How we see ourselves
The way we view ourselves can play a big part in the things we do and our interactions with others. Self-image, self-esteem, and self-confidence are all important pieces to helping us see how great we truly can be. When these pieces are misaligned we might feel bad about ourselves or think we are not good enough. Let’s start by exploring each piece.
Self-image: This is how we see ourselves and how we think other people see us. The focus here is more of an external process where we look at how we want to be seen by others.
Self-esteem: This is how we think, believe, and feel about ourselves. This is how we truly see ourselves from the inside as well as our own perception and experiences of self. Our self-esteem is developed from experiences and how we interpret them.
Self-confidence: This is based on trusting in our abilities to perform, our qualities, and our judgements. When we have determination and drive, we seek towards accomplishing our goals using our confidence to believe that we can do whatever we are trying to achieve.
We tend to bundle all of these areas of self together and think of them as one (not to forget self-respect, self-worth, and self-regard), but it’s important to remember that we can be stronger in some of the areas and not as strong in others. I can love myself for who I am but I am not confident in my ability to stand up to someone who is trying to make me feel less than.
Are you familiar with your inner voice? That internal monologue we have within ourselves that we hear and process our thoughts and feelings. Many ideas of self are created within our inner voice. We can’t control what happens externally, such as when someone tries to tear you down, but we can work to improve our thoughts and feelings about self. We must recognize how we are viewing our self. We can be our biggest critic, but also our biggest supporter. Below are some tips to help improve some of these areas of self.
Tips for improvement:
- Be comfortable with the idea that others do not define who you are. Only you get to do that.
- Know your strengths and weaknesses. Strengths to see things you are good at and weaknesses to understand challenges to work on
- Make a list of activities that make you feel good. Encourage yourself to prioritize these and spend more time on them
- When working on ourselves, it takes time. Allow yourself to go through this process and do not expect instant fixes and results
- For self-image, pay attention to those who value you. Listen to what they say about you
- Do not form a rigid picture of yourself. We can forever evolve and change, if we want to
- Make goals for yourself and break them down into smaller tasks. This will help with feeling a sense of achievement
- Do not see setbacks as failures, see them as challenges to work harder
- Challenge those negative comments you say to yourself, about yourself. Replace them with more neutral thoughts
- By keeping your focus and determination on carrying through, you will achieve success and have and Increased satisfaction of self
Now that you have these tips, be sure put them in to practice. Pick one area of self that you would like to improve and start there. Its important to remember that change takes time and is not always a linear process. Somedays you may feel and see yourself better than other days, but the important piece is bringing yourself back from those days where you may feel less than. Always work towards loving and feeling good about yourself.
Written by: Meaghan Warner, LCSW-S