Signs You May Be Suffering From Low Self-Esteem
Everyone suffers from a lack of confidence from time to time, even the strongest people you admire. Low self-esteem can affect relationships both publicly and privately. It can affect many aspects of your life including your health and wellbeing and can often make you feel inadequate and worthless.
Signs of Low Self-Esteem
You let people walk all over you.
Letting people walk all over you is a sign of low self-esteem. You prioritise the needs of others and neglect your own. You rarely stand up for yourself, if ever. If you relate to this, then perhaps it is time to re-evaluate. Constantly allowing this will send out the wrong message. People will become prone to ‘using you’ if you let them. Doing a favour for someone once in a while is a good thing. However, if it is becoming a constant and you really are unhappy about it, then it might be time to take a step back for your own sake and question why you let this happen. Is there a repeating pattern here?
You are dependent on approval from others.
If you are constantly looking for approval from other people to feel good about yourself than you may suffer from low self-esteem. Receiving praise from others is lovely. However, growing dependent on it is never a good thing. It is unhealthy and damaging. When you do this, you stop your real self from shining through. You may change your opinion to avoid disagreement or even change your behaviour and do something you do not agree with just to impress others. Being dependant on others for happiness will almost always have the opposite effect. It is time to take control of your own emotions and not let others control them.
Indecisiveness.
Often those who have difficulty making decisions struggle with low self-esteem. This is often because they find it very difficult to trust themselves. Instead, they possess a huge amount of self-doubt and this only grows when faced with a decision. If this sounds like you be careful, as this can prevent you from achieving your goals. At times you may even give up because you find it quite hard to trust yourself. You overthink even the smallest of decisions and are always second guessing yourself. Worse still you will keep giving yourself a hard time regardless of what choice you make which may debilitate you even further.
You worry about what other people think.
Worrying about what others think all the time is another sign of a lack of self-esteem. It can be exhausting to wonder if someone is talking about you or secretly dislikes you. This is a very negative habit to have and is certainly not worth your time. Every now and again we need to acknowledge what others think but placing an extra ordinate amount of value on it, is very unhealthy. Those who worry about what people think tend to take criticism personally, even when it is intended as constructive feedback.
We have all fallen victim to these patterns of thinking at one time or another. However, if it is a regular occurrence, noticing the pattern and talking to a trusted adult or friend about it will help you move on and develop a stronger sense of self.