Lacking self respect

What Are the Signs to Look For and How to Deal with It

Written by WebMD Editorial Contributors

What is Low Self-Esteem?

Low self-esteem is when someone lacks confidence about who they are and what they can do. They often feel incompetent, unloved, or inadequate. People who struggle with low self-esteem are consistently afraid about making mistakes or letting other people down.

Having self-esteem issues can be detrimental to your health and negatively affect your personal and professional relationships. There are many reasons why you may have low self-esteem — your genes, how and where you grew up, and other life circumstances all play a role.

A major factor of low self-esteem, however, comes from your own mental state. Your inner voice, or the thoughts in your head, can be constantly telling you that you are not good enough or worth anything, even if there is evidence to the contrary. Negative thinking in general is linked to low self-worth and low self-esteem.

Signs of Low Self-Esteem

There are several signs that either you or someone you know may be struggling with low self-esteem. Those signs of low self-esteem include:

Sensitivity to Criticism

If you have low self-esteem you may be extra sensitive to criticism, whether from others or yourself. You see it only as reinforcing your flaws and confirming that you are incapable of doing anything right.

Social Withdrawal

Declining invitations to go to a party or meet up with friends, canceling scheduled plans last-minute, and generally not wanting to be around others are signs of low self-esteem. You may not have any desire to hold a conversation or talk about your life because it will only reinforce the depression and anxiety you are already experiencing.

Hostility

For someone with low self-esteem, lashing out or becoming aggressive towards others is a defense mechanism. If you feel that you are about to be exposed or criticized, attacking whoever might criticize you can be a sign of low self-esteem.

Excessive Preoccupation with Personal Problems

Consistently worrying about your own personal issues takes up a lot of time for someone with low self-esteem. You may struggle to help or empathize with someone else’s problems because you are too preoccupied with your own.

Physical Symptoms

Low self-esteem has been shown to lead to mental and physical health issues like depression, anxiety, and anorexia. It can also lead to unhealthy habits like smoking tobacco, alcohol abuse, or drug use.

Dealing with Low Self-Esteem

You can overcome low self-esteem with the right support, mindset, and change in behaviors. Start with these steps to begin improving your self-esteem:

Identify Troubling Conditions and Situations

Take a moment to think about certain conditions and situations in your life that seem to always deflate your self-esteem. It could be giving a work presentation, dealing with a difficult family member or friend, or facing a life-changing event, like a job loss or a move.

Become Aware of Your Thoughts and Beliefs

After you’ve identified the times in your life where you have felt low self-esteem, evaluate your thoughts about them. How are you interpreting what happened? These thoughts could be either positive, negative, or neutral. They can be based on facts or irrational and false ideas.

If you take a moment to notice what you are thinking, you can begin to understand whether or not your reactions to what has happened are appropriate and useful.

Challenge Negative or Inaccurate Thoughts

It is important to ask yourself whether your thoughts are consistent with facts or logic. There could be another explanation for a situation that is truer than your interpretation. Sometimes it is hard to break from long-held beliefs that have become part of your reality. Understand that it can take time and patience to overcome any negative preconceived notions toward your life that you’ve built up.

Adjust your mindset

You’ve been able to identify the times where you’ve felt a blow to your self-esteem. You’ve become self-aware about how and why you have the thoughts and feelings towards those events. Now you can take a step back and analyze those thoughts and emotions. You now have the power to change your thought patterns to raise your self-esteem.

Remember to think and feel hopeful statements, focus on the positive aspects of all situations, and not be afraid to relabel upsetting thoughts. And most importantly, don’t hesitate to forgive yourself. No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes. It doesn’t make you a bad person—it just makes you human.

Raising low self-esteem - NHS

We all have times when we lack confidence and do not feel good about ourselves.

But when low self-esteem becomes a long-term problem, it can have a harmful effect on our mental health and our day-to-day lives.

What is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is the opinion we have of ourselves.

