Self Esteem .... Your Self View

To me self esteem denotes the view that you have about your own self. Just as your tone conveys a lot of thing sto other people, your own self esteem also conveys a lot of things to other people. And you get the appropriate reactions from other people on your own self esteem.... they respond to you in a manner that you tell them.... or should I say convey to them.... to respond to you. Your self esteem also finds expression in your body language... which is as strong as the verbal one.

A lot can be written and said about Self Esteem and its sister Self Confidence. But the following extracts from articles by Carla Valencia explains it all:

Self Esteem

It is the Knowing that you are worth already. According to Merriam Webster dictionary, means:

1) A confidence and satisfaction in oneself
2) A reasonable or justifiable sense of one's worth or importance .
3) An often unjustified feeling of being pleased with oneself or with one's situation or achievements
4) A great faith in oneself or one's abilities

The 3 last sentences are linked to pride , complacence and confidence. Let's take a look at this words:
Pride: a feeling of self-respect and personal worth
Complacence: calm or secure satisfaction with oneself.
Confidence: Great faith in oneself or one's abilities. The state or quality of being certain: Confidence in your ability to succeed.

Self esteem is the idea that you have about yourself. It is how much you value yourself and how important you think you are. It is how you see yourself .

Characteristics of a healthy self esteem:

1) Self-confidence
2) Able to have intimacy in relationships.
3) Able to show true feelings.
4) Ability to recognize your own accomplishments.
5) Ability to forgive yourself and others.
6) Welcome change.

Characteristics of low self esteem:

1) Insecurity, lack of Self-confidence.
2) Problems in establishing intimacy in relationships.
3) Hide true feelings.
4) Inability to reward yourself for accomplishments.
5) Inability to forgive yourself and others.
6) Fear of change.

Self Confidence

According to the dictionary self-confidence means:

Confidence in oneself or one's own abilities:

How do we build self-confidence? There are some tips that will help you to build self-confidence:

1. Be your best friend . Use your self-talk to empower you not to put yourself down. Do not expect perfection from yourself all the time. Remember that you are always doing the best you can with the resources you have.

2. Accentuate the positive. Keep always in mind your positive qualities. Refresh every morning your best qualities, things you have done right. Accentuate in the positive not the negative. There is always something positive that happen to you during the day. Celebrate the event.

3. Take some risks. Try to take some risk, do not worry about the outcome, just do it. If you do not try you will not feel good about yourself. Take a risk and see what happens. If it turns out good, wonderful! you will feel great about yourself. If it did not turn out good, is ok. Remember? You are not perfect. Your are learning and growing and even though you think you failed, you will feel good about yourself because you took the risk.

4. Relay on your self-evaluation Forget about the opinion of others. Do not wonder all day about what they think. If you do this you are giving away your power to other people. Focus inside of you, feel in your heart. Develop a good relationship with yourself and trust your instincts.

Remember that no one can be confident all the time.

People with low self-esteem worry too much about what other people think about them. They get stuck in the thought that other people are better than them. They do not allow themselves to be. They have unrealistic expectations and they have a lot of fear of rejection.

So work towards building a healthy self esteem and self confidence. That is the best gift that you can give yourself.