In people's lives, self-esteem is a fundamental issue due to the effect it has on one's behavior towards oneself and towards others, but in general people do not pay much attention to it. In fact, many have not even thought about this. As a subject, self-esteem is not in the concern of the majority.
Perhaps because the mere mention of the word induces people to say that they do not have a problem with self-esteem and, therefore, they do not feel compelled to go deeper into this personally.
It seems that the concept tends to be associated with not being well, with being confused in personal self-worth and things of that type. Question that is understandable otherwise, since there is agreement in the diagnosis regarding the various psychological complications such as depression, anguish, fears, poor performance in studies and at work, emotional immaturity, etc. etc. they are attributed to self-esteem, low self-esteem or negative problems.
Be that as it may, it should be noted that everyone needs to know what self-esteem is about due to the conditioning it exerts on people's behavior.
We can say that having the ability to observe our self-esteem is essential to understand ourselves and understand others. Through our responses we create reality, and our responses to everything that happens to us depend on who and what we think we are. It is not very possible to create a favorable reality if one demeans oneself, that is to say, if one already sees oneself as “unfavorable” as a person for what is proposed.
In terms of judgments about one's way of being, the most important is our own, which goes hand in hand inseparably with respect to what we think we are.
So self-esteem plays a key role in the achievements and non-achievements that we obtain in life, since the way we feel about ourselves decisively affects all dimensions of our social behavior; how we are with others, in family, at work, in social relationships, in couple relationships, in love, in sex, etc.
That is why its importance, why we must give it more than special attention, literally of high priority, although it sounds half dramatic to say so.
The objective of this work, actually notes, is to develop elements of reflection of self-esteem, so that one can work on individual self-management issues of this very personal aspect of each one.
With that purpose, first a global review is made about the meaning and effect of self-esteem, being intentionally a repetitive means with some concepts, and then we begin to observe how self-esteem can distort our self-evaluative gaze regarding our true abilities and, in the end, a guideline is presented to carry out a self-measurement of what one is, in terms of capacities-abilities-attitudes, which I elaborated with the idea that serves to carry out an evaluative observation of oneself. In other words, to review who we think we are. In this way, everything said about self-assessment does not remain floating in the air as foreign concepts.
I must mention that what is exposed is an approach of own opinions mixed with concepts from various authors (Jorge Bucay, José F. González, Nathaniel Branden and others), that is, it is a mix of ideas without referring to which concept is their own and which alien, a question that I have allowed myself since the objective of this work is not to develop theory - in which case it would have to be rigorous with authorship - but rather to provide the reader with the most nutritious vision of the subject, as a basis for knowing and self manage self assessment.
The meaning of the word self-esteem
The word self-esteem is made up of self and esteem. The word auto, as we all know, refers to oneself and the word esteem is associated with value.
Estimate is interpreted as value because estimation comes from measuring and measuring is connected to the idea of giving things a certain value, which can be objective or subjective depending on the acceptance of the measurement indicator or criterion that is applied. For example no one disputes that 2 + 2 equals 4 since there is universal agreement on the mathematical logic of this that we acquired from the Arabs.
But in matters of valuation of what the person is as such, it is clear that one moves more in the field of the relative since fixing an valuation of a person may or may not have a solid foundation or demonstrable evidence.
The self-evaluation and evaluation of others cannot always be said to have demonstrable evidence, there are personal dispositions, it must be observed as an element of discrepable opinion and not in terms of closed conviction. And that is valid both with respect to oneself and also when forming an idea of valuing others.
It is understood that this relativism does not apply to everything since there are things that one values of oneself based on what life experience itself has been in charge of demonstrating. For example, that he is skillful with manual tools, or that he easily perceives the emotional state of others, or that he is good with numerical calculations, anyway. I think this is largely agreed
Self-esteem is a human perception: self-esteem refers to how each person values himself, how we respect ourselves and how much we respect ourselves.
According to some authors, it is a complex concept and not easy to fully understand the causes it has and the effects it produces, while other authors are more "disinhibited" and directly affirm what self-esteem is and what it is not and how they People must handle this human aspect to achieve high self-esteem, actually recommending having very high self-esteem in everything.
