Dear Diary, Sorry For Harassing You Again

There are people with such low self-esteem that they even apologize for the diary. They  shouldn’t see themselves as useless or bad, but they rarely say anything nice to themselves. This greatly damages their vitality, as they have to live with unhappiness and despair.

When we listen to the life stories of people with low self-esteem, we find unhappiness, frustration and despair as the main difficulties in life. This is based on an incompatibility or a difficulty in self-acceptance and self-esteem.

Therefore, it is very important to analyze the way we think about ourselves, because the relationship between low self-esteem and personal problems is very strong and manifests itself in many ways. Let’s think about it.

I stop and think, but I can’t love myself. Do I have low self-esteem?

Low self-esteem is synonymous with the denial of one’s own image. Faced with who he is and how he is, a person with low self-esteem disapproves and devalues ​​himself.

In this sense, the assessment of low self-esteem is not an easy task, because scholars on the subject have not yet come to an agreement on how low self-esteem develops. Anyway, most of the instruments available that we have today for the assessment of self-esteem are based on patient information.

However, we are going to show you one of the most used scales to measure self-esteem: the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (adapted and validated by Martin Albo and his collaborators in 2007)

So, if you want to make a small assessment of your self-esteem, answer these 10 simple sentences honestly.

The first 05 sentences must be evaluated in these terms: o4 (strongly agree), 3 (agree), 2 (disagree) and 01 (strongly disagree).

1- In general, I am satisfied with myself and I think I am a person worthy of appreciation.

2- Sometimes I think I’m not good at anything.

3- I believe I have some good qualities.

4- I can do things as well as most people.

5- I feel like I don’t have many things to be proud of.

The next 05 sentences should be evaluated in these terms: 04 (strongly disagree), 3 (disagree), 2 (agree) and 1 (strongly agree).

6- Sometimes I feel really useless.

7- I have the impression that I am someone appreciated by most people.

8- I really wanted to respect myself more!

9- Overall, I think I’m a failure.

10- Sometimes I believe I’m not a good person.

Now add up your score and see the results.

• From 30 to 40 points: high self-esteem. Considered a normal and healthy self-esteem.
• From 26-29 points: average self-esteem. You don’t have serious problems, but you can get better.
• Less than 25 points: low self-esteem. There are significant issues with your self-esteem.

The psychological profile of a person with low self-esteem

When assessing the psychological profile of a person with low self-esteem, we must ask if he experiences extreme self-rejection or if there is a mere distortion of his qualities and abilities that makes him focus only on the negative.

People with low self-esteem need to think about themselves positively and value themselves with encouraging words. What happens is that when something threatens their sense of personal worth, they find little reason to address and highlight its positive aspects.

Let’s see a little more about your speech:

• People with low self-esteem describe themselves superficially and without commitment. They usually describe themselves as: “I consider myself nice”, “an average worker”, etc.
• They tend to feel more responsible for bad events than they really are. Likewise, when something good happens, they don’t believe it is related to their characteristics and behaviors.

• People with low self-esteem get involved in ill-defined or excessively high goals and believe that they “have to achieve absolutely everything they set out to”.
• They have less coping skills and sometimes even boycott themselves in order not to reach their goals. This helps to perpetuate the negative view of themselves.

As we see, low self-esteem is a lack of affection for ourselves. We must avoid comparisons with other people, work to turn the negative into positive, and develop a personal strategy to visualize ourselves in a more positive light. And if this process is too difficult and painful, seek professional help as soon as possible.