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Having a healthy and balanced sense of self-esteem is a major key to living a healthy and happy life.
There are two sides to every coin, however. Sometimes self-esteem can become something else – namely, an unbalanced ego.
So how do you know if you are simply being confident, or if you are deceiving yourself?
Healthy Self-Esteem
A healthy self-esteem is one where you have the confidence to be honest with yourself, and love yourself no matter what.
A healthy self-esteem encourages you to live your life to the fullest, make bold but good choices, and to keep going even when and if mistakes are made.
Low Self-Esteem
An unhealthy or low self-esteem goes two ways.
On the one hand, an unhealthy self-esteem leaves you with zero confidence as well as an often unrelenting fear of making mistakes, and often leads to a poor quality of life.
This is typically called low self-esteem.
Over-Inflated Self-Esteem
On the other hand, an over-inflated self-esteem is also unhealthy.
This is a form of self-deception that tricks you into thinking that you are better than everyone else and that you can do anything, even to the point of ostracizing your friends and family.
The Dangers of Unbalanced Self-Esteem
Any way you look at it, an unbalanced sense of self-esteem can lower your quality of life. People with low self-esteem often miss out on some of the best things that life has to offer.
Either they are too afraid to make a mistake, or they feel that they are not worthy of happiness.
It is a type of existence that only holds you back and can lead to depression.
Relationships
An over-inflated sense of self-esteem puts you in danger of losing friends and close relationships.
Outwardly, people with an over-inflated sense of self-esteem come off as cocky, arrogant or mean.
They tend to have trouble gaining and keeping close, loving relationships because they come off as being less than genuine.
Lying to Yourself
Typically, an inflated self-esteem is generally a sign of the exact opposite. Most people like this are hiding their true selves and are actually riddled with low self-confidence.
The false mask of bravado is not true self-esteem, and this confidence is really just a form of self-deception.
Understanding the Meaning of Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is defined as confidence in your own self-worth, a sense of self-respect.
You are not respecting yourself if you do not believe you are worthy of respect and happiness, nor are you respecting yourself by hiding behind an inflated ego.
Eventually the mask will fall.
Be Honest with Yourself
To truly find your own self-worth and build a true and balanced healthy self-esteem, you have to first be honest with yourself.
Stop hiding behind fear or a false sense of confidence. Often, being honest with yourself is harder than being honest with someone else.
Self-esteem is truly a balancing act that everyone has to work on. To build a healthy and balanced self-esteem you must first and foremost be honest with yourself.
Only then can you start to work on your view of the world as a whole and make real changes that could change your life for the better.
How do you find that sweet balance between feeling like you can do anything and knowing when to hold back or temper your self esteem with reality?
I’d love to give you this Journal with prompts to help you in dealing with your self esteem issues and/or to make progress in strengthening your self esteem.
I’d like to share this post with you on Self Care and hope you find it useful as you navigate this life we live where daily if not constantly our self esteem either comes in handy and useful or it’s battered by someone who’s self esteem may be just a tad too over inflated.
Self Esteem is only a small part of who we all are. Don’t let it define you or stop you from going forth and conquering the world!
