Are there signs you have low self-esteem?
We’ll see that in the course of this article.
First, self-esteem can mean the total value someone places on themselves.
It’s simply the way you view yourself and covers a lot of factors, including your self-confidence, feeling of belonging, sense of identity and feeling of competence.
Your self-esteem is more than mere self-love.
It entails you knowing that you are deserving of love and that your feelings, interests, opinions, goals and thoughts are valid.
Your self-esteem rubs off on how you let people treat you, in addition to the way you treat and feel about yourself.
It plays a key role in your ability to develop and sustain healthy relationships.
Self-esteem is a major player in most areas of our lives, and having low self-esteem can pose serious problems for you.
Low self-esteem greatly affects the behavioural patterns, thoughts and emotions of an individual.
Although some of the signs you have low self-esteem can be glaring, some other signs can be subtle.
While some people with low self-esteem see no good in themselves and talk down on their person, some others are bent on pleasing other people just to get in their good books.
Whatever may be the case, a lack of personal value and worth always negatively impacts the wellness and public life of an individual.
Here are some of the most common signs you have low self-esteem below.
11 Signs You Have Low Self-Esteem
1. You Engage In Negative Social Comparison
Indeed, a social comparison that’s geared rightly can help to boost someone’s self-esteem the same way it can damage self-esteem too.
It all depends on your mentality and outlook.
People with low self-esteem often engage in upward social comparison (comparing themselves to people who are obviously or think are better than themselves).
There’s nothing wrong with this comparison, as you can draw inspiration for improvement from it.
However, a problem arises when contrary to normal opinion; you begin to feel hopeless or inadequate after the comparison.
This can further downgrade already low self-esteem.
If you’re among the latter, it’s one of the signs you have low self-esteem.
2. You Doubt Your Choices And Worry Too Much
If you often worry that you’ve made the wrong choice after taking a decision, it’s one of the signs you have low self-esteem.
You don’t have faith in your opinions, and more often than not, you go with the opinion of others instead of yours.
This leads you to doubt and second guess yourself, making it very difficult for you to make express decisions about your life.
3. You Have Low Confidence
Low self-esteem and low self-confidence go hand in hand.
If you have one, the other must be present.
Do you have low self-confidence?
You’ll have low self-esteem, then.
When you’re confident in yourself and your abilities, you know that you can rely on yourself to handle any situation that comes your way.
Having this trust in yourself makes you feel confident and comfortable navigating whatever life throws you.
While having low self-esteem can cause a lack of confidence, having low self-confidence can make low self-esteem worse.
Low self-esteem often leads people to have little confidence in their abilities and talents, which can prevent them from pursuing goals they want in life and make them feel like they don’t deserve success or happiness.
They may even start doubting their own competence at simple tasks such as driving a car or cooking dinner because they believe they aren’t good enough to handle these activities on their own without making mistakes or causing accidents.
It’ll be very helpful if you find ways to build confidence in yourself and your abilities.
You can make headway by learning and practising new skills.
4. You Always View Yourself Negatively
When you have low self-esteem, you focus on your weaknesses rather than your strengths.
Instead of pumping yourself by speaking positive things about yourself, you always have negative things to say.
You blame yourself when things go wrong, regardless of whose fault it is.
In addition, you always have something negative to say about your personality, appearance or abilities.
5. You Don’t Have Control Over Your Life
One of the signs you have low self-esteem is if you feel you have little to no control over what happens in your life.
This happens when you believe that you have little or no ability to create changes wherever you find yourself.
You feel that you don’t have the power to fix your challenges.
6. Inability To Create Boundaries
A lack of boundaries in relationships can often be a sign that you have low self-esteem.
In healthy relationships, people set boundaries and respect them by not crossing them or violating them.
They may even make it clear what they expect from others and how they want to be treated.
People with low self-esteem tend to have trouble creating boundaries because of their tendency to give too much and take too little.
They tend to put others’ needs before their own, which makes it hard for them to say no when others ask for something from them or impose on their time and energy.
They also tend to struggle with asking for help when they need it because of their fear of being rejected or judged for being needy or weak.
If you have problems saying no, you have low self-esteem.
7. You Have Problems Asking For Your Needs
If you struggle to ask for your needs, it’s one of the signs you have low self-esteem.
You feel you don’t deserve help because you have low regard for yourself.
Even your need for support and assistance makes you feel incompetent and embarrassed.
Since you don’t know how to put yourself first, you struggle to speak out when you need help.
8. You’re A People Pleaser
If you always go out of your way to please other people just to get external validation, it is counted as one of the signs you have low self-esteem.
You find yourself going above and beyond to ensure other people are happy and comfortable at the expense of your happiness.
To what end?
Just to be in their good books.
And that’s not all.
Most times, you do these things while neglecting your pressing needs, feeling guilty for saying no and saying yes to things you don’t want to do.
9. You’re Afraid Of Failure
You doubt your ability to achieve success because you don’t have confidence in your abilities.
Coupled with the fear of failure, you find yourself giving up on challenges quickly or even avoiding them.
You make excuses, act out, or blame external factors when faced with challenges, all because you’re afraid of failure.
10. You Have A Poor Outlook On Life
Another sign that you have low self-esteem is when you feel that the chances of things getting better in the future are low.
When you feel hopeless about the future, you’ll hardly engage yourself in anything beneficial to your life.
Your coping mechanism for this is self-sabotage.
You actively look for obstacles hindering your success and then blame them for everything going wrong in their lives.
11. Unhealthy Relationships
If you have low self-esteem, you may find it hard to trust others, which can make it difficult to maintain relationships.
You may also struggle to be assertive and stand up for yourself in relationships.
You might feel comfortable only with people who are just like you — those who share the same interests or who have similar backgrounds.
This is called social homophily, and it’s common among people with low self-esteem because they want to feel accepted by others.
Having friends with whom you can spend time without having to explain yourself is important for your mental health, but spending too much time with those who don’t challenge your ideas or beliefs could prevent you from learning new things about yourself or developing a more diverse circle of friends.
Low self-esteem is a normal human emotion that everyone experiences at one time or another.
But when it becomes a constant feeling, it can have a negative impact on your life.
It can cause people to feel sad and depressed, and it can lead to other problems in your life.
If you have low self-esteem, it’s important to get help from a mental health professional who can help you learn how to overcome these negative beliefs and build a successful life for yourself.
Good post. These are all rooted in trauma, and understanding the nature of trauma is integral to overcoming it. Trauma, from one perspective, manifests a sense of self which is predicated on the fundamental perception of an absence of inherent value. A lot of this is rooted in early childhood experiences with one’s primary caregivers.