​​​​How Can Low Self Esteem Contribute To Depression?

What does low self esteem mean, and how can a low self esteem make you feel depressed?

Right now, you’re going to learn what low self esteem is, what causes it, how it affects you, and, finally, how to improve low self esteem in a constructive way so that you get rid of low self esteem quickly and easily.

By learning this valuable information, you’ll naturally become a much happier, more confident, more successful person in life, and these positive effects will help you become and remain depression-free faster and easier.

What’s low self esteem?

Self esteem is just the way you think about yourself.

So if you have low self esteem, it just means that you don’t think that positively about yourself, or that you even think negatively about yourself.

For example, let’s say you think the following kinds of thoughts about yourself:

• I’m not that smart (or I’m not as smart as other people)
• I don’t have a lot going for me
• I’m not that interesting

If you have these kinds of thoughts, you’re not seeing much (if any) positive value in yourself, because of the way you’re thinking about yourself. Saying that you have low self esteem is just a shorthand way for saying that you think in these kinds of ways.

Of course, you can be a lot harsher on yourself, and think thoughts like these:

• I’m fat and ugly
• I’m pathetic
• I’m a terrible, awful person
• I’m worthless
• I’m a complete failure

If you think in these kinds of ways, you have extremely low self esteem (or perhaps no self esteem whatsoever), because you’re thinking about yourself in ways that make you see no positive value in yourself at all.

The lesson is that saying you have low self esteem is just a shorthand way for saying that you don’t think very positively about yourself, and that you might even think in very critical, negative ways about yourself, where you only see negative value in you rather than any positive value in you.

Why do I have low self esteem?

If you have low self esteem, it’s because you’re not thinking very positively about yourself, and you’re likely even thinking negatively about yourself in a lot of ways.

So, let’s say you’ve got wonderful, supportive friends who think the world of you, you’ve achieved amazing things in your life, you have a brilliant career, you’ve received all sorts of awards, and on and on and on.

You might think thoughts like: “Why is my self esteem so low, when I have so much going for me? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

But it makes perfect sense, if you think about it.

After all, if you don’t think very positively about yourself, or tend to think negatively about yourself, you will have low self esteem. It’s as simple as that, because low self esteem is entirely caused by the way you think about yourself, regardless of what you have (or don’t have) going for you.

With this in mind, don’t make the common mistake of thinking that you have low self esteem because you’re depressed.

Instead, appreciate that your thinking is what ultimately causes you to be depressed or not, and the type of thinking that contributes to low self esteem will also contribute to depression.

What causes low self esteem?

At this point, it’s helpful to appreciate that what causes low self esteem is the way you think about yourself. Period.

So don’t waste your time, like many people do, looking for other supposed causes of low self esteem, such as your parents not praising you when you were a child, or that you’ve had a lot of failure in your life, or that you’ve been rejected a lot or picked on by others, and so on.

Here’s the thing: it might be understandable how some of those things could lead you to think negatively about yourself, but at the end of the day, you always have the ultimate, final say on how you choose to think about yourself, regardless of what has happened to you, and regardless of how anyone else wants you to think about yourself.

For example, if your parents didn’t praise you as a child, you could just as easily learn to praise and encourage yourself, and as a result you’d enjoy having high self esteem despite any lack of praise.

Similarly, let’s say you’ve experienced a lot of supposed ‘failure’ in your life. You can just as easily appreciate that you’ve been able to accept and handle these types of moments in your life, and learn, gain, and benefit from them in some way, and as a result your self esteem would soar rather than be crushed.

The idea, here, is that looking for ‘external’ causes for low self esteem is a waste of time, since a low self esteem or a high self esteem is completely created by the internal workings of your mind: your thoughts.

This is a wonderful and powerful thing to appreciate, because it means you can easily learn how to get rid of low self esteem and replace it with high self esteem, just by learning to think more positively about yourself and your abilities, regardless of whatever happens in your life.

