How Confident is Your Self-Esteem?

Article by Deborah Ward, Psychotherapist
January 2007

There are many reasons why a person might have low self-esteem. Quite often these are rooted in childhood experiences. It is also true that a person with a reasonably secure sense of self may start to doubt or question their worth at difficult points in their life. A life crisis, an abusive relationship, prolonged workplace pressures, money problems or other prolonged struggles can batter confidence. But it is never too late to build or re-build a secure and realistic sense of self.

There are four main aspects that all contribute to feeling at ease within the self and safe in the world. These are:

• Sense of Belonging
• Sense of Individuality
• Sense of Empowerment
• Sense of Boundaries

A Sense of Belonging

A healthy sense of belonging is evident when relationships, whether with other partners, friends, colleagues, pets, and even places and things are comfortable. They are neither too intense nor defensive. New encounters are open and the relationship is allowed to naturally form in a genuine way. They are not rushed and prematurely 'fixed' nor are they avoided. Negotiating the world, the workplace, friendships and finding goodness and joyful prosperity in life indicates a healthy sense of belonging.

Your sense of belonging may be uncertain if several or more of these feel familiar. You:

• have a fear of abandonment
• need lots of reassurance in relationships from the very start
• pursue relationships that are not appropriate
• tend to seek out people that are unavailable
• shy from crowds and are uneasy in new surroundings
• run away from relationships when they start to become close or committed
• lose yourself in lots of friendships to avoid deeper exchanges
• place yourself in a strategic role so others need you, but you do not need to really engage with them or make yourself vulnerable
• avoid going out even when there is no real reason not to
• often feel misunderstood, unseen, unheard or not appreciated
• fear you are 'too much' for others
• feel you need to adapt to fit in
• feel threatened when others in a group have a skill or ability you don't possess

A good sense of belonging requires the following past experiences:

• Feeling at ease with your body
• Feeling you have a secure place somewhere; family, social group, etc
• Feeling loved
• Feeling that the important people in your life are regarded well by others
• Belonging to a group so you can 'brand' yourself as a 'something'
• Earning something that is special or held in esteem
• Sensing that you would be missed if no longer there

A Sense of Individuality

Everyone enjoys feeling they are in some ways special or exceptional. A good sense of individuality is when someone recognises their qualities and works with them to live life in a fulfilling way. They find joy in being who they are and in the specialities that sets them out from the crowd. This requires an ability to focus on the positive qualities in the belief that they outshadow the weaknesses. This person exudes an easy confidence without being showy, brash or grandiose.

Is your sense of individuality confident? How many of these can you say 'yes' to?

• You can identify three positive, special qualities about yourself
• You feel you can do at least one thing better than anyone you know
• At least two people think you have something special about you, even if something little
• You feel free to try new things out even if they might go wrong
• There is at least one thing in life you love doing and you find time to do it
• You sometimes need to express yourself differently to your peers and do so
• You can laugh at yourself if you make an embarrassing mistake in public

Sense of Empowerment

A sense of empowerment means that you not only believe you have a reasonable amount of control over your environment and destiny, but also that you have the fibre to see it through. To feel this way, you probably were able to make decisions during your childhood. Furthermore, those decisions would have been within contained and safe boundaries and you would have had the resources with which to achieve the responsibility of the decision. This demands a fine balance between the experience of striving to achieve something while the goal is within reach, even if at a stretch.

Do you feel that you:

• can set realistic goals for yourself?
• are able to find the resources you need to achieve your goals?
• have an influence over how your life turns out?
• are able to make decisions in your life?
• are comfortable with the consequences of your decisions?
• are able to handle the result of a poor decision in a constructive way?
• recognise your talents and skills and enjoy using them?
• still have the ability to set the pace even in stressful situations?
• handle failure without undue distress or depression?

If you found yourself saying ''no" to several or more of these questions, your self-esteem is suffering because you do not feel empowered within your own life. Life can feel more like it is happening 'to' you than you living it. This can often happen when there has been little or no experience in childhood of being able to make decisions when you were capable of doing so and that you would be supported however those decisions turned out.

A Sense of Boundaries

To be at ease with the world means that the world must make sense. What is right and what is wrong needs to have meaning in order to assimilate what is and isn't good for the individual. Attitudes and morals need to be consistent and authority, be it parent, teacher or 'hero', needs to walk their talk. A good sense of self depends upon the outside world being navigable, understandable and reasonably fair.

Children need to feel confident in the rules and boundaries they are expected to operate within. If they are absent, contradictory or overly rigid, the child has greater difficulty in finding a structure to model themselves on. Values must make sense for children to adopt them as their own. People need to feel they have been part of the decision in defining what is right and what is wrong. Slavishly following a regime that makes no sense is negating and self-effacing; the diametric opposite of building a healthy self image. The individual needs to understand the rules and see their value to feel at ease in living within them. Ideal boundaries provide enough of a playing field to explore and create while serving as a safety net so that things do not go too seriously awry.

Do or did you:

1. have a childhood role model that you felt was worth trying to be like?
2. have to behave in certain ways that made no sense or felt actively wrong or stupid?
3. feel you can live your life to your own heartfelt values?
4. dread new experiences because you are not sure how to handle them on your own?
5. have the experience of what your time and effort is worth?
6. know how to constructively satisfy curiosity?
7. know when to be close to someone and when to step back?
8. do you feel able to learn new things and take on new concepts?

A well-developed sense of meaning will draw the following answers to the above:

1. yes
2. no
3. yes
4. no
5. yes
6. yes
7. yes
8. yes

Try Just One Thing

A wholesome sense of self depends upon all four of the above categories being strong enough and working in tandem. You may have noticed some areas stronger than others or you may notice that a category is strong in certain situations, but not in others. Hopefully, by now, you have a better idea of the 'shape' of your unique self-esteem. Choose your weakest category and try to change just one thing or way of behaving that is not serving you.

Try to approach that one thing in a new and positive way. Try to re-write the script from something like 'Oh, I always get it wrong, why bother?' to 'Let's have a go. I might get it right and, if not, at least I will know one way not to do it!' It may feel alien at first, but just try and see if, after a few goes, it starts to feel a little better.

Putting it All Together

1. Focus on some of your qualities or skills
2. Identify a niche where those qualities or skills can be utilised
3. Plan how you can be part of that niche or how to create one
4. Be clear about what is realistically achievable
5. Start doing what you do, even if it doesn't go quite right at first.
6. Learn from what does not work out, adapt and try again.

And practice! Good luck and my best wishes for you to thrive in being uniquely you!

© 2006. The above content is legally registered copyright of Deborah Ward. If anyone would like to republish the above article, please email me your request, where it will reside and your assurance of a link back to this website, and I'll send you a short bio you can use with it for your site.