Self-esteem is one of the significant characteristics of any individual as it defines the overall self-confidence and personality of an individual. A person with high self-esteem will have a balanced personality and be confident of themselves, especially in the face of adversity. On the other hand, anyone having low self-esteem will not have the ability and courage to tackle any attack thrown at them. They will not be able to get out strong from any adversity that life throws at them. In some cases, they even face physical signs of low self-esteem.
In order to know how to overcome low self-esteem, you first need to be aware of the signs of low esteem. It will be a ‘do I have low self-esteem quiz for you.’
If you are someone who is facing low self-esteem or want to know how to help a woman with low self-esteem or a man who is underconfident, you need to look out for the following low self-esteem symptoms:
1. Low Self Esteem Makes You Self Sabotage
Low self-esteem makes you sabotage yourself. That means you might be skilled and talented at one thing, but you do not let yourself reach the heights of success with low self-confidence in yourself. This is because you keep undermining your ability to reach your goals. You think the dreams you have are too big and too impossible to achieve, so you keep closing your doors.
This consistent lack of confidence makes you stay negative about your capabilities which results in you being unsure about your future goals. As a result, you feel negative all round the clock and sabotage yourself and every good part of you, as you keep thinking other people are better than you. This is a sign of low self-respect as well.
2. It Makes You Not Work Hard for Your Goals
One of the signs of low self-esteem is that you stop working hard for your goals. You get a little lazy when it comes to achieving your daily or monthly targets. Even if you do not sabotage yourself, you do not really do what is needed to reach your goals in full spirit.
That means you do not show your best potential, which results in you not being genuinely invested in your goals. So, you end up not really paying attention to your work. This is probably because you have an internal fear of not achieving success in the long run.
3. You Feel Uncomfortable Around People
This is one of the top signs of low self-esteem in a child. Having low self-esteem can make you feel super uncomfortable around people. You feel that people around you don’t take you seriously and undermine your personality or your potential. This is a vicious cycle of negative thoughts discouraging you from everyday social life with no positive result at the end of the tunnel.
You end up isolating yourself from most people and develop conditions such as social anxiety. This condition can cause you to feel signs such as trembling, low blood sugar levels, and irritability when you are not in your comfort zone. What happens at the end is that you stop performing at your best this way.
4. You Feel Exhausted Easily
You tend to feel exhausted easily when you are around a group of different people or are doing a certain activity. This happens due to the increase of negative energy in yourself, which leads you to fight with yourself to get a task done. You end up consuming a lot of mental energy to get in a state to function to what people call normal. This results in you feeling exhausted easily.
For example, you might have to fake in front of a group of people and show a cheery personality that is everything but you. This consistent desperation for external validation makes you exert a lot which makes you exhausted mentally and physically.
5. Anxiety is With You Forever
Anxiety can be a troublesome thing, and it can cause you to forget a lot of things, work less than your true capacity, and isolate yourself from people around you. When you are fighting the constant inner voices in your head that keep saying that you are not worth it, anxiety also participates and makes you stress over tiny things. This may involve you not getting the results you want, so you end up being anxious about everything and all the time. When there is a racing thought process going on, and you don’t feel a bit comfortable with yourself, know that low self-esteem has taken the form of disturbing anxiety.
6. You Think of Negative Things
When you are low on self-esteem, there is hardly anything positive that you would like to think of or see in things. This is why having low self-confidence points to problems like depression. So, working on depression has a lot to do with working on your self-esteem first. If you don’t have it right, you are prone to think only about negative things that happen around you. Instead of looking forward, you tend to only see backward and point out all the mistakes of the past that don’t mean anything or anything significant in the present. In simple words, low self-esteem can really make you your worst enemy.
7. You Miss Out on the Opportunities
You also tend to miss out on all the fantastic opportunities you may have as an individual if you do not have a satisfying self-esteem level. You tend to not avail all the opportunities that lie in front of you. For example, if you see a job posting on LinkedIn, you might give yourself messages like, “I am not capable enough for this job,” “I don’t have it in me what it takes to deserve this role in the sector.”
This thinking can lead you to not take the chance and shoot your shot for the spot. What happens is that often a rather under-qualified person will take your job, and you end up getting nothing because you think you are nothing. It is one of the common signs of low self-esteem.
8. Low Self Esteem Makes You Not Have Fun
Having low self-esteem makes you miss out on all the fun your friends and family are having. Constant negative thinking circles around the notion that you don’t deserve all the good things in life conquers, leading you to not take your time and enjoy anything in life.
What causes low self-esteem? This happens mostly because you don’t take your chances, and you keep telling yourself that it is the level of achievements that makes one acceptable and lovable. If you do not have certain things or characteristics, no one is going to enjoy your company which can leave you feeling isolated in the end.
9. You Feel Stressed All the Time
You tend to feel the rush hour all the time in the day. When you don’t have high self-esteem, you think you have to do things extraordinarily to get acknowledged and loved. You have this constant pressure to impress others, and therefore, you often end up overworking and overcompensating for other people to please them. You feel that you must spend all your hours doing something productively, or you won’t be accepted.
This makes you stay in a stressed condition all the time, and you do not feel relaxed at any moment of the day. Moreover, this constant tension hardly leads to anything exceptional in the end, contributing to feelings of low self-worth.
10. Low Self Esteem Makes You Overthink
Another problem that arises with low self-esteem is that you end up consuming a lot of your mind dwelling over seemingly little things. You stay in the trap of overthinking and pay attention to every detail that surrounds you. That includes you being over critical and dubious over the acts you do and the decisions you make. What happens is that you constantly judge yourself for everything, and you are rarely satisfied.
This constant overthinking can make you feel frustrated, worried, and consumed all the time. For example, you might keep thinking about how you embarrassed yourself as you dropped the ice cream you ate in public a few days ago and how everyone must have made fun of you. In reality, no one pays attention, but you cannot let go of your thoughts.
11. You Discredit Compliments towards You
You discredit all the compliments that people make towards you. That means, instead of warmly accepting and acknowledging all the positive energy coming towards you, you end up becoming a bad critic for yourself and not letting yourself embrace any warmth of compassion that comes towards you.
When you have low confidence, you think others are not honest when they are complimenting and applauding you for anything you have, or you simply are. You take those complements as pity or hidden mockery. It is one of the low self-esteem in a relationship symptoms.
Final Thoughts
These are some of the most significant signs that come with having low self-esteem. Knowing these will help you on how to overcome low self-esteem. If you have these self-esteem issues, it is time that you start paying attention to low self-esteem and work on breaking the negative cycle of such a mindset.
But how to build self-esteem and confidence?
Develop positive habits that lead to a growth mindset and consciously reprogram your brain into taking in only positive energy for yourself. You can also consult a professional in the mental healthcare sector who will understand the cause and help you manage it accordingly.
