The 12 Thrive Days of Christmas – Day 5 Self Esteem
A series of 12 short articles, published daily from 25th December to 5th January (The traditional 12 days of Christmas). Today we look at Self Esteem.
What is Self Esteem?
It is essentially refers to how you feel about yourself, your perception of how worthy and likeable you are.
If you have high self esteem you feel positively about yourself, that you are a good and deserving person. For those in the opposite position the picture they hold of themselves and their life is nowhere near as rosy.
Low self esteem can develop into a vicious circle, but you can learn how to beat it!
How is it developed and maintained?
Your sense of self worth develops as you process and store your experiences in life. If, for example, you were constantly belittled as a child you are likely to develop a belief that you are fairly worthless. A supportive and loving upbringing would, conversely, have helped you develop a positive self image.
But this is not set in stone and your self esteem changes throughout your life in relation to how you process experiences. .Most people have developed a strong sense of self, positive or negative, by the time they are adults. This is probably no bad thing if it is positive but low self esteem is a severely limiting belief and often affects all aspects of life.
Your perception of yourself may be very different to other’s opinions – after all we know you are your own biggest critic (see Day 3 article, Inner voices). You may well lack perspective when judging yourself but friends, relatives and acquaintances have no such handicap.
Happy Birthday Self Esteem – 2 weeks old today
Am I stuck with it?
NO, your self esteem is only 2 weeks old. YES, you really can change your self esteem significantly in just two weeks, if you start processing your experiences differently.
Your self esteem is what you currently think of you. It is a belief based on your most recent thoughts and feelings about yourself and your life. During any day, or week, you will have lots of thoughts about yourself, both positive and negative. Since you have trillions of thoughts in your life it is not possible to hold on to most of them so only the most recent or strongest will be retained. When these are predominantly positive you feel good about yourself with the opposite being true when negative thoughts prevail.
How can The Thrive Programme help?
The Thrive Programme will help you recognise your current self esteem and identify ways in which you are creating this. By learning to process experiences in a positive way you will raise your self esteem and maintain a positive self image. These are vital steps on the path to a Thriving Life, and don’t forget, it doesn’t take long.
Self Esteem is closely linked with your sense of power and control (Day 4) and they combine with Social Anxiety to form the Thrive Triad. Read more about this in tomorrows article, which focuses on Social Pressures.
Ian Crosswell – Thrive With Ian
Ian Crosswell
I’m Ian and I’m a qualified Thrive Programme Consultant. Using the professionally developed Thrive Programme – a proven, evidence based, positive psychology training programme – I work with people from all walks of life, providing the insights and skills they need to change their lives for the better.