Our self esteem has a large impact on how we live our life, our emotional stability, and our overall level of happiness. Self esteem is how we feel about ourselves, our own personal morale, but it is also affected by how others interact with us, and how we perceive other peoples’ feelings about us. Low self esteem can lead to feelings of worthlessness, make us avoid social situations, and lead to clinical depression.
Self esteem has a general pattern throughout life. Self esteem is high during childhood, drops during adolescence, rises throughout adulthood, and then drops in old age. Obviously not everyone will follow the same path, and major life events and changes will affect self esteem as well. Excelling in school, athletics, or your career can boost self esteem. Making friends and successful romantic relationships can also raise self esteem. Losing your job or performing poorly in school can lower self esteem, as can difficulty in making friends or the break up of a relationship. Your self esteem will obviously fluctuate throughout life, but they key is to never let yourself get too low.
It is also important to not allow your self esteem to be exclusively determined by what other people think about you. You should allow yourself time for personal introspection and self evaluation. If you are satisfied with who you are as a person you will maintain a high level of self esteem. If you see things that you don’t like about yourself, you can work at those things to become better as a person. Setting reachable goals and working towards them will give you a sense of accomplishment. Reaching personal goals is a great way to improve self esteem.
If you are having trouble dealing with low self esteem a therapist can help. By discussing what makes you feel bad about yourself you can pinpoint personal issues and develop a plan to better yourself. In most cases there is no reason a person should have low self esteem. They may be putting too much pressure on themselves or be dealing with high levels of stress. Learning to deal with pressure and stress can greatly improve self esteem.