not judge those who have that need as a coward or make fun of them.
Thus we could continue with infinite examples but I think it is clear that admitting certain things in ourselves helps us respect ourselves and others.
On the other hand, approval It would mean accepting what I am as good. Perhaps we should give this meaning a couple of thoughts. Am I supposed to accept everything I am as good? If I am a spiteful person, should I accept it as good? Should I accept it even if it goes against my values*? Well, let’s clarify that it is not about accepting our defects in that sense, but about considering ourselves good as people in general, without weighing virtues and defects.
Regarding the defects, I would like to clarify something else. It would not be so much a question of considering them good or not, but rather whether we see ourselves capable of overcoming them and being the way we want to be. If we have a healthy self-esteem We will be fully capable of behaving as we wish according to our values and changing everything about ourselves that we believe is relevant. If I think I tend to be impulsive in more situations than I would like (because impulsiveness hasn’t helped me much in getting out of some situations successfully), I will work on behaving less impulsively. That is, thinking before acting, in those situations in which you see it necessary. Simply because that is what I want for myself and it is what suits me.
2. Love and appreciation
Isn’t it true that when we love someone we usually show it to them in various ways (consciously or unconsciously)? Well, that’s what we should do with ourselves. If we love someone, we care about them. physical and emotional well-being, we give them a gift from time to time, we have details, we like being with that person… We also feel that, in some way, we need them and they need us, we do not insult them, we do not disrespect them, we do not humiliate them, we defend them if attacked, etc. Well, sometimes we may miss an act or word that results in something negative for another person, but nothing happens if we recognize the mistake, we apologize, we show some regret and we are firmly willing to ensure that it does not happen again. In short, all those things that show that we love someone we must also do for ourselves. That, without a doubt, is a sign of good self-esteem.
Let’s ask ourselves if we would say something bad that we have said and, above all, thought about ourselves, to that person we love so much. More than once and twice we will surprise ourselves hearing our own thoughts tell us stupid things that we wouldn’t even say to our worst enemy. Let’s ask ourselves if what we have done or failed to do that has harmed us would we have done to a loved one.
Competence and capacity for what? To face life as we wish. Good self-esteem is feeling capable and suitable for everything that comes our way in life: to love, to achieve success, to solve problems, to overcome obstacles and adversities, to work, to learn, to speak… It is about becoming great in the face of problems, challenges and desires. It will always be a self-esteem exercise taking the bull by the horns. Although without underestimating the fact that, as human beings, we also have limitations.
And we put the icing on the cake if, in addition to feeling capable of acting towards achieving what we want, we lose the fear of making mistakes, which is absurd (I will talk about it later) since we are designed to be right and wrong constantly. We have to accept that we will not always get it right. And we must understand that a mistake is not a failure but a opportunity to learn Even so, it is not unnecessary to have, at times, a certain fear and (rational) respect for possible blunders that could hurt ourselves or third parties.
4. Trust and security
On the other hand, competence is closely related to confidence and self-assurance. If we act with confidence and security we will increase the chances that the move will turn out well. Trust implies greater perception of competition and this makes us truly more capable of doing things well and achieving success. If we face situations with insecurity and fear of making mistakes, we will have the perception that we are less capable of doing it well and, more likely, that will be the case. We will be more likely to fail. And what’s worse, we will somehow blame our failure on our bad attitude, which will decrease our self-confidence. This will lead us to a spiral of failures and a perception of inability to live. We must break the cycle and begin to force the perception that we are capable, to trust ourselves and act with confidence; and only in this way will we show ourselves that we are capable of success.
5. Self-assessment
Let’s talk now about value. Valuing ourselves, as I understand it and said metaphorically, is everything that we are willing to “pay” for ourselves, for our well-being. An example: if our well-being depends on whether or not we leave a job that is crushing us (physically and/or psychologically), we should ask ourselves: is the money that job brings me worth more than my well-being? Well, the money it brings us may be of vital importance for our survival in society, but even so, is it worth trying to look for something else, or not? We have to decide according to how much we value ourselves. Signal of good self-esteem It is giving value to yourself. Sometimes without realizing it, when we make a decision, we are giving more value to some things (often unimportant) than to ourselves. That’s why you have to know how to value yourself.
In addition to talking about the value that we attribute to ourselves as people, we must also give value to our virtues, defects, abilities, limitations, competencies, weaknesses, needs, rights, obligations and responsibilities to be consistent with all of this. If we believe that we are handsome but we do not value that characteristic, we will be devaluing ourselves. If we believe that we are lazy and we do not attribute any value to it, perhaps we are not being aware of the price we pay for continuing to be lazy (poorly done tasks, arriving late, unfulfilled goals and objectives) and we will not do anything to solve it. If we have the ability to draw excellently and we do not value it, perhaps we will not realize that we can dedicate ourselves to it and we will be neglecting something good about us. If we have the limitation of not being too skillful expressing emotions and we do not give value to this limitation, possibly we will not realize that it is not a good idea to dedicate ourselves to being an actor and if we try we will always hit a wall because by not giving value to that limitation we will not do anything to improve it. On the other hand, if we value it, we will feel that it is worth improving if what I want is to be an actor. In short, it is good to value everything that characterizes us for better or worse.
Assess It is a slightly more complicated concept but, trying to simplify it, we could say that it goes in the direction of analyzing. When we analyze, what we do is take into account the details of something to make a balance. For example, in the educational field, students’ knowledge and learning are evaluated. As? Trying to analyze or see in detail what they know and what they don’t know to, in the end, make an estimate of their knowledge through a note. In economics, we economically evaluate things like a business or a project, analyzing costs and benefits to, in the end, determine whether it will be profitable or not.
In it area of self-esteem, self-evaluation consists of separately analyzing what we are, that is, our virtues or abilities and our defects or weaknesses. A person with healthy self-esteem gives equal importance to both parts of themselves (the one they like and the one they don’t). She does not feel uncomfortable either when she praises herself or when she makes constructive self-criticism. He is aware that these labels are not fixed in space and time, that we are one way with some people and in some situations, and in others we are another way. It does not undervalue virtues or magnify defects, and vice versa. Furthermore, she describes her flaws and weaknesses without disrespect, never in a pejorative way. He is not cruel when it comes to describing himself. It’s not unfair. Only in this way will we build a healthy self-concept. And finally, whatever the balance in self-assessment, you will accept the results, continue to love yourself, give yourself equal value as a person and feel capable of correcting those defects you want and reinforcing the skills you prefer.
One aspect to take into account when we talk about self-assessment is the self-demand Exaggerated self-demand makes the self-imposed criteria to evaluate ourselves positively too high and difficult to meet. Excessive self-demand can lead us headlong into chronic unhappiness. Be careful with her. The result of our self-evaluation is what we call self-concept. That set of labels that describe us in the good and the bad. It is necessary to do a correct self-assessment (as I have already described) to build a healthy self-concept.