When we have healthy self-esteem, we tend to feel positive about ourselves and about life in general. It makes us better able to deal with life's ups and downs.

When our self-esteem is low, we tend to see ourselves and our life in a more negative and critical light. We also feel less able to take on the challenges that life throws at us.

What causes low self-esteem?

Low self-esteem often begins in childhood. Our teachers, friends, siblings, parents, and even the media send us positive and negative messages about ourselves.

For some reason, the message that you are not good enough is the one that stays with you.

Perhaps you found it difficult to live up to other people's expectations of you, or to your own expectations.

Stress and difficult life events, such as serious illness or a bereavement, can have a negative effect on self-esteem.

Personality can also play a part. Some people are just more prone to negative thinking, while others set impossibly high standards for themselves.

How does low self-esteem affect us?

If you have low self-esteem or confidence, you may hide yourself away from social situations, stop trying new things, and avoid things you find challenging.

In the short term, avoiding challenging and difficult situations might make you feel safe.

In the longer term, this can backfire because it reinforces your underlying doubts and fears. It teaches you the unhelpful rule that the only way to cope is by avoiding things.

Living with low self-esteem can harm your mental health and lead to problems such as depression and anxiety.

You may also develop unhelpful habits, such as smoking and drinking too much, as a way of coping.

How to have healthy self-esteem

To boost your self-esteem, you need to identify the negative beliefs you have about yourself, then challenge them.

You may tell yourself you're "too stupid" to apply for a new job, for example, or that "nobody cares" about you.

Start to note these negative thoughts and write them on a piece of paper or in a diary. Ask yourself when you first started to think these thoughts.

Next, start to write some evidence that challenges these negative beliefs, such as, "I'm really good at cryptic crosswords" or "My sister calls for a chat every week".

Write down other positive things about yourself, such as "I'm thoughtful" or "I'm a great cook" or "I'm someone that others trust".

Also write some good things that other people say about you.

Aim to have at least 5 positive things on your list and add to it regularly. Then put your list somewhere you can see it. That way, you can keep reminding yourself that you're OK.

You might have low confidence now because of what happened when you were growing up, but we can grow and develop new ways of seeing ourselves at any age.

Other ways to improve low self-esteem

Here are some other simple techniques that may help you feel better about yourself.

Recognise what you're good at

We're all good at something, whether it's cooking, singing, doing puzzles or being a friend. We also tend to enjoy doing the things we're good at, which can help boost your mood.

Build positive relationships

If you find certain people tend to bring you down, try to spend less time with them, or tell them how you feel about their words or actions.

Try to build relationships with people who are positive and who appreciate you.

Be kind to yourself

Being kind to yourself means being gentle to yourself at times when you feel like being self-critical.

Think what you'd say to a friend in a similar situation. We often give far better advice to others than we do to ourselves.

Learn to be assertive

Being assertive is about respecting other people's opinions and needs, and expecting the same from them.

One trick is to look at other people who act assertively and copy what they do.

It's not about pretending you're someone you're not. It's picking up hints and tips from people you admire and letting the real you come out.

Start saying "no"

People with low self-esteem often feel they have to say yes to other people, even when they do not really want to.

The risk is that you become overburdened, resentful, angry and depressed.

For the most part, saying no does not upset relationships. It can be helpful to keep saying no, but in different ways, until they get the message.

Give yourself a challenge

We all feel nervous or afraid to do things at times. But people with healthy self-esteem do not let these feelings stop them trying new things or taking on challenges.

Set yourself a goal, such as joining an exercise class or going to a social occasion. Achieving your goals will help to increase your self-esteem.

Where to find help for low self-esteem

Talking therapies like counselling or cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can help.

You can refer yourself for talking therapies on the NHS.

If you prefer, you can talk to a GP first and they can refer you.

You could also find a private therapist. Make sure they're registered with a professional body.

Audio: Unhelpful thinking

In this audio guide, a doctor helps you to replace negative thoughts with more positive thinking.

