When you examine the ways in which humans attempt to feel more valuable and worthwhile, it becomes apparent that we don’t understand what self-esteem is. We keep looking outside of ourselves (external esteem), which soon overshadows our own needs, desires, expectations, feelings and opinions. Relying on this external validation makes us unsure of ourselves, increasingly at the mercy of, and reliant on, other people, things, and substances to make us feel ‘OK’. We don’t realise we can’t keep going outwards and expect to feel good inwardly. The degree to which we lack confidence is our reliance on external factors. If 90% of our energy goes towards pleasing others to feel worthy, we can expect our confidence to be -90%.
Self-esteem is about the way you treat and regard yourself.
The day-to-day actions and thinking and what you carry from your experiences in the baggage for your journey determine whether you consider yourself a worthwhile and valuable person. It’s about whether you use outer references to determine your feelings and opinions of yourself and about whether you come from a place of love, care, trust, and respect or from fear, guilt, shame, anger, and making yourself small. Self-esteem is about whether you’re using a narrative of judgements as a reference for your present perspective or showing up and recognising your humanness, including how you’ve grown and who you are yet to become.