I think that it is necessary to be more careful with this goal of “high self-esteem in everything” for the reasons that I will explain later, I think that self-esteem is directly linked to the mental process of each person, and in that sense I think it is prudent to be better humble regarding knowledge of the mental process dimension of people and managing the motto; "We think this and this but we continue learning."
Therefore you have to be very cautious with the statements and better to speak basically in terms of opinions on this human matter.
We will take a global look at the concept of self-esteem:
To begin with, we can say that self-esteem has two components: a feeling of personal capacity and a feeling of personal worth. From this it results that self-esteem is the sum of confidence and self-respect, a perception that begins to form in you from early childhood and then is shaped by what each person reads from their life experience.
It reflects the implicit judgment that each one makes of his ability and capacity to face life, his dreams, his personal ideals in every way. In some people this judgment becomes explicit or verbalized with others, when there are special communication opportunities, and in others it is simply kept quietly in one.
Self-esteem is now a matter of level or grade; positive, negative, high, low. It does not have an absolute connotation (totally positive or negative, or totally high or low) nor does it have an immovable fixed since it changes with the events of time.
Thus, self-esteem is not a fixed value in the person, but it is strongly conditioned by the past, that is, the past of self-esteem conditions the present.
The most primary self-esteem appears in childhood and it is the parents who most influence the type of self-esteem that appears in the children. When there are no parents in charge of the upbringing (one or both), it will be the upbringing of the infant who will form the seal of the person's primary self-esteem.
The self-esteem that appears in the child conditions his thinking and his behavior in relation to himself and in his relationship with others; "If I always reproach my little son saying that he is useless, he will finally be useless, he will think as useless, he will act as useless."
I think it is something that we all know, for the same reason the great responsibility that falls when one raises little people; they are like innocent sponges that absorb what they receive and need to receive love to love themselves as they grow.
So self-esteem is a value that is acquired first of all in the family: behavior, interests, thoughts, attitudes are projected onto childhood by people around the child, actions are projected on him or her, so that those same judgments and actions give a value to the infant who comes to experience as his own, which he assumes through his actions, through the management of his emotionality towards himself and towards others.
Then self-esteem is molded (positive, negative, high, low) with what is happening in each person's particular life experience.
A key moment in this is what happens during basic or primary and then middle or secondary educational training, since there is no less damage to the self-esteem that a child can receive when he is mistreated by his peers (emotionally or physically).
Damages may occur to the person's self-esteem, which then takes enormous effort and time to resolve, some do not manage to resolve, they simply cannot remove the heavy burden that affects self-evaluation due to the abuse received. at school and, due to the problem they cause in their self-esteem, in their relationship with others they do not become what they would like.
What has been said about the formation of self-esteem in childhood and later during the period of education that ends at the middle or secondary level, has the purpose that the reader decides to give a mental review of his history as a child in family and school, meditate on how much love and affection he received, how many displays of affection he received, and also on the other hand, how much they criticized him and what they pointed his finger at making him feel guilty about something or bad as a person.
In this way, one can focus on the aspects that play for and against their self-esteem.
But this type of reminder exercise I do not recommend is done with rancor or less hatred. The good that happened, how awful it was, and the bad, well it was no more but it did not hinder the life that lies ahead, or at least fight so that the bad past does not continue to have a strong presence. The present and future is what is relevant and what to worry about. The past can no longer be changed, it is what it was.
Self-worth: Self-esteem does not exist without the other, rather without the people around us and who we interact with.
Self-esteem is not an individualistic construction; some influence the others.
It is an internal process of each one that is based on the value that others give us and the way in which we turn it into our own value, of self-evaluation of what we are.
Self-esteem seems like an isolated position but it is not. It could not exist nor could it be understood without the social component, without the interaction with other people from whom we receive influences, impacts, images, perceptions that affect us in a direct line regarding how we value ourselves in what we are, and this influence - effect So decisive is established through communication between people.
So the communication dimension between people is a fundamental aspect, specifically the way we communicate, especially face-to-face conversational communication due to the effect it has on emotionality that is transmitted directly in the conversational moment.
Therefore the substantive of self-esteem is that it is produced and exists in the social component and is modeled through communication between one and the other that occurs in social interaction.
