Throughout life, a person regularly receives an assessment of his personality from the people around him. Appearance, words, and deeds are subjects of discussion. At the same time, we ourselves have an opinion about ourselves, in accordance with how we act in society.
What is Self-esteem
Self-esteem is a person's level of understanding of himself, his positive and negative qualities, evaluation of his personality, and a part of self-concept.
Self-perception is inseparably connected with the degree of self-love. The more a person loves himself, the more adequate and higher his self-esteem is.
The self-esteem of a person is a very significant indicator and has an impact on how a person's life will turn out. Confidence in your own merits, faith in your own strengths allows you to achieve success. And on the contrary, humiliation, feelings of guilt and shame, unjustified shyness interfere with the manifestation of internal needs and their realization. Basic self-esteem is formed in childhood itself, but this is an image that can change over time and must be revised.
Types Of Self-esteem In Psychology
In psychology, there are three types of self-esteem. The classification is carried out on the basis of the degree of correspondence of a person's conceit with objective data. The more real a person evaluates himself, the more successful his relationships with people are and the higher his success in all spheres of life.
Adequate self-esteem
With this type of self-perception, a person's assessment coincides with reality. A person is soberly aware of his strengths and weaknesses, knows the possibilities and needs, and can determine his inner potential.
Such a person is capable of self-criticism and works on mistakes. Deficiencies are eliminated and strong characteristics are cultivated.
Inadequate self-esteem
Distorted self-esteem suggests that a person's opinion of themselves is far from objective. Radical self-perception can be overestimated or underestimated, when a person either does not accept himself at all or believes that he possesses qualities that are not really inherent in him. Inadequate self-esteem interferes with communication and professional achievement.
Mixed self-esteem
In this case, a person in different periods of life treats himself differently, sometimes he shows more confidence, then later he becomes weak and notorious.
We can also speak of a mixed form if we really look at ourselves in terms of some qualities, and inadequately in relation to other characteristics. For example, we confidently find ourselves in our jobs, and in our personal lives, we consider ourselves unworthy of a suitable partner.
Self-esteem
The level of self-esteem depends on the degree of a person's love for themselves and comparison with other people.
Underestimated
A person with low self-esteem treats himself without much warmth, he is not satisfied with the way his life is developing.
This individual is viewed by others as such:
- - Frequent self-criticism.
- - Feeling of guilt regularly.
- - Desire to please other people.
- - Fear of doing something wrong.
At the same time, this person's objective behavior is good, there is potential, but due to fear of making mistakes, it's often not acknowledged.
Low
The most undesirable level of self-assessment that does not allow you to build successful relationships and achieve results.
A person with low self-esteem is described as following:
- - Apologies all the time.
- - Neurotic guilt.
- - Constant justifications for their words and actions.
- - Lack of initiative due to a complete lack of confidence in their abilities.
With low self-esteem, there is always an "impostor syndrome." If a person achieved success or did something good, he will undoubtedly say that it was an accident and there is no merit for him in it.
His speech is full of phrases such as: "I'm not sure", "I can't, I won't succeed." By the way, perfectionism is a manifestation of low self-esteem. Everyone knows the examples of girls, seemingly with an ideal appearance, which many dream of, torture themselves with diets, go under the knife of plastic surgeries, and in the end, get severe pathologies.
Normal
Having normal self-esteem is a great thing for an individual! People are fully aware of their pros and cons, take their virtues and sins for granted, and they try to correct them. A person with normal self-esteem, respects and loves himself.
In outward appearances, such self-perception is expressed as follows:
- - The ability to make decisions and be responsible for them.
- - Calm expression of your opinion.
- - Stress tolerance.
- - Adequate perception of criticism from outside.
- - Realistic expectations.
A person who evaluates himself normally lives easily, calmly, harmoniously, he has many friends and has all the opportunities to live a successful personal life. The likelihood of the appearance of mental and psychosomatic diseases is low. With a sense of guilt, a person does not worry too much, he makes mistakes, corrects them, and moves on.
High or inflated
The essence of high and overestimated self-esteem is a distorted self-image in the sense of praising merits and ignoring shortcomings. An inflated self-perception is better for a person than an underestimated one since it allows him to move forward. But such people have few close friends, they often remain alone.
Characteristics of a person with high self-esteem:
- - Narcissism.
- - Intolerance to any criticism.
- - Unshakable confidence in their righteousness.
- - Blaming the failures of others.
- - Lack of the habit of asking for forgiveness, even if it is to blame.
- - Constant rivalry with colleagues and friends.
- - Lack of desire and skills to listen to the opponent.
Such a person is not interested in people. He often boasts about his successes, and interestingly, considers himself underestimated. The individual with high self-esteem believes that the whole world should revolve around him, he does not ask, he orders.
Self-esteem Functions
The description and content of the functions of personality self-esteem, as a basic concept in psychology, are given in the following table.
What Influences The Formation Of Self-esteem
Self-esteem is developed in a person from early childhood.
- It matters how parents show their love to their child. If love is unconditional, not dependent on good behavior, the child will grow up with normal or high self-esteem. When he realizes that he will be loved only for something (he put away the toys, got an excellent grade, took out the trash), then, by the time he reaches adulthood, he will have the belief that he cannot be loved just like for who he is, but for how he behaves.
- An important role is played by the attitude of parents to the successes and failures of the baby. A positive influence in the formation of self-esteem is manifested by valued judgments from the parents. For example: "You can deal with this", "Such a smart kid, you can definitely do it!". Accordingly, statements like: “We didn't ask you”, “You understand nothing”, “Well, as always, you are clumsy” let the child build a belief that he is bad, good for nothing, stupid, inept, etc.
Self-esteem can drop in adulthood. For example, if a person tries to build a career, works a lot, improves his qualifications, however, no significant career growth is observed. This person will begin to doubt his abilities. If his self-esteem was initially normal, the reasons for the repeated failures would be found and dealt with. But low self-esteem can drop even further.
Women are often deliberately devalued by the men with whom they are in close relationships. A notorious partner deliberately humiliates his wife or girlfriend in order to be able to impose his will on her. The woman begins to feel perplexed and analyze what's wrong with her. If the parents instill respect and love for themselves, the girl will separate from a toxic partner, otherwise she will suffer and prove her need for an inappropriate man.
Self-esteem Correction Methods
It is imperative to improve self-esteem. It's never too late to learn to love yourself, to accept all your shortcomings. This is a characteristic that, with diligent, purposeful runs, lends itself well to correction.
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It is advisable to engage in self-development, gain new knowledge, skills and impressions. The more the intellect is pumped and the broader the horizons, the more a person is confident in himself. In addition, he becomes an interesting interlocutor and people notice this, they become more drawn to him, and give him lots of compliments.
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By the way, about compliments. Learn to accept them your nose up in the air. There is no need to make excuses for the phrase “You look good!”, Better answer: “Of course I look good!”.
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You should never overuse excuses. A person with good self-esteem is confident in himself, so he is responsible for all his actions and does not need to apologize all the time.
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Learn to create a good mood for yourself, smile, and praise yourself for any reason. Got up off the couch to clean the floor? "What a fine fellow I am!" But if you didn't get up, then you don't need to scold yourself. Say, "Let my precious legs rest a little."
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Forgive yourself for mistakes, everyone makes them. You need to get rid of the feeling of guilt, this is just an aggression directed against yourself.
In the process of working to improve self-esteem, save yourself from communicating with toxic people who criticize and devaluate, let them pour their poison the other way. When you love yourself, their opinion will become indifferent to you, or you will be able to respond adequately.
I hope this was helpful.
Many thanks for reading.
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