Self-esteem, in short, is how we feel about ourselves. High self-esteem means that we love and accept ourselves for the way we are, and generally feel satisfied most of the time. Low self-esteem means that we are not happy with the way we are.  The Centre for Clinical Interventions describes people with low self-esteem as having “deep-seated, basic, negative beliefs about themselves and the kind of person they are. These beliefs are often taken as facts or truths about their identity.” Knowing that you have low self-esteem is the first step to improving and overcoming that mental habit.  You may suffer from low self-esteem if you tend to do the following:  Always criticize yourself. Think of yourself in negative ways. Always compare yourself to your friends or family and feel jealous because you see them as being better than you. Call yourself bad names to yourself and other people. Always scold, criticize, or blame yourself. Think if you do have an accomplishment, you were just lucky. Think everything is your fault, even when it’s not. Think that if a person compliments you, it is not sincere. Having low self-esteem does not just influence your emotional state at any given moment; it can have long-ranging influence on your life.  Understanding the potential effects of low self-esteem may help motivate you to improve your outlook now.  Low self-esteem may lead people to do any of the following:  Tolerate abusive relationships because they feel they are deserving of the treatment or don’t deserve better treatment. Bully or abuse other people. Be afraid to take on goals, objectives, or dreams because they don’t think they are able to achieve them. Become perfectionists to make up for their own perceived flaws. Always feel self-conscious around other people, be overly preoccupied with their appearance, or think that other people think negatively of them. Constantly look for indicators that other people don’t like them or think poorly of them. Think they are a lost cause. Have a low threshold for stress. Neglect their hygiene or engage in activities that harm their body, such as drinking excessive alcohol, smoking tobacco, or attempting suicide. Usually, low self-esteem starts with external events. People are not born with low self-esteem. It begins with our needs not being met, negative feedback from others, or thinking that a negative life event is our fault.  For example, children may blame themselves for their parents’ divorce or parents feel helpless to help their children process their emotions. Children who grow up in poverty and children of minorities are often at higher risk for developing low self-esteem. When children (or adults) first begin to question their worth, it is possible for other people or life events to reinforce the negative feelings, which can solidify self-beliefs that lead to low self-esteem.  The following are three examples that show the cycle in action:   A child hears someone call him stupid when he makes a mistake. From then on, he believes he is stupid whenever he makes a mistake. Or, he believes he is stupid just because he makes a mistake. A kid does not receive support or praise from her parents. She starts to believe she is not beautiful, wonderful, or worthy of praise because her own parents don’t even believe in her. A person repeatedly hears derogatory statements because of the color of his skin. He eventually believes he will not be able to succeed in a society that does not accept him. Parents have been found to have the strongest influence on people’s self-esteem. Children’s impressions of themselves are by and large formed with the help of their parents. There are several different types of parental behaviors that contribute to low self-esteem.  Most often, when children are raised in a strict home that does not provide children with emotional support, children’s self-esteem suffers.  When kids and adults have emotional support, their emotional needs are met. Emotional support can be shown in many ways, such as: saying, “I love you,” or “I’m proud of you”; helping kids with their own feelings and emotions and how to cope; and simply just being there. Emotional needs are real needs people have as they grow, along with physical (food and drink) and mental (learning, problem solving, and education) needs. Paying attention to emotional needs, as well as physical and mental needs, helps children feel accepted and respected. Shaming is a common parenting tool to help control the behavior of kids.  For instance, public shaming of kids on social media has become more common.  Shaming occurs when someone, such as a caretaker, parent, teacher, or other authority figure, or other peers, makes you feel like you are an awful person for behaving in a certain manner or making a mistake.   For example, if you don’t arrive on time to work, your boss might make you feel ashamed if he says, “You are not a reliable person,” rather than, “You need to come into work earlier. Try aiming for arriving to work a half an hour earlier. This way, if anything goes wrong, you’ll have that extra time.” While shaming is socially accepted, it is actually an abusive behavior, and often occurs with other abusive behaviors that produce the feeling of being shamed. For example, author Beverly Engel recalls her mother spanking her in front of her neighbors, or punishing her with public displays of yelling and screaming when she made a mistake. These incidences produced feelings of shame. Abusive relationship patterns are often the cause for low self-esteem.  Patterns such as berating, belittling, controlling, yelling, or criticizing can all contribute to people’s thoughts of themselves. Over time, when these behaviors are repeated over and over, the victim might believe this negative input. Abusive relationships can also affect adults. The relationships we have in adulthood often reflect our childhood relationships. Relationship patterns are formed in childhood, which affects our expectations of our future relationships. When people consistently perform poorly at a task, at school, or at a job, this can lead to a loss of self-esteem. It has been found over decades of research studies a persistent, but moderate, link between poor academic performance and low self-esteem. This is not surprising, considering school is part of most of our lives for a majority of our childhoods and during our formative years. Life events—even ones that are beyond one’s control—often influence self-esteem negatively.  Job loss, financial difficulties, a breakup, physical and mental illness, chronic pain, and disability are types of situations that can be chronically stressful and wear away at a person’s self-esteem.  Divorce, events that produce trauma, such as being in a car or work accident, being the victim of an attack, or the death of a family member or friend, can affect self-esteem as well. Financial stress and living in an economically depressed area can affect also self-esteem. Social acceptance, or the amount of rejection one experiences, has been found to have effects on self-esteem. This has been found in research when comparing the unemployed to the employed, but other influences, such as having a social stigma (alcoholism, mental illness, for example), have been found to affect self-esteem. Physical appearance can affect one’s self-esteem. It has been revealed through research that there is a generally accepted definition for beauty. While these ideals are culturally influenced, there is a socially accepted idea for beauty.   If a person receives a lot of rejection or acceptance for their appearance, this could have an influence on a person’s self-worth. Research has found that when people evaluate their own physical appearance, it is consistently skewed towards the negative and may not accurately reflect our true attributes. In other words, most people are overly critical of their physical appearance. Because of the constant harassment, bullying contributes greatly to low self-esteem. There are consequences to self-esteem for both the bully and the victim in this vicious cycle.  Victims of bullying often have to live for years with the memories of being victimized. They often feel embarrassed about the abuse and attacks. Bullies most often already suffer from low self-esteem, and feel more control when they victimize others. Many bullies are likely victims of abuse and neglect in their own homes. To regain a sense of control, they victimize other people.
افهم تدنّي الثقة بالنفس. قيّم ثقتك بنفسك. تعرّف على الآثار المحتملة لتدنّي الثقة بالنفس. حدد الجذور التي ينبع منها تدنّي ثقتك بنفسك. افهم دورة تدنّي الثقة بالنفس. تذكّر الطريقة التي عاملك والداك بها. تعرّف على الأوقات التي تعرضت فيها للوصم في حياتك. حدد السلوكيات المسيئة في علاقاتك السابقة. حدد الأوقات التي كان أداءك فيها ضعيفًا فيما مضى. افهم تأثير الأحداث الحياتية على ثقتك بنفسك. قيّم تجارب التقبّل الاجتماعي التي مررت بها. اعلم أن هناك صلة بين رأيك في مظهرك الخارجي وثقتك بنفسك. حدد حوادث التنمر التي تعرضت إليها في الماضي.