The feeling of self: self-esteem

How you perceive yourself

Our sense of self is partly determined by our cognition, but it is also the product of our affection, in other words, what we feel for ourselves. Self-esteem refers to positive feelings – i.e. high self-esteem – or negative one – i.e. low self-esteem. We have positive feelings of high self-esteem when we believe we are good and worthy and when we believe that others see us positively. Conversely, we experience negative feelings of low self-esteem when we believe we are inadequate and less worthy of others.

Our self-esteem is determined by many factors, including how well we observe our performance and our external appearance and how satisfied we are with our relationships with other people. Self-esteem is partly a stable trait over time, but it is also a state that can vary from day to day and even from hour to hour.

When we have succeeded in an important task, when we have done something that we consider useful or important, or when we feel accepted and appreciated by others, our self-concept will contain many positive thoughts and we will therefore have high self-esteem at that particular moment. When we fail, do something harmful, or feel that we have been ignored or criticized, the negative aspects of the self-concept are felt and we experience low self-esteem.

Maintain and improve self-esteem

For those of us who are actively looking for greater self-esteem, one way to increase it is to be successful in what you do, in the case of failures or mistakes, don’t punish yourself excessively.

One of the reasons why people have positive self-esteem is because they are generally able to create a positive life. When they fail in one sense, these people still tend to move forward until they find something they are good and capable of. These people do not always expect to get the best rating in each test or to always be the best player on the team. Therefore, they are often not surprises or harmed when these things do not happen. In short, these people feel good about themselves because they do a good job creating a life that is basically positive.

Does high self-esteem cause positive results, even in the workplace?

Teachers, parents, and employers often emphasize that self-esteem causes many positive results for the people who have it and therefore we should try to increase it in ourselves and in others. You will probably agree with the idea that if you could increase your self-esteem, you would feel better about yourself and would therefore be able to work better or attract a more desirable environment.

It is no coincidence that, in 1986, the state of California financed the “self-esteem movement” with the premise that increasing people’s self-esteem would help solve many social problems, including crime, adolescent pregnancy, drug abuse, scarcity of education and pollution.

People with high self-esteem actually get better grades, are less depressed, are less stressed and can even live longer than those who consider themselves negatively. High self-esteem is also related to greater initiative and proactivity. People with high self-esteem work more even in response to an initial failure and are more willing to move to a new line of efforts if the current one seems unpromising. Therefore, having a high self-esteem seems to be a precious resource: People with high self-esteem are happier, more active, and in many ways able to better manage their environment, even in the workplace.

Achieve high self-esteem … but not too much

Although we all want to have social status and high self-esteem, we cannot always promote ourselves without any limits. If we constantly distort our abilities, and in particular if we do it for a long period of time, we will simply end up deceiving ourselves and perhaps engaging in behaviors that are not actually useful to us. Many of us probably know someone who believes they have a special talent, even on a professional level, but we and others can easily see that this person is deluding himself. An example easy to understand: Some people do auditions for talent shows even though they have no skills at all.

Such excessive self-esteem, or self-delusion, can become problematic because it can lead to big disappointments and long-term failures. The pursuit of unrealistic goals could also steal precious time that can be spent working on areas where greater chances of success are much more real. When we feed ourselves too much, even though we may feel good in the short term, in the long run the results for the self may not be so positive.

The goal is therefore to create and maintain positive self-esteem at a healthy level and thus have an accurate view of oneself. The ability to balance the cognitive and affective characteristics of the self helps us to create realistic visions of ourselves and translate them into more efficient and effective behaviors, even in the working environment.