photo credit: HAMED MASOUMI

“One can be deceived by three types of laziness:
of indolence, which is the wish to procrastinate;
the laziness that is attachment to negative actions, or putting great effort into non-virtue;
and the laziness of inferiority, which is doubting your capabilities.” – His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

Do you walk down the street with your shoulders hunched forward and your eyes to the ground? Do you avoid looking people in the eyes? Is your opinion of yourself mostly negative? If you answered “yes” to any of these then chances are you are suffering from low self-esteem.

In this post I am going to show you how to improve your levels of self-esteem and stand tall today. It is my sincere hope that this post acts as a cause for some people out there to change the way they feel about themselves.

What is low self-esteem?

Low self-esteem is something that can be permanent or fleeting. It is where you hold a negative view of yourself. It is where you think you are “unworthy” or “stupid” and that you don’t deserve the same success and happiness that other people enjoy.

It can come about due to an event in one’s life or it can be something that happens as a result of your upbringing. For some people there is no apparent cause. Whatever the reason, low self-esteem can be extremely debilitating.

How do people with low self-esteem behave?

People with low levels of self-esteem are often timid, shy, anxious and cautious. They are often reluctant to talk to people or try new things because they do not have high levels of inner security to back them up.

Low self-esteem and murderers
The old theory was that people with low self-esteem were more likely to commit a homicide or violent act. Scientific research is now showing this to be incorrect. It is actually more likely that someone with super high levels of self-esteem will commit a murder.

Evidence has shown that murders often happen because a person thinks he/she is better than someone else and when that self-image is challenged the person often acts out violently. Many serial killers have been recorded saying that they thought that they were superior to their victims and as such had little regard for their life.

How to overcome low self esteem

photo credit: Dave Schumaker

My main motivation for doing this post is to help you improve your levels of self esteem and develop some real inner confidence. Have a read through these suggestions and see if any of them work for you.

See through the mirage of the label “self-esteem”

The first thing that I want to talk about is that fact that the phrase “self-esteem” is not at all helpful. In fact, many psychologists now think that the whole “self-esteem” issue is an overstated bunch of baloney!

When you read or hear about low self-esteem you develop certain concepts in your head. These concepts are not always related to reality, quite often they are jaded by your own opinions and experiences. What this means is that, unless you do a lot of study, you get the wrong idea about what self-esteem really is. And this can be dangerous.

For example, take a young girl in high school who is a little bit overweight. She sees all the other pretty girls and wishes that she was more like them. And then, perhaps, she might overhear someone say that she has low self-esteem because of her weight. As soon as she hears that she develops an idea in her head about what it means to have low-self esteem and that idea becomes solid in her mind.

Now, from that day forward that girl is going to associate the feelings that come with being overweight with having low self-esteem. She is going to assume that her low self-esteem is caused by her being overweight and that she will not be happy until she gets thin. And, in time, she might develop an unhealthy attitude towards food as well. All of this because she has an incorrect idea about the label “self-esteem”.

Low self-esteem is not permanent. It is not anything! Self-esteem was an idea cooked up many centuries ago by someone who popularized it but never really thought it through. In my opinion the label is dangerous because it sounds permanent. If you think you have low self-esteem I want you to remember that it is just a label – there is nothing substantial or existent about it at all. There is no logic behind lumping a whole group of thoughts, conditions and behaviors under one small term.

So, don’t get too caught up in thinking you have low self-esteem. The very act of saying “I have low self-esteem” is very counterproductive.

Understand that low-self esteem is workable

Leading on from the first point it is important to realize that having low self-esteem is a workable situation. As I mentioned, it is just a label and it is not something that is truly existing and as such one is able to work with it.

I want you to think about all the range of emotional states that you experience. Some days you are happy, other days you are sad. You feel burning desire and raging hatred. You feel nostalgic, hurt, defeated, jealous, depressed… the list goes on forever. But as you are well aware, all of these emotions can be worked with. Depression is not permanent and there are many ways to deal with it. That is why we have anti-depressants, psychologists and counselors!

Low-self esteem is the same as any other emotion. Sure it appears and causes havoc in your mind for a while but it has no real power and you can work on it. There are many things you can do to take control of your mind and improve your view of yourself. This is a very important point to understand.

Use the power of mantra

In Buddhism we use mantras to awaken our inner qualities. You can do the same thing if you have low self-esteem. Repetition is a major key to success when training your mind.

The mantra does not have to be made up of sacred Sanskrit syllables or anything like that. It just has to be helpful. For example, if you have trouble believing that you deserve to be happy you can repeat the mantra, “I deserve to be happy” every time you start to feel down.

Reading all this might seem a little airy fairy. You might not think it’ll work. But as I mentioned in number two, the mind and it’s emotions are workable. If you consistently train it then it will soon behave. Try creating a mantra that works for you and repeating it as often as you can.

Realize that other people’s opinions of you mean nothing

One of the main causes of low self-esteem is worrying too much about what other people think about you. You might be worrying that other people think you are too fat or too short or that your teeth aren’t straight enough. But, to be honest, who cares what other people think?

A few years ago I was in Tso Pema in India and a friend and I went to have an audience with one of the old yogis there. Now this yogi was a bit of a loose cannon as he had spent decades meditating alone in cave and had long since forgotten the customs of the world. We were excited!

Anyway, my friend asked him a question about having low self-esteem and he laughed for about two minutes and then said in a fierce tone, “What other people think about you is none of your business.” It cut right to her core. Right to the essence. And her self-esteem has steadily improved since that day.

What other people think of you really is none of your business. And who cares anyway? Everyone has their own foibles and flaws. Don’t worry too much about what other people think about yours.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? I would love to hear how any Daily Mind readers out there have overcome low self-esteem.

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