How are low self esteem and depression linked? Can low self esteem cause depression, or is low self esteem a sign of depression, and nothing more than that?
There is such a strong connection between low self esteem and depression that feeling very low and worthless is often considered a symptom of depression.
However, it makes far more sense to appreciate that low self esteem leads to depression.
Indeed, it makes sense to appreciate that low self esteem and feelings of worthlessness are factors of depression that you can change to stop being depressed.
This means that by learning how to overcome low self esteem and how to stop feeling worthless, you naturally make it easier to become and remain depression-free. And right now, you’re going to learn how to do that.
How does low self esteem lead to depression?
First things first: how does low self esteem cause depression? That is, how is low self esteem a contributing factor to your depressed state?
Think about it: when you have lower self esteem and feel worthless, you naturally have less self confidence, you’re less happier with yourself and your future, and you might even feel your life is not worth living.
In this way, low self esteem and feelings of worthlessness are a sure-fire recipe for depression and even suicide.
On the other hand, when you increase your self esteem so that you feel valuable, important, and significant, you enjoy your life more in every way, you’re more self confident, and you find it easier to become and remain happy and depression-free.
The great news is that you will find it easy to enjoy high self esteem and all the wonderful benefits that come with it once you remove common obstacles that make it challenging for you to get rid of low self esteem and see positive value in yourself.
How to not feel worthless by changing your perspective
It’s important for you to appreciate that just like it’s valid for you to view a glass as half empty or half full, it’s completely valid for you to view yourself negatively or positively.
For example, it’s valid for you to focus on lack of achievements in your life, which makes you feel like a worthless failure, or to focus on everything you’ve learned, gained, and achieved in your life, which makes you feel like a valuable success story.
In other words, it’s neither right nor wrong to have a negative view of yourself and suffer from low self esteem, or to have a positive view of yourself and enjoy having high self esteem.
Instead, it’s just smarter and better in every way for you to have a positive view of yourself and high self esteem, and it’s useless and self-destructive to adopt a negative view of yourself and struggle with low self esteem.
For this reason, so what if you have a valid, negative view of your life that makes you feel worthless and makes you suffer from low self esteem? You can just as easily have a valid, positive view of your life that makes you feel valuable and lets you enjoy having higher self esteem, so you might as well make the smarter choice, and have that view instead.
Once this is clear to you, it becomes very easy for you to let go of negative views of your life that make you struggle with low self esteem, no matter how “valid” they might be, and to instead embrace valid, positive views of your life that make you feel great, important, valuable, and a ton happier in every way.
How to value yourself the easy way
Unfortunately, many people are taught that it’s good and right to value other people, but it’s bad, wrong, or a sin to value themselves and to think highly of themselves.
If you accept this view, it will have a devastating impact on your life, and you will predictably struggle with low self esteem and depression.
Think about it: if you think that it’s bad, wrong, or a sin to value yourself and think highly of yourself, you naturally won’t do it, no matter how much you know it might benefit you, because it will feel “wrong” for you to do it. Instead, you’ll think lower of yourself, and predictably have lower self esteem and self confidence as a result.
So right now, ask yourself one simple question: where on earth is the “badness”, “wrongness”, or “sin” in valuing yourself and what you have to offer this world?
If you think about it, the more you value yourself, the more you naturally enjoy life and find it worth living. So you naturally don’t struggle with depression as much, if at all.
Instead, you’re happier, more confident, and feel more energized, since you naturally feel great and happy to be alive. Not only does this benefit you, but it also benefits others who are happier to be around you, and who can also benefit from your greater happiness, confidence, and overall greater sense of well-being.
So, it makes absolutely no sense to think that it’s bad, wrong, or a sin to value yourself and think highly of yourself. Instead, it makes complete sense to appreciate that it’s ok, great, and highly beneficial to do this, and to be sure to do it for your own good, appreciating that others will benefit from it as well.
Furthermore, appreciate that if you’re valuing yourself highly, this does not mean that you’re not valuing other people as well. Clearly, you can value yourself highly, and also value other people in your life very highly.
By doing so, you get the best of both worlds: you enjoy a life where you appreciate your value to other people, and you also enjoy and appreciate the value of other people when you interact with them. And this is great, especially since it leads to better, more enjoyable social interactions that are better for everyone involved.
The importance of learning to value yourself without other people’s help
Another obstacle that can prevent you from highly valuing yourself is the belief that you need other people to see value in you, before you can accept yourself as being someone of positive value.
This is a very destructive and limiting belief, because if you believe this, it means your sense of self worth and self esteem will be completely dependent on what others think of you.
So when others think highly of you, you feel great. When others think negatively about you, you feel awful.
Even worse, you constantly experience a great deal of social anxiety, since you’re naturally afraid and anxious what others might think of you, since your whole feeling of self worth and self esteems ultimately comes from what other people think of you, not what you think of yourself.
An important thing to understand is that if you feel you “need” other people to see value in you before you can value yourself, then you’re never truly enjoying higher self esteem. Instead, you’re ultimately always enjoying the esteem of others.
This puts you in a very weak and vulnerable position, which makes your life worse for the many reasons you just learned.
How do you value yourself, even if no one else does?
Right now, appreciate that you never need other people to see value in you, in order for you to value yourself and for you to feel great about yourself and everything you have going for you.
Think about it: when you look at a glass, do you need someone else to tell you that the glass is half full, in order for you to see and accept it as half full?
Of course not! Indeed, even if everyone in the entire world told you that the glass was half empty, you could still easily disagree and choose to see the glass as half full, and no one in the world can stop you from doing that, even if they wanted to do it.
Similarly, even if everyone else in the world sees absolutely no value in you or your life, you can still see a tremendous amount of value in yourself and your life, and feel great about all that positive value you see, and no one else in the world can stop you from doing it.
Ultimately, this is exactly the type of self esteem that you want to develop and cultivate, since it is very strong and secure, and remains no matter what others might or might not think of you.
Beat depression: low self esteem can be replaced with high self esteem
You have learned about the connection between depression and self esteem, and how to deal with feeling worthless in a constructive way. Specifically, you have learned how you can become and remain depression-free faster and easier by replacing low self esteem with high self esteem.
Many people find this challenging to do, because they find it hard to value themselves, especially if no one else sees any value in them.
You have removed this obstacle in this lesson, by learning how to fully appreciate that it’s ok, great, valid, and beneficial for you to stop seeing your life negatively, and to instead see a lot of positive value in your life, regardless of whether anyone else does.
At this point, it’s simply a matter of wanting to value yourself more, knowing how to do it, and then taking action to do so, in order to increase your self esteem.
And this is the very next thing you’re going to learn how to do in this course, so that you enjoy all the benefits of having high self esteem, including finding it easier become and remain happy and depression-free.
Next: How To Have High Self Esteem Fast →
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Section 9 Lessons:
- How to let go of regret & be thankful
- How to deal with failure & feel more successful
- How to overcome lack of self confidence fast
- How to overcome low self esteem and depression
- How to have high self esteem fast
- How to stop hating yourself