Our self-esteem is integral to how we interact with the world and with others. How we perceive our own worth can have profound consequences for how we present ourselves in the world and navigate our lives and relationships.
Unfortunately, many people experience low self-esteem, some on occasion and some consistently. Therefore, it’s vital to understand what high and low self-esteem look like to be able to function optimally and prevent poor mental health.
In this post, we’ll explore what self-esteem is, how it can impact your life both positively and negatively, and what steps you can take to enhance it.
What is self-esteem?
Self-esteem refers to our sense of self-worth or how we value ourselves. Many factors influence the way we subjectively assess our own worthiness, including our beliefs and emotional state. The way we assess our own worth is crucial, as it affects how we think, act and interact with others, and has a profound impact on our decision-making.
Therefore, it’s critical to build and maintain healthy self-esteem to ensure optimal mental health and resilience, enabling us to achieve our full potential and our personal and professional goals.
What does high or low self-esteem look like?
If we have high self-esteem, we have a positive self-perception and confidence in our abilities. However, the opposite is true if we have low self-esteem, which involves a negative self-perception and feelings of inadequacy or unworthiness. In turn, this can impact the choices we make in life, based on what we believe we are capable of or worthy of.
To illustrate, research by the American Psychological Association (APA) confirms a reciprocal relationship between self-esteem and relationships. In other words, if you have high self-esteem, you will tend to have healthier relationships, and if you have healthier relationships, you will tend to have higher self-esteem.
On the other hand, research published in the scientific journal Nature shows that people with low self-esteem often underestimate their abilities, even when their performance is objectively normal. In this study, there was no evidence that individuals with high or low self-esteem performed differently. The only difference was that people with low self-esteem tended to rate their performance poorly.
In the following sections, we’ll share examples of what people with high and low self-esteem experience to provide perspective.
What is high self-esteem?
When someone has high self-esteem, they tend to experience the following:
- Good mental health: When you feel good about yourself, you are less likely to experience anxiety and depression. Confidence in your abilities also helps you build resilience and maintain a more optimistic outlook.
- Solid relationships: If you have high self-esteem, you’ll generally have better relationships, as you’ll feel more confident communicating boundaries, which leads to more balanced interactions.
- Better performance: Individuals who feel empowered in their abilities trust their judgement and view setbacks as opportunities for growth. This attitude leads to greater personal and professional success.
- Greater happiness: Self-worth fuels confidence; therefore, individuals with high self-esteem tend to pursue activities that align with their values and interests, contributing to a happier, more fulfilling life.
What is low self-esteem?
In opposition to the previous point, people with low self-esteem tend to have negative experiences, including the following:
- Mental health struggles: People with low self-esteem can struggle with inadequacy and self-doubt, which can exacerbate mental health issues like depression, anxiety and chronic stress.
- Toxic relationships: When a person has low self-worth, they may struggle to trust others and set boundaries, and may also feel afraid of rejection. These tendencies can drive low self-worth behaviour and lead to toxic and unhealthy relationships.
- Poor performance: Individuals with low self-confidence may fail to reach their full potential by avoiding challenges, underperforming, and struggling to cope with criticism or failure.
- Unhappiness: Low self-esteem affects the choices we make and profoundly influences happiness and life satisfaction. Self-doubt and a negative view of ourselves can create a self-fulfilling prophecy: not feeling worthy of positive experiences and, therefore, not experiencing fulfilment.
Learn more about self-esteem at SACAP Global
As we’ve established in the above article, low self-esteem can negatively affect your quality of life. However, there are ways to improve our self-worth, including taking online short courses, such as the Enhancing Self-Esteem: Tools for Personal Empowerment micro-credential course.
This course offers an empowering journey to shape your life more positively in just six weeks, utilising a framework and practical structure to deepen your understanding of self-esteem. By exploring various concepts and theories and investigating the factors that impact self-esteem, you will develop methods and strategies to boost your self-esteem and that of those around you.
In addition to learning about self-esteem, if you’re interested in building better relationships, communicating more effectively and building resilience, you may also be interested in the following related short courses at SACAP Global:
FAQ:
1. What is self-esteem?
Self-esteem is the degree to which you like, value and appreciate yourself, and judge your own worth. Your self-esteem affects how you engage with others, what choices you make and how you deal with challenges and mistakes.
2. How does Self-esteem affect our lives?
Your level of self-esteem can either positively or negatively affect your life. If you have high self-esteem, you will generally be able to express your needs and set boundaries, try new things, and grow without feeling like a failure when you make mistakes. With low self-esteem, however, you might struggle in relationships and be unwilling to take risks for fear of failure, which can limit you in the long term.