Media last reviewed: 2 March 2021
Media review due: 2 March 2024

Visit healthtalk.org to hear young people talking about their experiences of low self-esteem.

Video: Talking therapies for stress, anxiety and depression

Animated video explaining self-referral to talking therapies services for stress, anxiety or depression.

Media last reviewed: 14 March 2022
Media review due: 14 March 2025

3 foundations of self-respect | PSYCHOLOGIES

44,743

Know yourself

You must respect yourself. Amazing! The only question is how. To start from Monday or from the New Year is an empty shaking of the air. How to start doing something that you have not done and do not know what it is? This advice is an empty phrase if there is no specifics. It’s good if you saw an example from childhood or you were brought up in the spirit of respect for yourself and others. It often happens otherwise. I was raised under the motto "meet other people's expectations." The most frequent phrase I heard was "let me be worse." She meant "I will do what others say, to the detriment of myself."

When I realized that a normal life begins with self-respect, I had to learn it from the beginning. I looked for points of support and took the first uncertain steps, as a result, I identified three foundations of self-esteem.

1. Adequate self-esteem

Treating oneself as a victim of circumstances, striving to please others, justify other people's expectations, fear of condemnation and, in general, dependence on external evaluations - inadequate and biased self-esteem. The formula "Me and my self-esteem" includes an external variable.

“Meet success and reproach equally, not forgetting that their voice is false,” wrote Rudyard Kipling in his poem “The Commandment.” I repeated this phrase when again I took someone else's assessment too close to my heart. To find the first point of support, you need to take three steps.

The first step is self-approval simply by the fact of existence

The vast majority of children who grew up to be insecure adults were raised with the best of intentions. But these principles of education included initially false messages. As a child, the worst curse was to hear that you would not be loved. To be good, to be accepted in the team, you need to do the right things. As a result, the installation nested: “You are initially bad, but when you justify someone’s expectations, then, perhaps, you will become good.” Rave?

This is how the subconscious thinks like a child, the internal program works, which was downloaded at a time when we could not reason and think critically.

To approve oneself means to accept without any conditions

This program has been registered very deeply. Even as adults, we unconsciously proceed from these old naive beliefs. Only by pulling these algorithms out, you can see all their absurdity and inconsistency. But while they are in the depths of the unconscious, they are sharks prowling in search of prey. Yes, they were conceived as protection and help, but over time they turned into monsters.

It's time to remove them, replacing them with new useful settings:

I am, so it's already good.
I approve of myself, period, without conditions.
I'm good on my own, that's how I was made.

The second step is self-acceptance

To approve oneself by the fact of existence means to accept oneself without conditions. An old soda ad had a set of "If I was like him, that would be cool" story line. After that, pictures followed, as all representations of oneself in the place of another invariably turned comical and burst like a soap bubble. There is nothing better than being yourself.

Be yourself and accept yourself with pluses and minuses (perhaps this is how you perceive some of your qualities). Each person, including you, has pluses, strengths, exceptional qualities. Do not believe me, ask your friends and relatives, be surprised how much good and unique they see in you.

The book of the Soviet psychologist Alexander Luria "A little book about great memory" tells about a man with a phenomenal memory. So, this amazing hero with unlimited mnemonic possibilities believed that everyone had it, he was no different from others. And with you the same story - what you consider banal, perhaps a unique quality.

Minuses are not minuses, they are fronts of work. The path to success and development is negative feedback. It can and should be accepted with gratitude. Imagine that you no longer feel cold, hot, pain. You can sit on a fire or freeze to death without even noticing it, because there is no negative feedback. This is reminiscent of the elk from the joke, which, with a hangover, comes to the stream to drink water. A hunter shoots at him, and the elk feels so bad that he does not notice the wounds and thinks: “What is it? I drink, I drink, and I get worse and worse.