Well, it is clear that conversational communication is an issue in itself (which I have developed in another work), but what is interesting to highlight at the moment is that it is an aspect that cannot be ignored when venturing into self-esteem.
Returning to the value of oneself, everything indicates that self-esteem is formed in the individual as a value system about who we are. From this value system a certain mental model results or is generated that directs the behavior of the person.
But in terms of valuing what one is, self-esteem is not who we really are but an evaluative judgment on what we think we are.
This is how we can say that self-esteem is an evaluative attitude of what we believe to be that is built and nurtured with the perception that one has of oneself and that is not static since it changes, to varying degrees according to the person, with the events that occur in situations and communicational relationship with other people.
And now we come to the issue of "positive and negative values" or "the good and the bad" of what one is. Self-esteem is the qualification that one gives oneself, therefore in some things "approves" and in others "retests", so that what one does is a self-evaluation.
It is indicated that the self-concept is: "the set of opinions and knowledge that a person has about himself, about different aspects of his own personality and behavior, about what he is and what he does"
In the self-concept there is no assessment on the part of the person. Self-esteem appears when the person values it, assigns it a value, says of himself that it is good or bad. Precisely that of "is it good or is it bad" is self-esteem.
If it is good, self-esteem is indicated as positive, if it is bad, it is indicated as negative.
From this perspective, self-esteem has two dimensions but from the same coin: positive side and negative side.
I think it makes sense to everyone as we would all agree that we are made up of positives and negatives based on what we think of ourselves. We hardly find people who think they are good at everything and bad at nothing, in general.
Self-esteem is always an attitude that the individual maintains with himself (positive component / plus sign - negative component / minus sign), which dances in one's mental model in the form of an assessment of what he believes himself to be.
According to a well-known specialist (Copersmith), self-esteem is: “the evaluation that the individual makes, and that he generally maintains in front of himself; expresses an attitude of approval or disapproval and indicates the degree to which the individual considers himself capable, important, successful and valuable. In short, self-esteem is a personal value judgment that is expressed through the attitudes that the individual maintains towards himself. “Self-esteem is the direction of the attitude towards oneself; self-esteem is learned and as a consequence it can be changed ”(Rosemberg)
From the above about self-assessment something very important for the person follows; that value, positive or negative, that the person gives to himself about what he is or thinks he is, is fundamental for the course of his life, since what is in his mental model is the approval or disapproval of himself, affirmation or denial of oneself, in relation to what one believes others think of oneself or what one believes oneself to be.
If a positive value is adopted about oneself, it will generate a constructive effect, of achievement, of security, of good adaptation to the environment, of internal tranquility, of emotional stability, of self-security, in short; open path to personal growth, to battle in good conditions for the goals you decide to set, to be happy.
On the contrary, if a negative value is adopted on oneself, the game is pessimistic, so that the non-achievement is as expected, there is no self-confidence with which the person can hardly develop in terms of stability emotional, rather he walks in frustration, in conflictive relationships, in self-abuse and mistreatment of others… in short, they basically know unhappiness.
Regarding the level of self-esteem, I think that people can have a high self-assessment, often clearly inflated or excessive level with powerful egos, a low self-assessment so that they have a hard time with themselves, many times they find it difficult to handle safe behaviors and They constantly seek to be accepted by others, and finally, neither one nor the other, that is, a self-evaluation, let's say adequate, of the “in-between” type, neither low nor high, which allows them to maintain emotionally stable behaviors, live with internal tranquility and develop uncomplicated interpersonal relationships, with good conflict management.
Intentionally, this last level is not indicated as "normal" since I would be forced to delve into what is understood by normal in the context of interpersonal relationships and I prefer not to enter that field at this time.
The point is that people, in order to function well both with themselves and with others, need a good self-assessment or good self-esteem, which, incidentally, goes hand in hand with internal emotional stability.
Now, what you have to pay special attention to with self-esteem is in what refers to how you value yourself and how closely your own opinion is with what you really are and not with what you are not. So we have a real me and an ideal me, or maybe not an ideal me but yes not real.
