Self-esteem sounds like a good thing, doesn't it?
Mine is low.
The reason is that self-esteem is generally built from successes, and if the bar is "too high" there aren't enough "wins" to get the sense of progression that leads to self-esteem. I expect a lot from myself, and fail and fail and fail. However, I think that a lot of western society has gone the opposite way, where we have put self-esteem as the goal, without recognising that it is the outcome of healthy skill development, and instead have kept lowering the bar to feel the sense of skill, without actually having it.
Most of the entertainment is this kind of esteem builder.
But a lot of the tools we have also encourage this kind of baseless esteem, where we are able to fake skill, looks and personality without actually possessing them at all. AI to create text, images and video. Filters to remove fat, spots and lines. Search engines to provide our sense of intelligence, humour and persona.
But are people actually confident?
I don't think so - unless they are also delusional.
When younger, my sister was a confident driver - no matter how many accidents she had. While I worried about her, I also wondered how a person can fail so often, but still have a high self-esteem when it came to driving ability. And I think it comes down to where she set her bar of comparison - which were her friends, who were almost all equally as poor drivers it seems. There was an expectation that crashes were normal, not that they were a sign of low driver ability.
No shame.
And I think that the "everyone gets a prize" approach to education has also been coupled with the degradation of role models, where rather than looking up to what people do well, it is about celebrating the biggest victims. We don't compare ourselves to the best of us, we compare to the worst of us, lowering the bar for us to feel good about ourselves, but not inspired enough to improve ourselves.
Self-acceptance is important, but self-resignation where we resign ourselves to whatever default position we are currently in is where we end up feeling the worst. In fact, while we feel best when we get to do what we want, we don't feel worst when do what we must. The worst we feel is when we live on the default decision, and that default position for most of us, is to be passive, to consume useless, and do very little that brings us growth potential.
And maybe when we are "too content" with our current situation, we are more likely to rest on our laurels and not look to grow further. Eventually though, our current situation is no longer a s good as it was, but if we haven't been growing consistently in the meantime, we are well off the pace of where we might want to be. And we might be so far off the pace, that it now seems out of reach and impossible.
Not enough wins.
Winning isn't about beating others. It is about meeting our intentions. If we set our goals too low the winning is worthless and bores us. Too high, and we are out of our depth, bound to fail. But if we set it just above in that "flow zone", we might fail sometimes, but we win sometimes too. And the stretch to get those wins pushes us to improve, so in order to get back into the flow state, we have to up the challenge again - and again.
I have low self-esteem, because my skill levels are too low for what I both expect and need from them. My assumption is that there are others out there, but there are also plenty of people who are confidently travelling through life, no matter how bad their results are. Being confident isn't the same as being happy, and having high self-esteem doesn't mean there is anything to back it up - but there are plenty who believe they have what it takes, no matter how little skill they possess.
How about you?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
I'd say I have low self esteem, but it isn't detrimental to me. I accept who I am and for the most part I am a pretty humble guy, so I don't really see the need to fluff my own feathers. I do know when I am right about something though and I am not afraid to speak up when the time is right.
Do you think that high self-esteem requires bragging? I am not sure. I think those who are truly confident in themselves, are pretty modest. Maybe they understand the dunning-kruger effect better or something.
Yeah, that is a good point. I guess I wasn't really thinking when I wrote the comment originally!
If you never fail, you never learn.
Never surround yourself with 'yes men'.
There is always someone who knows more than you.
All three of those sayings sound trite but are very accurate.
I think it takes a confident person to realize they should always be striving to learn from those who are the best in their field.
The "I'm not good enough' gene is there to keep us on our toes. To always question. To always learn.
Not sure any of what I wrote makes sense to your post, but it is what ran through my head when I read it so I thought I would share my thoughts :D
Thanks for such an interesting post!
It does make sense.
I was listening to "Finding Flow" while in the garden today and it was talking about how the people who enjoy themselves the most, are those who are learning, pushing, adding to their world. The least happy, are those who passively consume.
I agree with that!! On days when pain wins over, and my brain is slow, life gets frustrating, but I found that even if I learn a new game or try new art supplies, it helps me have a happier mood and, hence, a happier life.
You do not have to cure cancer, but moving forward in anything helps my mood and is much better than standing still and feeling like the world is passing you by.
NO.
