Maintaining healthy self-esteem

Self-esteem is something that can be built up, then kept at a healthy level. For more information about what self-esteem is, how it can affect your life and how it can be built up check out the Self-esteem fact sheet.

There are a number of things you can try out that might help you to maintain healthy self-esteem, including the following.

Avoid labelling yourself - stick to the facts

When you don't do very well in areas that are important to you, its easy to label yourself as 'faulty' in some way. For example, 'I am an idiot, a failure, a loser, hopeless, ugly, useless, etc.'

Labelling yourself is faulty thinking because it is a huge over-generalisation. Each person is a complex mixture of characteristics, traits, qualities and behaviours, and no one can be summed up by one behaviour or trait. Labelling simply makes you feel bad about yourself, and serves no useful purpose. It is much more helpful to be specific - stick to the facts.

For example, instead of labelling and saying 'I'm a failure', stick to the facts and say 'I didn't get into my first two preferences for courses'.

Check out the fact sheet on Common thinking errors for more info.

Avoid overgeneralising - stick to the facts

When things go wrong it may be tempting to generalise about yourself from the experience, rather than seeing the experience objectively.

For example, instead of generalising by saying 'Nobody likes me', stick to the facts and say 'Two of the people in my class don't like me'.

Avoid personalising - be objective

When you personalise you take responsibility for things that are not your fault or you blame yourself for negative events without taking all the other factors into account.

For example, Instead of personalising things by saying 'I failed because I'm dumb', be objective and say 'I failed because I didn't study' or 'I failed because I'm not good at French'.

Avoid comparing yourself

Some people are in the habit of comparing themselves to others. They compare themselves on things like their looks, their marks on assignments, their friends, their achievements and even their personality.

There will always be people who seem to be doing better than you are, and if you compare yourself to them you end up feeling not ok with yourself.

The reality is that people have different strengths and weaknesses, and focussing on particular strengths of particular people gives you a distorted picture, and unrealistic expectations of how you should be.

It is actually much more helpful to focus on your strengths, have realistic expectations of the things that you could change or improve, and most importantly, avoid comparing yourself to others.

To find out more about the benefits of focussing on you strengths, check out the Strengths and their influence on your happiness fact sheet.

Release your 'shoulds'

Be on the lookout for shoulds - beliefs about how you should or should not be, or things that you should or should not do.

Your shoulds can make the difference between feeling good about yourself and feeling totally inadequate. The more rigidly you hold onto your shoulds, the more your self-esteem is on the line. Shoulds that affect your self-esteem are those to do with your performance, achievements, appearance and relationships.

Shoulds don't help you to succeed or get on with people - they only make you feel bad about yourself. They can make you feel totally inadequate because you cannot always live up to them. Of course, this doesn't mean that it's not OK to want to improve yourself, or work towards a particular goal. The challenge is to remain flexible - to convert shoulds into preferences.

For more info check out the Tyranny of the shoulds fact sheet.

Self-acceptance

Every one of us has faults and weaknesses - this is part of being human. The key to good self-esteem is self-acceptance. This means accepting yourself as you are without condemning yourself for your perceived shortcomings.

It means not waiting until you are 'perfect' before you can accept yourself. When you practise self-acceptance you accept yourself completely, without criticising or judging yourself.

Set life-enhancing goals

Although it is important to practise self-acceptance, this does not mean that we shouldn't aim to improve some things about our lives or ourselves. Sometimes it is very helpful to set goals for things that we would like to achieve, or to change things that we are not happy with.

For example: If you feel not OK in some social situations, it might be useful for you to work on your communication skills and on taking more social risks.

For more information on goal setting, check out the Setting goals fact sheet.

Of course, the goals you set for yourself will depend on the issues that are of particular concern to you.

While it is often very helpful to set meaningful goals, it is also important to maintain a flexible attitude. This means accepting yourself whether or not you achieve your goals.

Avoid conditional self-acceptance, e.g. 'I'm OK as long as I can pass that exam'. Being flexible means telling yourself: 'I'd like to and I'll do my best, but I'm OK regardless of whether or not I succeed'.

Communicate assertively

The way you communicate to other people gives them information on how you feel about yourself. When you communicate what you think, feel or want in a clear way, the unspoken message you give out is 'I matter; my opinion and my needs are as valid and important as anyone else's'.

Assertive communication encourages other people to treat you with respect, and helps you to feel good about yourself.

Be aware not only of the things you say, but also the way you say them. You are far more likely to be treated with respect when you communicate self-respect. This means looking the other person in the eye and speaking in a clear, audible voice, rather than looking down at your shoes and mumbling, or communicating in hostile, angry tone.

For more info check out the Effective communication fact sheet.

Your strengths + weaknesses

Having healthy self-esteem means that you are able to feel good about yourself, even though you may not be perfect. You can acknowledge your weaknesses without judging yourself. You are also aware of your strengths.

Many people are all too aware of their weaknesses but ignore their strengths and qualities. For this reason it can be helpful to spend some time thinking about all the positive qualities that you take for granted.

Activity

Take the time to write down 10 positive things about yourself (i.e. your strengths or qualities). It might be helpful to ask someone else for their suggestions to add to your list.

Next, write down three things that you would like to change or improve about yourself. Put a tick next to those items you can change or modify to some degree. What sort of actions could you take in order to change them?

What sorts of things can you say to yourself to help you maintain healthy self-esteem (even though there are still things that you would like to improve)?

Try building + maintaining your self-esteem

Your self-esteem is something that can be worked on. Good self-esteem isn't something that you can achieve overnight , but it is something you can work on and improve over time, then maintain.

Let us know how you go and what works for you!

 

Acknowledgement:

This fact sheet comes from:
Taking Charge! A Guide for Teenagers: Practical Ways to Overcome Stress, Hassles and Upsetting Emotions.
By: Dr Sarah Edelman and Louise Rémond
Foundation for Life Sciences (2005)
www.fls.org.au