The ideal real-self, or what one is and what one is not, we associate with the abilities-abilities, on the one hand, and the disabilities-no / abilities on the other side, that each person has.
This means something we all know and agree on; people are a being made up of capacities and disabilities and very difficult, if not impossible, we are going to find a human being who is only abilities and no incapacity.
It is an obvious finding, but many find it hard to personally implement this true fact when doing a self-analysis to see their strengths and weaknesses as a person. Below we see why this occurs.
So self-esteem does not mean thinking and believing to be what you want to be and are not, regardless of your abilities and disabilities.
Let's look more illustratively at this; If I realize that my skills are simply not in numbers or numerical calculations, for various reasons of training or whatever, but that they are in the social sciences, then that I "withdraw" from getting into calculation issues does not mean that this “withdrawal from the field of calculations” implies considering myself an idiot in numbers and as such having low self-esteem.
In no way should it have that negative effect on you, but simply to value myself for the skills that I have and not for those that I just don't have, it's that simple.
In the workplace, for example, it turns out that for more than a decade, among other attitudinal skills that people are constantly looking for and that is very fashionable, it is that of having “powerful” “effective” leadership capacity, etc.
For the same reason, people who work at different levels of command endeavor to obtain it through training courses, often spending not less sums of monetary resources, even getting into debt, and dedicating time and effort.
But it turns out that being a powerful leader, in essence, means having voluntary followers where the key component is the charisma that the person has and that manages to impregnate the others so that they end up following him more voluntarily than by the authority imposed by the position. that it shows that it has received formally from the organization, obviously not from the subordinates.
And as we all know, not all people have a charismatic personality, in fact there are more who do not have it and fewer who really have it, as we often realize at an early age when we are in school and see who has more leadership capacity in the course.
Even so, there are many people who anxiously desire and make an enormous effort to reach the goal of being a strong leader in what they do, without stopping to think about whether or not they have enough personal attributes for it.
In fact, without stopping to think to what level they can develop that ability, since many can actually lead people adequately, that is, I consider that capacity can be formed, but up to a certain limit; Not everyone can reach the “powerful” leader level, but many can form that ability to adequately lead teamwork.
And where are we convinced that everything can be achieved? regardless of the aptitudes and abilities that one has or not, from its history and its formation.
Without looking for the origin itself (sociological, social economic), we can say that this conviction is in a series of widely publicized postulates about what people "can" and that it has become a true paradigm in our current time, psyched through well-known phrases for public sale such as; "You can achieve everything you set your mind to", "wanting is power", "for you there are no impossibilities", "believe in yourself and you will be successful in everything", "the world is within your reach, you just have to take it"….in sum; "Everything" you can, it just depends on you!… Is that so?
We have no evidence that this is so. In reality, these are various attitudinal recommendation labels that have been expanding for a long time through the mass media, a message that is part of the logic of the economic system that prevails in the world.
This is how they incorporate and mentalize in all of us and the impact it has translates to the fact that, as "you can be whatever you want", ultimately this induces people to distance themselves from trying to stop to think under the same analytical platform abilities that you have (or think you have) but along with the disabilities that you also have, such as being integral that each one is.
It is convenient and important to believe in yourself, to set high goals while being very persistent to reach the success or achievement of what you propose, that is not in dispute.
Nor is it in dispute that there are a series of abilities and skills that if one does not have them, with training effort and personal self-management, one can acquire them. Many times we think that we cannot do something, but when we try hard we do it.
But it is one thing to believe in yourself, have confidence in your abilities and have the attitude of placing challenges in life and fighting hard to achieve them, and quite another is to be convinced that everything can be achieved just by setting the goal without examining whether you really you have the capabilities for it.
That is, to set unrealistic goals or objectives, not achievable with what one truly is and not the ideal that one can have of oneself with respect to abilities-abilities and without being clear regarding the disabilities that one has.
That attitude is a safe path towards people's frustration, it is a guaranteed path to accumulate personal unhappiness, to lose love for oneself or not even love each other, to fall into depressions that are not clear when and how they start, you only know that there is the depression that is negatively affecting everything in one; good mental and body health.
We will take a look outlining what happens to us many times, thinking at a time that we have set a goal that is not in accordance with our specific capacity or ability that is needed to achieve the goal.
