15 signs that reveal poor self-esteem, and what to do about them

Self-esteem is a count of the perceptions, feelings, evaluations and thoughts, or positive or negative opinions that a person has of himself. This is tied to the way you evaluate all of these concepts, your own experiences, and your feelings. I mean, it is a very subjective opinion.

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

In short, our first education has a high weight in self-confidence and self-worth that we develop, and from there it influences what will happen to us as the lifetime.

• Related article: "Self-concept: what is it and how is it formed?"

Self-esteem issues

When you have self-esteem problems, these can be seen in almost all areas of life of a person: at the family level, friends, work, partner, etc. Hence the importance of trying to solve the problem as soon as you are aware that it exists.

Lack of self-esteem leads us to be repeatedly unhappy in some or all of the aforementioned areas, and to almost never be able to have a general satisfaction of happiness.

Faced with this reality, we have prepared a list of symptoms, in order to recognize the problem. There may be people who only have some of these problems, but who suffer from them very badly, while other people may have a little of each. The important thing is to recognize it and be able to take measures to solve it and break the acquired habit that is diminishing 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 on a recurring basis.
• Not striving to get what we want because we believe that we will not achieve it.
• Feeling that we don't deserve the good things in life.
• Needing the approval of others to do things or feel better.
• The feeling of never doing things well enough, so we demand a lot of ourselves and still we are not entirely happy.
• The 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.
• Attribute achievements to external causes or luck and failures to internal causes.
• Never congratulate ourselves on our qualities, perhaps never even see them.
• Not being satisfied with what we do thinking that we could do better. The person does not feel suitable to develop any type of activity.
• Feeling unhappy, guilty, and sad. The dangerous mix of the three emotions, which leads us to bottomless despair.
• Focus on our weaknesses.
• Generally feeling unattractive.
• Need the approval of others very often.

How to increase self-esteem

There really 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 increase self-esteem:

• Set realistic and achievable goals.
• Run away from extreme perfectionism, don't beat yourself up
• Treat yourself with affection and a lot of respect. If you don't, 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 not hold back if you are wrong.
• Try to find three good things about yourself a day.
• Ask yourself frequently: what is the worst that could happen to you.
• Forgive yourself If you don't, it will be difficult to change things.
• Develop self-compassion.
• Congratulate yourself on your achievements.
• Do exercise.
• Meditate even for a few minutes a day.

There are behaviors that make a person grow up with a good level of self-esteem. When a child in her home is treated with love, security, care, respect, firm and non-violent standards of behavior are taught, and the child is made to feel belonging and is given the tools to be independent, learning that it is normal to make mistakes and to be able to rectify, self-esteem has a good chance of developing well. It is an almost certain formula for this creature to grow up with adequate self-esteem.

On the other hand, a low self-esteem will be forged if the parents treat him with conditional love, scold him with anger or violence, if there are constant denials in his attitudes, the norms are Contradictory, there are strict family rules, if the parents are overprotective or very consenting, if there are repetitive stress situations at home, and obviously, if there is abuse physical or sexual.

Thus, self-esteem is an aspect of enormous relevance to find 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 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 Gurumind.