You are also afraid to enter into meaningful relationships with other people, and are too fearful to take risks in any area of life. The result is that you do not get as much love, and do not achieve as much success as you rightfully deserve, thereby further lowering your self image.
Let us see how self esteem becomes the major cause of stress and anxiety in your life.
Overly Critical of Self And Others: With low self esteem, you are always criticizing yourself, and are never satisfied with your accomplishments. You give more importance to other peoples' negative judgments about you than the love and appreciation shown by those who really love and admire you. Here, we may differentiate between confidence and self esteem. Confidence is something that is related to some area of activity. You might be very good in your chosen area of activity, and yet suffer from low self esteem. There have so been many famous people who were great achievers, but suffered from low self esteem- you get to know about them ever so often when they indulge in self destructive behaviors.
 |
Photo:Betty Miller |
The self deprecating attitude becomes a major cause of stress and anxiety and a lot of distress in your life. You are never satisfied with who you are and what you have.
This is also reflected in your attitude towards family: you remain irritable and angry with family members and may sabotage your relationships with your spouse and children. This unhappiness results from a feeling of inadequacy and dissatisfaction which is perpetual and persistent.
Approval Seeker and Indecisive: Low self esteem compels you to always seek approval and acceptance from others. Since you are never sure of yourself you are always looking at others for cues and hints. Being in a perpetual state of self doubt, you become indecisive and unable to take any action on your own. This indecisiveness becomes a great cause of stress in your lives. You may become overly dependent on someone, or may become addicted to smoking, eating, drugs or something else.
Since you are so unsure and insecure, you never enter into close relationships with others. You avoid going to social gatherings, and hide your inadequacy with criticism or self denial – 'They are not my kind of people, had it been some other group, then maybe…', 'I am not in the mood to attend any function right now, may be later on…' Since, since you avoid exposing yourself to social situations, you do not develop adequate social skills and become shy and introvert.
Anxiety, Fear And Panic: Anxiety and Fear are the constant companions of a person suffering from low self esteem. Being unsure of yourself, you are continuously watching each and every action of your own and of other people around you. You become overly sensitive to any remarks or comments made by the others – or rather you are on the lookout for snide remarks made on you, which becomes a major cause of stress in your relationships with other people!
This hyper-vigilant state makes you get angry over insignificant matters, and you may become prone to loosing temper at the slightest provocation. The pressure of living in a state of constant anxiety and stress reaches a point where you start suffering from panic attacks. This can lead to depression and you may take solace in withdrawing from all social contacts. Your social isolation further aggravates the situation and becomes another cause of stress and anxiety, thus trapping you in a vicious circle.
Self Confidence vs. Achievements: As a low self esteem person you are never ever convinced of your own capabilities. You are unsure of taking any action and the consequences of actions that you take. You may carry on being in a job where you feel that you are trapped: your lack of confidence in your capabilities stops you from taking any action. You don't have faith in your ability to deal with new situations that will appear in the new work place. You keep on cursing the job and still put up with your under-achiever status. This is the cause of stress at many workplaces and any steps taken by the management will prove ineffective to alleviate the tensions caused by under-achiever employees.
On the other hand, you may gravitate towards becoming an over-achiever. To prove to yourself and to others about your worth – which is a never ending process – you push yourself to the limits and achieve one success after the other. You may become a typical workaholic who is always busy and has no time for self, spouse, children or other family members.
Raising Self Esteem: Time To Take Action
 |
Photo: Kim Hattaway Peppers |
You may take solace with the fact that nobody is born with the self esteem—it rises, or diminishes, as you grow. The lowered self esteem is most often due to some experiences in the childhood. A normal person goes through periods of low and high self esteem. For millions of people low self esteem is a major cause of stress and anxiety.
The good news is -- self esteem can be raised. However, it requires you to take some actions. This is not a simple task, and requires some significant amount of work on your part. But, this is possible. You need to change your self view, and transform your way of thinking and attitudes, and it requires dedicated effort on your part.
Premium Resources For Getting Help
Following programs are prepared by well known experts in the field of self esteem and self confidence, with many years of practical experience behind them. If you are serious in raising your self esteem and self confidence, choose any one of them and start right now:
Self Confidence Trainer is prepared by a self confidence trainer, who is also a personal coach and solution focused therapist. Click here to read more.
Core Inner Strength program is prepared by a practicing therapist for the last 30 years and an expert in the field of self esteem and anxiety. Click here to know more about this program.
Keep yourself upto date on this topic with our FREE email newsletter delivered to your Inbox. Click here to subscribe.
Further Reading
A Guide To Building Self Esteem
How To Boost Self Esteem With Positive Self Talk
How To Cope With Stress And Anxiety
Six Simple Steps To Relaxation Response
Practice Self Hypnosis for Stress and Anxiety Relief
Top 10 Stress Relief Tips and Techniques
Understanding Anxiety Disorders: Is It Normal To Be Anxious?
Back to HOME from When The Cause of Stress is Low Self Esteem.
Further References
Anxiety and Self Esteem
How to overcome depression and anxiety through better self image.
