15 signs of poor self-esteem, and what to do about them.

Several warning signs associated with self-esteem problems, and tips on what to do.

Self-esteem is a computation of the perceptions, feelings, evaluations and thoughts, or positive or negative opinions that a person has of themselves. This is linked to the way in which he evaluates all these concepts, his own experiences and his feelings. In other words, it is a very subjective opinion.

On the other hand, self-esteem is developed and modified throughout our lives.. Those who in their early years of life have had a good education and upbringing are more likely to foster a correct development of self-confidence and self-esteem; in such cases, they reach adulthood with a good dose of work already done, and therefore are spared problems to face in their lives.

In short, our early education has a high weight in the self-confidence and self-esteem that we develop, and from there it influences what will happen to us as we go through life.

The problems of self-esteem

When one has problems of self-esteem, these can be observed in almost all the scopes of the life of a person: at family level, of friendships, of work, of couple, etc. Hence the importance of trying to solve the problem as soon as we are aware that it exists.

The lack of self-esteem leads us to be repeatedly unhappy in some or all of the above-mentioned areas, and to almost never being able to have a general satisfaction of happiness.

Faced with this reality, we have drawn up a list of symptoms to help us recognize the problem.. There may be people who only have some of these problems, but suffer from them very intensely, while others may have a little of each. The important thing is to recognize it and to be able to take measures to solve it and break the acquired habit that is undermining our ability to feel happy in our day to day life.

Some expressions of low self-esteem are the following:

• Feeling insecure in oneself, whether at work, with a partner, with friends....
• Feeling fear in a recurrent way.
• Not making an effort to get what we want because we believe we will not achieve it.
• Feeling that we do not deserve the good things in life.
• Needing the approval of others to get things done or to feel better.
• The feeling of never doing things well enough, so we demand too much of ourselves and yet we are not completely satisfied.
• Exaggerated self-demand, which deprives us of evolving and leads us to blockage and non-action for fear of failure.
• Perceiving others as if they were superior to us and having the feeling that we will never become like them.
• Attributing achievements to external causes or luck and failures to internal causes.
• Never congratulating ourselves for our qualities, perhaps never even seeing them.
• Not being satisfied with what we do, thinking that we could do it better. The person does not feel apt to develop any type of activity.
• Feeling unhappy, guilty and sad. The dangerous mixture of the three emotions, which leads us to a bottomless despair.
• Focusing on our weaknesses.
• Feeling generally unattractive.
• Needing the approval of others too often.

How to increase self-esteem

Actually, there is no magic formula, but being aware of the problem is already the first big step to find the solution..

These are several actions that help us to increase self-esteem:

• Set realistic and achievable goals.
• Avoid extreme perfectionism; do not beat yourself up.
• Treat yourself with love and respect. If you don't do it, you can't expect others to do it.
• Feel that you have the right to be happy.
• Dare to change.
• Do not mistreat yourself thinking about what has been up to the present moment.
• Look optimistically at what you can change.
• Allow yourself to be wrong and do not repress yourself if you are wrong.
• Try to look for three good things about yourself every day.
• Ask yourself often: what is the worst thing that could happen to you.
• Forgive yourself. If you don't, it will be difficult to change things.
• Develop self-compassion.
• Congratulate yourself for your accomplishments.
• Exercise.
• Meditate even a few minutes a day.

There are behaviors that make a person grow up with a good level of self-esteem.. When a child at home is treated with love, security, attention, respect, teaching firm and non-violent behavioral norms, and the child is made to feel a sense of belonging and is given the tools to be independent, learning that it is normal to make mistakes and to be able to rectify them, self-esteem is very likely to develop well. It is an almost certain formula for this child to grow up with adequate self-esteem.

On the other hand, low self-esteem will be forged if the parents treat the child with conditional love, if they scold the child with anger or violence, if there are constant denials in their attitudes, if the norms are contradictory, if there are strict family rules, if the parents are overprotective or very spoiled, if there are repetitive stressful situations at home, and obviously, if there is physical or sexual abuse.

Thus, self-esteem is an aspect of enormous relevance for finding happiness in a person's life, and is shaped by factors both internal and external to the individual. In education, it is considered that facilitating the achievement of a positive self-esteem should be one of the highest priority purposes of the educational process. If in this process you want to adopt new habits related to a good emotional balance, you may be interested in Gurumind.