How To Increase Low Self Esteem

More and more the world of Psychology and Psychotherapy is focusing upon Low Self Esteem….and rightly so.

The inability to change is being linked less and less with lack of skills or deficiencies of understanding and much more with very low levels of self esteem, and about time too. Of course, lousy childhoods, stressful jobs, difficult relationships are important to examine but it is the effect all these things have upon our self esteem, our underlying opinion of ourselves, which is the really important factor.

Does simply talking about them to a counselor really help or is it in danger of merely reinforcing and stirring up feelings of low self esteem? I’ve certainly come across enough people who gave up Counseling or Life Coaching or Therapy simply because it made them feel bad…it was the only time in the week they found themselves talking about all the bad things in their life instead of actually doing something about them.

So, is it possible to increase Self Esteem without touching on all that complicated stuff?

Self Esteem is affected by 2 things:

1)      Our Core Personality (how our personality is put together)

2)      How we treat ourselves

Most articles are usually concerned with the latter point, how we treat ourselves. This is important but equally so is our underlying personality make up. Our personality can either hinder or help our attempts to raise self esteem. It is particularly hindered by two distinct personality traits….Self Defeating Personality Trait and also Dependant Personality Trait. If you happen to have high scores in either or both of these areas you will find it harder to increase your Self Esteem… not impossible, but harder.

If you are somebody who happens to have higher than average levels of these two personality traits you may experience an underlying feeling that no matter what you do you just can’t feel good about yourself. It may feel like even if you won the lottery, you would end up feeling guilty; that you didn’t really deserve it. This feeling tends to run so deep that you seek out, both consciously and sub-consciously evidence that supports your belief; that you really are not as good as others. Although it is a belief that is unlikely to disappear over night it can be effectively balanced by seeking alternative evidence.

At the beginning of our Life Coaching Holiday and Counseling Retreat we test for both low self esteem and these 2 personality traits (amongst other important areas).With people that have high scores in both of these personality traits we take extra care and pay special attention to developing effective combatitive strategies as well as establishing unequivocal contrary evidence.

Although this sounds complicated, in reality it’s not. The effectiveness of our approach depends upon measuring peoples personality traits and levels of self esteem both accurately and quickly. Only then can we all have a clear idea of what we are working with and find real, and often new, ways forward.

If you feel that your self esteem is informed by your personality rather than your lifestyle contact me for some really useful practical strategies.

Hope this has been helpful

Talk next week.

Alex.