Manage your self-esteem, strengthen your attitude and behavior
Manage your self-esteem, strengthen your attitude and behavior
Manage your self-esteem, strengthen your attitude and behavior
After that return that seems half complicated but responds to the reality of many, we now relate the matter from the perspective of the effect on conversational communication capacity by asking basic questions:
Self-esteem and the emotional aspect in communication between people: It is likely to be striking to deal with this topic in the context of conversational communication. The sense is that it is an aspect of the inner being of people that, I consider, has an effect on our conversational behavior, as it affects the way we interpret what we hear and the impact that what we hear has on our emotionality. tells us.
And it is easy to realize this when, for example, one says silly to someone who does not have a self-esteem problem with their intelligence, simply the qualifier slips but not so to another who does have low self-esteem in terms of their knowledge or their cognitive ability and it does affect it.
We can say that the conditioning is produced by the impact that what is said to us produces, and this is revealed through our response or what remains in our internal self and that we would like to respond but many times we fail to express for various reasons; deliberately for the context of the conversation we choose to remain silent, shyness, by the authority of the other and it is better not to respond, because we are not well armed with enough verbal arguments or other reasons that emerge in the situation.
With low self-esteem, how effective can I be in my interpersonal communication relationship? And how effective will my listening capacity be in the sense of placing myself in the perspective of the other?… (which is what one aspires to have or must achieve for effective communication as we have already stated)… since we can reasonably thinking that what I hear, in one way or another, will be affected by the image I have of myself since our inner being is emotionally articulated in a way that we cannot direct as we please, a question that will have an impact on how I interpret what I am told and how I respond, for example in the face of critical judgment.
As we mentioned before, it is one thing to say "dumb" to someone who to some extent feels this way and another to someone who does not. Communicational effectiveness may vary more than what one believes in one or the other case since, let's not forget, reality is not given, but rather one builds it from what it is, and taking in this case self-esteem, we could say that he builds it from what one thinks he is.
Suggestion: when we decide to make a personal effort in the dimension of how I am and how I want to be - therefore what I intend to change or self-manage in my way of being- we must never lose sight of the possible gap that may exist between what I want and what I can effectively achieve with what I am. It means a self-examination in order to obtain the most objective view possible regarding one's own abilities and disabilities as an integral person. We must accept ourselves with our strengths and weaknesses.
Recommendation: "Wanting is power" sounds nice and of course it is very true, but you have to be cautious with the application of this saying when setting goals for achievement that involve self-management of personal competences-skills.
GUIDE TO PERFORM SELF-MEASUREMENT; how i value myself
The purpose of what is exposed in this final part of this text, is a guide to carry out a personal measurement of who one is, as capacities - abilities, with the idea of supporting the development of one's evaluative observation capacity. same.
For this effect we can say that people are made up of various capacities and disabilities or lack of capacity. One way of looking at that set that we are can be from a positive and negative perspective, which in a horizontal line, using mathematical logic, would give us the following:
Capabilities = Positive Aspects of me = + MORE
--------------------------------
Disabilities = Negative Aspects of me = - LESS
But that look has a “small-great detail” and that leads me to define my disabilities as negative questions of myself. And the negative itself is interpreted as something annoying, "I am bad", the defects that one has and that often even cause us complexes and, of course, reduce our self-esteem. We feel guilty about the negative.
Therefore we better discard it and look for another way of looking at this matter. It could be looking at my abilities and disabilities in terms of personal strengths and weaknesses, and using a vertical scheme so that I don't have to deal with the positive-negative mathematical logic of the horizontal line.
Now, to have an ordered view of strengths and weaknesses and not to disperse, we will agree that we will see this by differentiating three personal areas from what we think we are and, according to that, we self-value or self-devalue:
As we know, each person is a unique composition of strengths and weaknesses, where in each of those areas that we have established one has one and the other, and in that one should not try to find a balanced balance, but concentrate on thinking what it truly is. Here honesty with oneself is essential, conscious self-deception is meaningless, for obvious reasons.
