Describe How a Person Can Have Both High and Low Self-esteem.

Verywell / Brianna Gilmartin

Having healthy cocky-esteem tin influence your motivation, your mental well-being, and your overall quality of life. However, having self-esteem that is either likewise high or too depression can be problematic. Better understanding what your unique level of self-esteem is can help yous strike a balance that is but right for you lot.

What Is Cocky-Esteem?

In psychology, the term self-esteem is used to describe a person'south overall subjective sense of personal worth or value. In other words, self-esteem may be defined as how much yous appreciate and like yourself regardless of the circumstances. Your self-esteem is divers past many factors including:

• Self-confidence
• Feeling of security
• Identity
• Sense of belonging
• Feeling of competence

Other terms that are frequently used interchangeably with self-esteem include self-worth, cocky-regard, and self-respect.

Self-esteem tends to be lowest in childhood and increases during adolescence, as well every bit adulthood, eventually reaching a adequately stable and enduring level. This makes self-esteem similar to the stability of personality traits over fourth dimension.

Why Cocky-Esteem Is Important

Self-esteem impacts your controlling process, your relationships, your emotional wellness, and your overall well-existence. It besides influences motivation, as people with a healthy, positive view of themselves understand their potential and may experience inspired to take on new challenges. People with good for you self-esteem:

• Have a firm agreement of their skills
• Are able to maintain good for you relationships with others because they have a good for you relationship with themselves
• Have realistic and appropriate expectations of themselves and their abilities
• Sympathize their needs and are able to limited them

People with low cocky-esteem tend to experience less certain of their abilities and may doubt their controlling process. They may not feel motivated to attempt novel things because they don't believe they're capable of reaching their goals. Those with low cocky-esteem may accept issues with relationships and expressing their needs. They may as well experience low levels of confidence and feel unlovable and unworthy.

People with overly high self-esteem may overestimate their skills and may feel entitled to succeed, fifty-fifty without the abilities to back upwardly their belief in themselves. They may struggle with relationship issues and block themselves from self-comeback because they are and then fixated on seeing themselves as perfect.

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Theories

Many theorists have written about the dynamics involved in the development of self-esteem. The concept of self-esteem plays an important role in psychologist Abraham Maslow'southward hierarchy of needs, which depicts esteem as one of the basic human motivations.

Maslow suggested that individuals need both appreciation from other people and inner cocky-respect to build esteem. Both of these needs must be fulfilled in gild for an individual to abound as a person and reach self-actualization.

Information technology is important to note that self-esteem is a concept distinct from cocky-efficacy, which involves how well you believe y'all'll handle future actions, performance, or abilities.

Factors That Affect Cocky-Esteem

There are many factors that can influence self-esteem. Your self-esteem may be impacted by:

• Historic period
• Disability
• Genetics
• Illness
• Physical abilities
• Socioeconomic status
• Thought patterns

Racism and discrimination have also been shown to accept negative effects on self-esteem. Additionally, genetic factors that aid shape a person'south personality can play a role, only life experiences are thought to be the most of import factor.

It is often our experiences that class the footing for overall cocky-esteem. Those who consistently receive overly critical or negative assessments from family and friends, for example, will probable feel low self-esteem. Those who experience what Carl Rogers referred to as unconditional positive regard will be more likely to take good for you cocky-esteem.

Healthy Self-Esteem

There are some unproblematic means to tell if you have salubrious cocky-esteem. You probably accept healthy cocky-esteem if you:

• Avoid dwelling on past negative experiences
• Believe you are equal to anybody else, no amend and no worse
• Express your needs
• Feel confident
• Take a positive outlook on life
• Say no when you want to
• Encounter your overall strengths and weaknesses and accept them

Having healthy self-esteem can assistance motivate you to accomplish your goals, because yous are able to navigate life knowing that you are capable of accomplishing what yous set your mind to. Additionally, when yous accept healthy self-esteem, yous are able to set up appropriate boundaries in relationships and maintain a healthy relationship with yourself and others.

Depression Self-Esteem

Low cocky-esteem may manifest in a variety of ways. If you accept low cocky-esteem:

• You lot may believe that others are amend than y'all.
• You may observe expressing your needs hard.
• You may focus on your weaknesses.
• Y'all may frequently feel fear, self-doubtfulness, and worry.
• You may have a negative outlook on life and feel a lack of command.
• Y'all may have an intense fear of failure.
• You may have trouble accepting positive feedback.
• You may have problem saying no and setting boundaries.
• You lot may put other people's needs before your own.
• You may struggle with confidence.

Low self-esteem has the potential to lead to a diversity of mental health disorders, including anxiety disorders and depressive disorders. Y'all may as well find it hard to pursue your goals and maintain good for you relationships. Having low cocky-esteem tin seriously impact your quality of life and increases your adventure for experiencing suicidal thoughts.

Excessive Self-Esteem

Overly high self-esteem is often mislabeled as narcissism, however there are some distinct traits that differentiate these terms. Individuals with narcissistic traits may announced to accept loftier self-esteem, but their self-esteem may be high or low and is unstable, constantly shifting depending on the given state of affairs. Those with excessive self-esteem:

• May exist preoccupied with being perfect
• May focus on always being right
• May believe they cannot fail
• May believe they are more skilled or better than others
• May express grandiose ideas
• May grossly overestimate their skills and abilities

When self-esteem is too high, it tin result in relationship problems, difficulty with social situations, and an inability to have criticism.

How to Improve Self-Esteem

Fortunately, there are steps that you lot can take to address bug with self-esteem. Some actions that you tin can accept to help amend your self-esteem include:

• Become more than aware of negative thoughts. Learn to identify the distorted thoughts that are impacting your self-worth.
• Claiming negative thinking patterns. When yous discover yourself engaging in negative thinking, try countering those thoughts with more than realistic and/or positive ones.
• Use positive cocky-talk. Do reciting positive affirmations to yourself.
• Practice self-compassion. Practice forgiving yourself for past mistakes and move forrad by accepting all parts of yourself.

Depression self-esteem can contribute to or be a symptom of mental health disorders, including anxiety and low. Consider speaking with a doctor or therapist most available treatment options, which may include psychotherapy (in-person or online), medications, or a combination of both.

Go Advice From The Verywell Mind Podcast

Hosted by Editor-in-Chief and therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast shares strategies that can help you learn to truly believe in yourself, featuring IT Cosmetics founder Jamie Kern Lima.

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A Word From Verywell

Though some of the causes of low cocky-esteem tin't be inverse, such equally genetic factors, early childhood experiences, and personality traits, there are steps yous tin have to feel more secure and valued. Remember that no one person is less worthy than the next. Keeping this in mind may assist you maintain a healthy sense of self-esteem.

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Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

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Additional Reading

• Maslow AH. Motivation and Personality. 3rd ed. New York: Harper & Row; 1987.

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Source: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-self-esteem-2795868

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