Those very minuses are the direction for work. Start asking yourself questions: what can I do to make it better? This applies to everything: work, communication with loved ones, relationships with a partner. When you understand how you can improve, start doing it. Over time, you will not have minuses, there will only be growth and development. You will begin to see yourself as "the possibility of anything."

The third step is to give yourself the right to make mistakes

“I have no right to do this,” the little perfectionist told me. Over time, he turned from a bore into an executioner. This attitude is the product of false attitudes. This is a greeting from childhood, we have taught ourselves to be afraid of making mistakes. Once they were not afraid of anything, they got up and fell until they learned to walk, run and perform other pirouettes. Fear of error is superficial, instilled from the outside. Like varnish, it covers all of our beautiful texture. This is another example of good intentions backfiring. Mistake is normal, it is the feedback necessary for growth.

Successful people perceive mistakes differently. “I just found 10,000 ways that don’t work,” Thomas Edison said of his failures. It is an experience that enriches life. Take on a new attitude: “I have the right to be wrong. This is how I learn and become more effective, wiser.”

2. Knowing and feeling competent

“Who knows you're in love? Only you alone. You feel it with all your skin ”(from the film“ Matrix ”).

The feeling of one's own competence is not social recognition, but inner knowledge. You just know that you are the best, no matter what.

As a child, I knew that no one could ride the waves better than me. On the beach, he was a “bodysurfing” champion, which he opened himself, no one knew if there was such a thing (there was no Internet then, the TV broadcast only two channels). There were no competitions in a fictitious sport, I just knew that I had no equal in this. You may have a signature pilaf or pies recipe. No one better than you in the family cooks pizza, embroiders, manages staff? When I was a student working part-time in the USA, I considered myself the best dishwasher, the feeling of my competence overwhelmed. I walked with my head held high.

Competence can be anything. Here are three steps to help you get this tool:

Think for yourself and ask independent experts (friends and loved ones): what are you good at? Perhaps you are the best wife, mother or father, daughter, grandfather, friend? It is important! This is no less important than being a narrow-profile specialist in Silicon Valley or a large corporation.
There is such quality. Connect it to yourself and every time you do it, say - "I'm doing great!"
Listen to how you feel when you do your job. Fix them in the body, "register" them at the cellular level, so that every particle knows that you are the best. Enjoy this feeling. It does not need to be demonstrated - you know about it, that's enough.

3. Harmonious relationships

Yes, relationships are the cornerstone of life. How many people stumble, break spears, step on rakes, walk in circles. They ask: "Why do I get only moral freaks?" They throw themselves into the abyss of new relationships and, after a wave of passion, sink to the bottom of depression.

The problem is not the world or people. The question to ask yourself is: “Why do I choose only scum from a variety of people?” Yes, yes, you do it yourself, you are the reason for everything that happens to you. Both partners and the nature of the relationship you choose.

You will consciously choose worthy partners

Having gone through the above steps, having found two points of support, you will receive a third one. A person with low self-esteem, who does not respect himself, chooses a partner whose relationship brings only negativity and suffering. When you evaluate yourself adequately and objectively, do not pay attention to external assessments, know your competence and uniqueness, you do not need to jump into the last car, rush at the first one that comes across, you no longer need this suffering.

Some people will leave the environment, and they will be replaced by those who are in tune with you. You will consciously choose worthy partners, build relationships based on love, trust, acceptance, respect and support.

About the author

Sergey Ivanov is a blogger who writes about self-development and personal growth. His blog.

Text: Sergey Ivanov Photo source: Getty Images

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Problems of low self-esteem

Low self-esteem is a cause and symptom of depression, anxiety and irritability. This is the rope that binds us, does not allow us to realize our dreams, enjoy the simplest things. We say, “lack of self-respect,” and nod our heads meaningfully. We use words, but do we explore what they really mean? You cannot physically feel self-esteem. What does it actually mean?

The scriptures of many religions teach that pride and arrogance are terrible sins, which means that you cannot worship yourself and God at the same time. The implication is that if you are "full of yourself" then you have no room for anyone or anything else. However, real self-esteem is not arrogance, selfishness or vanity.

