Did you know that your low self-esteem can push people away? If you are healing your trauma wounds right now, but you are starting from a place of not valuing yourself and holding a negative mindset, it actually makes the healing process harder and much more painful. And people can sense when you hold negative thoughts and they will try to distance themselves from you, meaning you end up trying to heal with no support circle. Let’s look at the 11 signs of low self-esteem so you can begin to identify what parts of you need to be healed so you can get through your healing journey without adding any extra pain. Oh, and sign seven is an eye-opener that you won’t believe.
Firstly, let’s define what low self-esteem is. It’s not actually a lack of confidence. You can still be a charismatic, bubbly person when interacting with people and have balls of energy and confidence, but still view yourself negatively. If you have an overall negative view of who you are, your judgment, how you view others, and the value that you hold on yourself, you could have low self-esteem. Now, this might explain why you think self-deprecating humor is harmless, why people constantly walk all over you and why all of your relationships leave you feeling empty and not good enough.
1) You say negative things about yourself
You will say mean things about yourself and think you’ve hidden it well from showing on the surface. But actually it does show on the surface more than you think. You may say negative things about yourself in a jokey way to people around you, “Oh, I’m such an idiot, I’m a loser, or, I’m not driving us because my driving sucks.”
What you don’t realiSe is these self thoughts actually fuel your low self-esteem and reinforce it. And because of your negative self beliefs, you can’t accept compliments because you don’t agree with them. For example, you don’t believe your work project was good enough, so you don’t understand why your boss awarded you worker of the month. And you may respond to compliments with a, “Ah, yeah, I dunno, I’m, I’m just looking, I guess?” If someone was to compliment your outfit, instead of you saying thank you, your immediate response is, “Oh, this tiny thing. Well, I’ve had it a couple of years.”
2) Self- doubt
You believe you aren’t good enough to achieve the things that you really want to do, such as applying for a new job, starting a business that you’ve been dreaming about for years. Maybe even asking out that person that you like or going to the gym to look and feel better. If you have a deep seated belief that you aren’t good enough, you would take this belief as fact and then it forms part of your identity and becomes reinforced in all that you do. Therefore, you will never ask for a raise at work, you won’t leave a bad, unhealthy relationship for the fear that you won’t find anyone else that will love you.
Overall, you accept the good life just isn’t for you. So you feel much more comfortable settling for less.
3) Perfectionism
Perfectionism, I think we all experiences this at least once in our life. It’s actually a common trait of low self-esteem. You can spend hours completing homework or work projects because you want to be thorough in all that you do because you hold high expectations to be perfect so that people don’t turn around and say, “Oh, you actually answered this question wrong, and I know why. It’s because you’re an idiot!”
So you feel driven to make up in your work projects, to cover up your perceived lack, unable to hold boundaries when you do not believe that your needs matter. When you feel invisible, people walk over you, they will disrespect you. Deep down, you believe you aren’t good enough and you deserve to be mistreated.
Boundaries are an invisible force field that we hold around us, that protect us, and it tells people, this is how I expect to be treated. This is my limit before there’s a consequence such as walking away. Now, there are six boundaries that we all need, emotional possessions and space time, physical and sexual, verbal and workplace. and I have a video here that goes into great detail. https://youtu.be/iwp8ValfK5Q?si=sy240CIklZA5IlIU
Overall, when we are unable to hold boundaries for ourself, we actually find it hard to stand up and protect our value. Instead, we become easy targets to toxic people that are emotionally immature and people bully us. They abuse us and they criticize us because we never say, ‘No, I don’t like that. Stop it or else!’ And a lack of having boundaries will always reinforce our belief that we are not good enough or that we are unlovable or worthless.
4) Underachieving
Now, if you fear that you can’t achieve great things in life and that you are less capable than others, please listen to this.
Maybe you stay in a stagnant environment, never leaving an unhealthy relationship because you don’t think anyone else would want you. you are never leaving a toxic job because you don’t believe you are qualified to do anything else. And you think you would fail at that next interview. So you think, well, why do I even bother?
Let’s be honest with each other, just for a second internet, stranger to internet stranger.
If you can look at your past five years of your life and you can honestly say, you know what? I could have achieved a lot more if I believed in my abilities. This is your sign now.
I wanna take this moment to say a huge thank you for being here because healing, it’s not easy, it’s painful, it’s excruciatingly painful, and it feels incredibly lonely. But I’m so proud of your efforts to become a better version of yourself.
5) Unable to take the blame
Deep down, you may feel that you are the reason something didn’t work outright, but you cannot accept that thought because it’s too painful. Now I get it. Accepting blame is not an easy thing to do. It’s uncomfortable for everyone. It creates these shameful feelings, this icky feeling that we don’t wanna have. And for us that have low self-esteem, it can almost feel like dying. Now, your core negative belief could be, I’m always the problem. I’m never good enough. And then having to admit that you did something wrong becomes so painful that it’s easier to blame others around you and creates cognitive dissonance to stop ourselves from feeling emotions. Emotions, they are scary, especially the uncomfortable ones. But the success of your healing starts the moment you just sit for a minute and take note of what you are feeling and why.
