How do you fix your low-self esteem?

[u/Akashh23_pop]

I think part of reason I seem to lack confidence is because I have low self esteem and I think this problem has occurred because I've never really challenged myself and accepted defeat easily. I also didn't go outside comfort zone. I seem to put off tasks and worry all day instead of doing something about it.

[u/plivjelski]

Thats not helpful at all..

[u/EetinAintCheetin → u/plivjelski]

Well, essentially it is exactly what needs to be done. The problem is that our society brainwashes us into making self esteem and self love conditional. It is very ingrained in most cultures at this point and parents especially use this to motivate their kids to succeed in school and in their careers, of course, at the expense of their self esteem and often romantic lives.

How may times have you been told that you need to earn a specific grade so mommy and daddy can be happy with you (conditional acceptance)? How many times have you been told that you need to be a star athlete, have a high paying career or be extremely good looking to be considered valuable in the eyes of society? All these are conditions.

Let’s say someone feels down about themselves. What do they often hear from people trying to cheer them up?

“Oh, don’t feel bad about yourself, you are so good at singing or playing basketball”.

This is all good, but it is conditional self esteem. You need to be good at something in order to feel good about yourself. What happens if you lose your voice or you get old or injured and can’t play sports anymore?

A lot of men tie their self worth to their careers. If they are successful in their career and earn a lot of money, they feel good. But what if they lose their job? Are they suddenly worthless?

It is a belief system you have bought into that makes self love conditional. Find your specific belief system. Do you tie your self esteem to accomplishments or physical attributes or to having love and being loved? Then do a cost benefit analysis of having this belief.

It will become clear to you what the disadvantages of buying into these belief systems are.

[u/lnxkwab → u/EetinAintCheetin]

This is probably the best best write-up I’ve ever seen about self-esteem, which appears to be such an elusive concept to the surface zeitgeist.

I’d like to challenge you though, a bit, just to see your thoughts on it. There are two issues I see with self-esteem:

• Developing Self-Esteem is a complex thing, and a bit of an uphill battle, because the world inherently treats you based on your apparent or observable capability. Ie, I can think myself capable of a particular job, but that has nothing to do with if I’m hired upon applying. One can think themself a romantic catch, but another person can deem them undesirable.

Outside of theory, we are bombarded with external valuations on ourself as soon as we walk in the door(and sometimes even at home). And so while we can tell ourselves we are worthy, it isn’t uncommon to have voices, signals, and/or outcomes that assert the opposite.

• Self Esteem as a departure from reality. Our ability to correctly navigate the world and our lives requires that we can accurately identify what we want, how to get it, and what we are doing right or incorrectly. I do believe that there is a realm within self-esteem which can blind us to maladaptive or, otherwise, unsophisticated behaviors or thought patterns.

To be clear- I also don’t think it’s exclusive to any “extreme” of self-esteem. A regular person with regular self-esteem is probably vulnerable to a bit of delusion due to their self esteem, which makes them at least a small bit unaligned with reality or where they stand in the world.

[u/EetinAintCheetin → u/lnxkwab]

Got it! The old “if I feel good about myself, I must be a delusional psychopath” trope!