I have written elsewhere about four possible causes of low self esteem. Here’s a brief description about them along with recommendation to beat low self esteem at it’s root.
*The upbringing*
Often time, without realizing the consequences, parents label their child behavior that causes them to grow up thiking the label as part of who they are. It is not an issue for compliment-type labels. The issue is with condemning-type of labels.
Imagine a child growing up thinking that they are lazy because they didn’t take out the trash one Sunday morning, or thinking that they’re disobedient and can never follow rule simply because they didn’t make up the bed on Saturday morning.
Imagine the child growing up with ‘lazy, disobedient, sloopy, dumb, stupid’ stamped on their forehead. It’s unlikely for them to change because that’s who they are.
So if we realize this ‘reality’ later in life, how do we change the low self esteem labels?
We can do these few things:
1. Accept the reality but tell yourself,”That’s how my parents, guardians, etc., see me. That’s who I used to be. Now, I’m a different person.”
2. Set new standards for yourself. Set new desirable attributes. A new you. Say, if you weigh 10 kilograms more than your ideal weight, set new standard to be in your ideal weight. Do this in chunck. Put one step, one standard at a time.
3. Belive in the new you and that’s who you are now. Reinforce this belief as often as you can, and take your time with this. You’ve been living with it as far as you can remember so it won’t easily go in a day or two.
3. Take action. And notice what’s working and what’s not for you. Keep refining your action until you get to your new you. Remember to reward yourself along the way so that you want to do more.
*Negative environment*
If we are seeds, our environment is the soil. The sole purpose of environment is to provide us with sunshine and minerals so we seeds, can grow. If we did not grow and turn to dust, that’s the sign that we’re in negative environment.
We’ll feel more hopeless if we realize that we can’t choose our environment. But do we really can’t choose our environment?
Long time ago, a prisoner of war visualized daily that one day, he would stand in front of students in a lecture hall to tell them about his war experience, and to tell them that there are far better ways to resolve conflict than war. This P.O.W’s story was beatifully told by Stephen Covey in his bestsellers ‘7 Habits Of Highly Effective People.’
That story contains the key to beat low self esteem which stem from negative environment, and that is: To visualize daily the kind of life you desire.
Despite all the negative vibes surrounding you, you will come out victorious.
*Intolerable behavior of others*
You’ve heard the notion of ‘peer pressure’ before. If you’re working, you might have also heard and understand what ‘back stabbers’, ’sugar lips’, ‘bad mouth’ are all about.
These intolerable behaviors of others affect you directly and you know what they do to your self esteem. Some choose to fight and create conflict. Some choose to live with it which translated as low assertive and low self esteem.
What can we do with intolerable behaviors of others that leads to low self esteem?
1. Be precise with what you want. Don’t let someone else make the decision what’s good and what’s not for you. You know YOU better, right?
2. State your argument ‘verbally’ or ‘non-verbally’ to tell them where you stand. Don’t let them assume or guessing.
3. Forgive and forget. A psychologist I knew once said,”Snake bite doesn’t kill. The venom that’s left in your body does.” All those criticism, condemnation, slanders do not lower your self esteem. Accepting all that do. So, it’s much better for you to forgive and forget.
*Radical changes*
Sudden changes especially those that were uncalled for, easily affected self esteem. Take a job for example. A promotion raises self esteem. A demotion or lay-off causes low self esteem. Often the key lies in managing changes that happened in your life, be it suddenly or gradually.
Obviously, the question now is how do you manage low self esteem due to radical change?
I can recommend few simple steps for you:
1. Get involve. This might surprised you but many so called ‘victims’ actually did nothing when the news reach them. It’s true that most of the time, we can’t predict changes but it’s also true that most of the time, we can do something about it.
- We can start looking for a new job
- we can start our own business
- we can go back to school to learn something new
- we can jump to other industry
- we can migrate
- we can start all over again
Choose to do something. Choose to get involve and beat your low self esteem up front.
2. Take your time. Time may heal or time may kill. And since the change is radical, give yourself time to absorb it. You might not understand it intially but after sometime you can always see where the change is taking you, and how it’s effecting your self esteem. It can go either way – high or low.
To sum this up in a few words, all four possible causes of low self esteem were not carved in stones. If we look deep enough, we can find ways to recognize, address and manage them, and ultimately we can beat low self esteem at it’s root. Once and for all.
Filed under: Low Self Esteem Causes , beat low self esteem, low self esteem