6) Overly aggressive with others
Now, this one might come as a surprise. We may think that those that appear strong or can give a angry mouthful to someone have high self-esteem. But it’s actually quite the opposite. Low self-esteem creates distress whenever a person senses criticism or someone not liking them or something that they like. So we could find it easier to control others around us and tell them what to do, because that’s going to mask your inferior feelings. No one suspects that we have low self-esteem if we’re always angry and controlling, right?
So if on a regular basis you shut down, or you avoid emotional connection and intimacy with people, deep down this is coming from a place of low self-esteem and
withdrawal from intimacy. Now, this applies to both your friendships and your romantic relationships. You could be extremely shy, not speaking up about your needs and wants and engaging in people pleasing behavior because you think other people’s happiness gives you worth because your own happiness isn’t worth it. You could be self-conscious and find it incredibly hard to be intimate with others in a sexual way because you don’t think you’re good enough. When we don’t feel worthy enough for emotional intimacy, we actually withdraw subconsciously from supporting friends in their time of need and also in our romantic relationships, because deep down, we feel incapable, stupid, ugly or unworthy.
7) Avoiding fun activities
Think back to your childhood. Do you remember having a hobby as a child? Did you try something and then give it up easily? Or did you never actually do things that you wanted to do for the fear that you wouldn’t be good enough? Maybe today you don’t have a consistent hobby. Anything that is considered fun either on your own or with others is immediately shut down when you have low self-esteem. Why I hear you ask? Because you don’t believe that you deserve to be happy or you deserve to have a good time. And you may find naturally to say out loud, yeah, I can’t do that. I don’t really have the money,
or I’m, I’m just too tired. Maybe inside you’re telling yourself, well, people are gonna laugh at my attempts at painting, so I won’t ever go to that class and I hate feeling judged. So I couldn’t handle someone pulling apart my piano skills. It would simply hurt too much to be told that I need to improve.
8) Lack of self-care
Self-care is not bubble baths or buying expensive pyjamas. So if you find yourself engaging in self-sabotaging behaviors such as overspending, drinking too much, parting as many times as you can in a week, buying that takeaway because you deserve it, these all stem from low self-esteem. The ability to care for ourselves isn’t appealing when we don’t actually value the person that we are. So if you can’t eat three healthy meals a day for more than two days a week, well my friend, it’s gonna be a good idea to just sit down with yourself and think, why am I not fueling my body with nutrition? What do I really think about myself?
9) Self conscious of public appearance
You may feel more comfortable to stand at the back of the room. Maybe you keep your hood up and your earphones in. When you are walking, you look down at the floor and avoid eye contact with people whenever you can. You don’t wanna dress in a way that gives you confidence. So you may choose to wear dark, baggy clothing that is old tatty and unclean because you might think, well, what’s the point of looking nice? I just wanna blend into the background.
Maybe you don’t put the effort in to wash your hair regularly. Maybe you don’t clean your teeth and you don’t even go to the hairdressers.
Or you can be the complete opposite. Dressing super smart in public,
not ever leaving the house without having your hair looking nice, wearing makeup and spritz of perfume just to simply go to the shop for a loaf of bread, basically trying to overcompensate your negative view of yourself. Because if you look put together, no one suspects that I’m not good enough.
So with all of that, what should you do now? Well sit with just one point at a time and really think about your negative critic. What is it telling you?
And start to identify moments in your life where you didn’t do the things that you wanted to do, and you didn’t apply yourself because you felt that you weren’t good enough that you were to blame or you doubted yourself. Also take note of the times that you withdrew from close relationships with others.
When we have the knowledge of identifying our low self-esteem, we have to start recognizing it daily in everything that we do. Because low self-esteem takes control more than you think.
So be curious to explore that place that’s just outside of your comfort zone. And when you start to recognize when your default avoidant behavior kicks in, find reasons to support your positive qualities.
Let’s say you don’t feel comfortable supporting a friend when they’re having a bad day. Usually you want to avoid that intimacy because you feel you weren’t good enough to comfort someone. So instead, challenge your negative thought and ask yourself, well, what facts do I actually have to support that I’m not good enough? Remember, your thoughts about yourself are not facts. They are opinions. So pretend you’re in the court of law. Do you actually have evidence to support the fact that you aren’t good enough? Hmm, probably not. Challenging your inner critic is the key to raising your self-esteem. So you can think, how would I show up for my friend if I believed I was good enough? We are challenging it and be curious to explore what doing the opposite is. So give that a try and then come back and tell me how you are working on your low self-esteem. I would love to read and support your journey.