How Self Esteem Relates To Confidence By: R.E. Darby
All Things Are Interconnected
Self esteem is a critical basic element that has far reaching consequences in the development of what we call our self image and personality. We rarely think about such things because they usually work in the background on an unconscious level. Self esteem normally doesn't become a problem if it is strongly positive, but when it is weak and negative it can and will affect many areas of our lives that we may not suspect it could. One such area is of course our self confidence which is also an important element with equally far reaching consequences.
By this point in our species evolution we should know that all things are interconnected and interdependent. We isolate certain things out of their context in order to study and understand them better, but we must not forget to put them back into context when we are through. Yet this is a mental habit that has become common in our society. We look at and examine a concept like self esteem as if it stands alone without a surrounding environment of other concepts which, by the way, can and do have an influence and impact on self esteem just as the condition of our self esteem influences and impacts its surrounding environment and this environment is the territory of our self image and thus our well being.
How We Perceive Ourselves
Our self image depends on how we perceive ourselves. If we view ourselves from a fundamentally negative perspective, usually resulting from early parental, peer, educational and environmental influences, this view will propagate throughout other areas of our makeup. A fundamentally positive perspective will propagate in the same way but with different results. Perceiving ourselves from a negative position will produce a weak self identity and a weak self identity will be compatible with low self esteem. Feelings of inferiority, self consciousness and isolation are common indicators of low self esteem. There is no social life because you feel that everyone is better than you and so you cannot meet others on equal ground.
To expect self confidence to develop in an environment such as this is like trying to plant seeds in the desert and then wondering why they don't grow. Self confidence results from a succession of successes and usually is developed in early childhood by caring, intelligent and aware parents. But even without this early advantage a person can develop confidence on their own if they have enough strength of character or a strong positive self image, these, and an intelligent understanding that mistakes are only learning opportunities and not the end of the world, and that failures are only temporary setbacks to successful outcomes. Self confidence is not likely to develop in the presents of low self esteem because low self esteem may lead to too many failures and result in the fear of trying. Without trying, there can be no successes and without successes how will self confidence arise?
Repairing The Damaged Self
As you probably realize, repairing a damaged self image isn't something that will occur over night, although it can in special situations and circumstances. But for most of us we have to break a sweat and invest a great deal of effort in the form of desire, commitment, determination, patience and faith. Over the last decade the self help industry has matured enormously having first gone through its adolescents which was seemingly populated by quick buck artist of every kind. Usually once a genuine need makes itself known, genuine resources to address those needs will come along, driven of course by economics like everything else.
While resources like meditation and yoga and affirmations and creative visualizations are very powerful in the self help world, when it comes to self image and self esteem, at least in the initial stages, I think that the self hypnosis programs out there are good because they deliver quick result and the sooner we can get some positive self perceptions going, the sooner we can get some successes under our belt and get more confidence in ourselves that will in turn lead to more efforts, more successes and more confidence. Give it a try. But either way, it is going to take some time to get lasting meaningful changes made, but you are not alone, there are many of us out here on the journey of self improvement and we know what you are up against and we know you can do it!
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