Also expensive ;-;
The only time this is useful is when you're feeling sorry for yourself/wallowing in self pity, it's a nice context boot when it's not actually that bad in the grand scheme and you're hanging on to feeling terrible (feeling feelings is fine).
spoiler I have to do this a lot
I put "low" on the poll though what I actually have is a wildly fluctuating self-esteem where some days I AM A FREAKING LEGEND I CAN DO ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING (or at least the handful of things I'm good at) and the rest of the time I SUCK AND SHOULD JUST CURL UP AND DIE QUIETLY AND UNOBTRUSIVELY SOMEWHERE and...not really a lot in between ^_^;
Very!
I think everyone varies between the two at times - except for sickos who think they are the best all the time. However, I feel that I am lacking in so many areas at the moment, that I am not adding enough value to have anything higher than low :)
I think at times like that you have to figure well you're still married and get on with your family and have friends who like spending time with you (even if finding common times to do that can be an epic battle in and of itself) so there's that.
At school and university I had low grades. But in conversations with excellent students, I was convinced that I knew much more outside the school curriculum. I had a broad outlook and a good memory. In 2007-2008, in the Russian traders' competition I was in the top 5 - top 15 among several thousand participants. Here, too, I did not have to doubt my skills.
And finally cryptocurrencies. I am currently on the best blockchain in the world and talking to one of its best users :)
But that doesn't mean you have high self-esteem. Generally, those who are high achievers tend to have low self-esteem, because they push themselves so hard.
Excessive work is not always the best result. In my case - many stock exchange transactions are a high probability of going into the minus and wasted nerves.
I didn't say excessive work, I said high-achiever! They can be quite different things :)
Like in everything? I mean we all have skills that are better than most people. Sure there will always be someone better than you at something, but you must not belittle yourself because of that.
I voted high self esteem, but tomorrow I could've voted otherwise. It's a wave I ride, sometimes I feel good, sometimes bad. But most of the time, I look back at what I did and even though I feel I could've done this and that better, I'm mostly proud of what I've achieved.
Anyway haha.
In the things I need to be higher to meet needs for family and myself. I know my limitations pretty well at the moment in many familiar areas and know what I need to get done. Skills don't match needs.
My question is, should esteem be based on feelings at all though?
But let's say in a given condition, you are doing your best. You can't really compare to what you were doing before either, right? Although, I totally understand why one could feel like crap when comparing to themselves or others, there are other factors that also needs consideration.
Like I used to be a software developer, and as I grew in my career I did less and less coding with time. Am I a less proficient developer today? 100%.
There was a lapse of time where my esteem was lower because of that, until I realized I was better at unblocking people, raising the skill level around me and making the team more efficient by doing that.
But, at any single point in time, we are doing the only thing we can, so that has to be our best at that moment :)
Just imagine if you had to go back and start from the bottom again. Could you?
And as you said after, as your role developed, so did your skills. The coding challenges turned into people leader challenges.
The question is not if I could or not. Like... I feel this is more about resiliency than anything. I think I would definitely find it very hard.
But that's for everything I think. Redoing stuff in general is not something I like in general. I used to work in a summer job and I was doing the same movement and I was so depressed after each shift.
Imagine there was people working there for like 40 years. Doing this. over. and. over. ugh!
I feel like if I can't hit the bar, I'd shrink down and let the ground swallow me.
I kept on second guessing myself.
But there are times when I feel confident, but most of the time it's not. And I guess it's fine. keeping myself humble.
what is the difference in conditions when you are confident and when not? It might be interesting to work it out.
I really don't know. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. Naturally, when I'm doing things I'm good at, my confidence is high—but at the same time, there's this lingering feeling that I could do better, and boom—my confidence drops. It makes my self-esteem fluctuate, but it's still manageable.
Hmm it's an interesting question.. I actually didn't vote because I couldn't decide which one was more accurate.. I think I am somewhere in the middle (neither high or nor low) because it really depends on the situation.
I have a correct self-esteem, but high self-confidence. At least that's what I'd say, but I don't know if I use the words correctly. Thanks to many failures (aka lessons), I can estimate very well what I can and can't do, and based on that have a high confidence in being able to reach goals. In German I would use "self-worth" for the self esteem as direct translation. I could be wrong on that!
About the other part - I really recommend reading "The Burn-Out Society" by Byung-Chol Han. He talks about a lot of things that cause low self esteem in our society, besides other psychological problems resulting from a generation that is focused on self-optimization and hence always has the feeling of not being good enough. In a world where allegedly everything is possible, not achieving something is a failure. In a nutshell.
I love your honest reflection on self-esteem. You're spot on about the difference between genuine confidence built on skill development versus artificially inflated self-esteem.
Your idea of setting achievable goals in the 'flow zone' is really inspiring – it's all about challenging ourselves to grow and improve.