For the individual self-measurement exercise, we will classify various aspects that could be classified in each area as strength or weakness. In some cases we can place yes or no, in others we can place a percentage, depending on what we consider best, without losing sight of what we are doing is establishing how we value ourselves in each aspect of each of the three areas indicated in the tables. from below. Therefore, do not ask another what thinks of you, but thinks of yourself; this is relevant.
|
Self-assessment regarding knowledge - learning |
||
| Appearance | Strength (% / yes-no) | Weakness (% / yes-no) |
| Understand general theoretical concepts and definitions | ||
| Assimilate and make verbal-written use of concepts learned | ||
| Understand - have memory in history, literature, art, law | ||
| Understand - have memory in Chemistry, Biology, Medicine, | ||
| Reasoning mathematical calculation, statistics | ||
| Understand about economics, economic facts in general | ||
| Understand about Chilean policy issues | ||
| Understand the political situation in other countries | ||
| Interest in fashion-show business in general | ||
| Interest in news of social life | ||
| Interest in learning new things by reading-studying, via TV | ||
| Ability to learn by reading-studying | ||
| My cultural level in general in matters NOT of my profession | ||
| My level of technical knowledge in matters of my profession | ||
| Another one that I want to indicate: | ||
| Another one that I want to indicate: |
|
Self-evaluation with respect to abilities - skills |
||
| Appearance | Strength (% / yes-no) | Weakness (% / yes-no) |
| Manual to fix things at home | ||
| Manual to sew, fix clothes | ||
| Manual for making furniture and building things | ||
| Artistic manual, to work with clay and the like | ||
| Artistic manual to draw, paint | ||
| To write poetry, stories, stories | ||
| To write reports and texts in general | ||
| To solve puzzle | ||
| For physical sports (football, basketball, tennis, etc.) | ||
| To play chess, | ||
| To tell jokes, be fun in a group | ||
| To sing in a group | ||
| To dance in a group | ||
| To drive vehicle - motorcycle | ||
| To order things at home - to be tidy | ||
| To be ordered on the job | ||
| To cook | ||
| To speak - expose in public (not family) | ||
| To mentally order ideas and express them | ||
| Another one that I want to indicate: | ||
| Another one that I want to indicate: |
| Self-assessment regarding attitude - conduct | ||
| Appearance | Strength (% / yes-no) | Weakness (% / yes-no) |
| Control of the genius against things that bother me | ||
| Good character, relaxed, calm in front of annoying things | ||
| Aggressive reaction with family | ||
| Aggressive reaction at work | ||
| Looking for trouble in everything, being negative | ||
| Bad character, bad temper | ||
| Optimistic, positive | ||
| Sad, depressed, | ||
| Empathetic - family friendly | ||
| Empathetic - sympathetic at work | ||
| Cheerful, easy to laugh, to be happy | ||
| Clarity in my core values and principles | ||
| Sensitive to the problems of others | ||
| Ability to notice others' annoyance with me | ||
| Ability to love | ||
| I have a real interest in knowing myself | ||
| I strive to improve what I don't like the way I am | ||
| I have the capacity to understand myself, my reactions, likes | ||
| Real interest in knowing-understanding the interior of others, what they are | ||
| According to my behavior, image that I generate in others | ||
| Ability to perceive, understand emotional state of others | ||
| Conflict management, difficult situations | ||
| Ability to face adversity, bad moments | ||
| Persistent, persevering | ||
| Reliable in the word, fulfilled in the promises | ||
| Self confidence | ||
| Mistrust in others | ||
| Ability to listen, understand the point of view of others | ||
| Asking pertinent questions, correspondingly, meaningfully | ||
| Asking questions of obvious, pointless things | ||
| Solidarity with others, with deeds and not words | ||
| Ability to recognize my own mistakes | ||
| Ability to learn from my mistakes | ||
| Ability to make my partner happy | ||
| Ability to understand my partner | ||
| Be faithful and loyal to your partner | ||
| Be faithful and loyal to friends | ||
| Be sincere and honest with what I say, with my opinions | ||
| I keep my opinions, I prefer not to say what I think | ||
| I care what others think of me, I am interested in knowing | ||
| Another one that I want to indicate: | ||
| Another one that I want to indicate: |