8 negative effects of low self esteem

Remember, saying you have low self esteem is just a way of saying that you don’t think very positively about yourself, and that you might even think negatively about yourself.

Also, remember: this type of thinking can naturally contribute to depression.

So once again, review the following types of thoughts that provide an example of low self esteem, so that you can appreciate the negative effects that low self esteem will have on your life, including a greater tendency to be depressed:

• I’m not that smart (or I’m not as smart as other people)
• I don’t have a lot going for me
• I’m not that interesting
• I’m fat and ugly
• I’m pathetic
• I’m a terrible, awful person
• I’m worthless
• I’m a complete failure

When you have low self esteem, due to thinking negative (or not very positive) thoughts about yourself, you will naturally suffer from the following types of negative effects of low self esteem:

1. Less happiness and enjoyment in life. (When you see little or no value in yourself, or even negative value in yourself, you’re not nearly as happy with yourself or your life.)
2. A less worthwhile and meaningful life. (By extension, the less value that you see in yourself and your life, the less life feels worthwhile, meaningful, and worth living. In this way, low self esteem can lead to depression and suicidal tendencies.)
3. Self-destructive tendencies. (If you see little or no value in yourself, you’ll naturally not take care of yourself as well, and you’ll be more likely to tolerate people abusing you. If you see lots of negative value in yourself, it might even lead you to hate yourself, which then leads you to find ways to hurt yourself.)
4. Less confidence. (When you see little or no value in yourself and your capabilities, you naturally think that other people won’t like or value you as much, and you naturally think you won’t achieve things you want to achieve. In this way, low self esteem leads to low self confidence.)
5. Less success in life. (The less confident you are, due to lower self esteem, the less likely you are to try to achieve things you want to achieve. This naturally makes you less successful.)
6. More stress and anxiety. (When you don’t see a lot of positive value in yourself and your capabilities, it’s naturally hard for you to think that you can accept and handle different challenges in life. Thinking that you can’t or won’t accept and handle such challenges naturally creates a great deal of stress and anxiety for you.)
7. Less enjoyable social interactions. (When you don’t think much of yourself, you’re less happy and less confident around other people, and this naturally leads to less enjoyable social interactions.)
8. Being more prone to depression. (Think about the combined impact of all of these negative effects, and you can see how a low self esteem can contribute to making you feel very low and depressed.)

How to deal with low self esteem constructively

If you have low self esteem, the first and most important thing to do is to not make a big deal about it and become very anxious or concerned. All it means is that you currently don’t think very positively about yourself (or even think negatively about yourself), and this is something you can easily change by improving your thinking.

So don’t be scared or intimidated in any way by the negative effects for low self esteem. Instead, just understand how low self esteem works against you and makes your life worse, and also appreciate how much better your life will be in each and every way once you get rid of low self esteem for good.

Indeed, the first step for handling low self esteem is to just accept and appreciate that you currently don’t think very positively (or even think negatively) about yourself, which is why you currently have low self esteem, and then to accept and appreciate that you can think more positively about yourself, and thereby develop high self esteem.

This is a very powerful form of complete self acceptance, where you accept where you are right now, and at the same time you also accept and appreciate what you can do and achieve to improve your situation.

And think about it: just by appreciating that you can replace low self esteem with high self esteem by improving your thinking, you’re already thinking in a positive way about yourself that creates greater self esteem and self confidence.

This is how quickly and easily you can increase your self esteem, which means it won’t take long at all for you to enjoy having high self esteem and all of its wonderful benefits, including finding it easier to become and remain depression-free.

After all, it’s just a matter of repeatedly making simple, easy improvements in your thoughts about yourself.

Next: How Can High Self Esteem Help You Beat Depression? →

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Section 8 Lessons:

1. What is self esteem & how is it related to depression?
2. How can low self esteem contribute to depression?
3. How can high self esteem help you beat depression?
4. How to build self esteem & beat depression faster in 1 hour

Next Section In The Depression-Free Course:

Section 9