Real self-esteem consists of

Evaluation of what we can do.
An honest respect for our own abilities, potential and values.
Knowledge of our forces and faith in them.
Appreciation and open recognition of our borders.
Acceptance of these limits, understanding that some limits can be overcome.
Release from excessive worry about what others think of us. Recognition that the public perception of our personality does play an important role, but does not determine who we are.
Having a strong sense of who we are.

Development of self-esteem and self-assertion

There are many treatises and methodologies devoted to this topic. They are widespread and you have probably seen them. Some of them encourage us to “love ourselves” or repeat positive affirmations daily to reprogram ourselves. Does it work? And if it really worked, what could be said about programmed people?

What, besides reproach and self-loathing, should a person who repeats “I am a good person” hundreds of times a day, while remaining the way he was, feel?

Balance in everything

The feeling of dislike towards oneself, due to laziness, selfishness, intolerance or aggressiveness, has a feedback. We may judge ourselves and, at times, think badly of ourselves.

If I behaved badly at one time, then I should regret that certain period of time, but not about my personality. There is no reason, because of one mistake, to declare to yourself: “I am nothing of myself.” Because, at the same time, I can find periods when I acted nice or excelled at something.

Significant difference

There is a profound difference between the statements we make to ourselves: “I am a completely unworthy person because I was rude to relatives by my spouse last week and I will always be hopeless in any area." (Low self-esteem) and "I acted really awful last night with those certain people at that particular time." It is the acceptance of responsibility, but not the scourging of one's personality, and all life, as worthless. (Good self-esteem).

In this way we can be self-critical and at the same time have a good sense of self-respect. And we do this without generalizing our mistakes and weaknesses. Believing in yourself is very important, but practice shows that it is incredibly difficult to believe in yourself!

The Importance of Developing Skills as a Basis for Good Self-Esteem

If I tell myself “every day I become more confident in society”, and in society I feel terribly shy and embarrassed, what does my mind believe? Should I believe what I endlessly repeated to myself, or should I believe my actual everyday experience?

If the teachers came up with a positive result, then teach me dialogue skills, relaxation techniques, thinking skills, then I will feel more comfortable in society. This will allow me to experience the result myself, and not to develop faith in the result.

Soft Skills for Low Self-Esteem

Working effectively with your emotions is as much a skill as driving a car or learning a foreign language. Emotional skills are sometimes referred to as "soft skills". The main ones are:

Ability to 'read' the feelings of others.
Detect when others are angry, frustrated, indecisive, etc.
Being sensitive to others, realizing that we also have different situations.
Have empathy. The ability to feel the position of another person.
The ability to have one's own point of view. Speak "for yourself" persuasively.
Having an effective communication style.
The opportunity to explain and the opportunity to compromise.
Having good communication skills and the ability to create and maintain friendships.
Notice your own rapid change of emotions.
Knowing how to manage your own anger and bad mood so as not to drown in your own emotions.
Understanding and controlling your personal needs for community, recreation, creativity, healthy living, attainable goals, attention and intimacy.
Focus on these needs in our daily lives.
Having a wide range of interests and activities (to the greatest extent possible). To be not only an “Employee”, “Father”, “Mother”, etc.
Ability to manage stressful life situations.
Understanding the importance of the society we choose. Do we associate ourselves with those who drag us down, or with those who are confident and interesting?

Of course, some people do have a wide variety of skills and talents, but still suffer from low self-esteem! You may be a perfectionist, or you may know someone you consider perfect.

Demanding the impossible and then failing is a trap! Knowing that we've done a "damn good job" and given ourselves the right level of credit is an important soft skill.

It's great to set ourselves high goals, but we need to balance them with the fact that we are only human. Self-esteem - Summary.

So, instead of trying desperately to convince ourselves that we are admirable through brainwashing, it is better to find a way to good self-respect through the development of skills, the so-called "soft skills".

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