What is self-esteem?

As a confidence coach I'm often asked what is self-esteem and how is it different from confidence.

Confidence is defined as a feeling of trust in your abilities, qualities and judgement.

Whereas self-esteem relates to your self-worth and how you value yourself in the world.

Someone with low self-esteem would have an overall negative belief about themselves. They'd tend to focus on their weaker points and blame themselves for any difficulties or mistakes.

If your self-esteem is higher, you generally believe you're okay and recognise your strengths. When there are tough times in your life you can cope with them without feeling a victim or taking all the responsibility.

If you're not sure where you are on the self-esteem scale then look at these types of behaviours and decide which describe you the most, or perhaps you demonstrate both types of behaviour?

High self-esteem behaviours:

• Have a balanced view of your positives and negatives.
• Take care of yourself physically and emotionally.
• Willing to trust others.
• Independent.
• Optimistic.
• Willing to take risks.
• Compassionate to yourself.
• Learn from your mistakes.
• Open-minded to others.
• Trusting yourself and your intuition.
• Collaborative.
• Take responsibility for your actions and not always blaming others.

Low self-esteem behaviours:

• Focused on your perceived negatives.
• Self-blame and criticism.
• Pessimistic.
• Fear of taking risks.
• Blaming attitude.
• Avoid taking responsibility for actions.
• Fear of confrontation.
• Perfectionist behaviours.
• Oversensitive to others comments.
• Comparing yourself to others.
• Needing to be right.
• Dependant on others for decisions.

Your self-esteem can fluctuate with your current experiences in life and most of us are somewhere around the middle of the scale. To work on building a healthier self-esteem I suggest starting by getting a clear picture of your positives and strengths as well as your flaws.

Jo