Self esteem is how you value yourself and your abilities, regardless of how anyone else values you or your abilities. This is what makes it self esteem rather than the esteem of others.
For example, let’s say you think very positively of yourself and your capabilities, while everyone else in the world thinks very negatively of you and your capabilities. In this case, you have very high self esteem, even though other people’s esteem of you is very low.
And in this case, you will naturally feel better about yourself, and find it easier to be happy and depression-free.
Or to consider the opposite example, let’s say you think very little of yourself and your capabilities, while everyone else in the world thinks very highly of you and your capabilities. In this case, you have very low self esteem, even though other people’s esteem of you is extremely high.
And in this case, you will naturally feel worse about yourself, and you’ll predictably be more prone to feeling bad and depressed.
Even though this sounds simple and straightforward, it is important for you to understand that self esteem is created by the way you value yourself, rather than the way others value you, because this simple insight will ultimately be the key to building high self esteem quickly and easily, so that you become and remain depression-free faster and easier.
Where does self esteem come from?
Once it’s clear to you that self esteem is created by the way you value yourself and your capabilities, it becomes crystal clear that self esteem comes from you and the thoughts in your brain.
This means that self esteem does not come from anything that exists outside of you or your mind, like friends and family, or incredible personal achievements.
To appreciate this, let’s say that you have extremely supportive friends and family, and every day they tell you that you’re the greatest person in the world. You can still have extremely low self esteem, by still thinking of yourself as a loser, because your self esteem comes from your thoughts about yourself, and not the thoughts or actions of your friends and family.
Similarly, let’s say you’ve achieved amazing things in life, like creating a wonderful family, founding a successful business, running marathons, and so on. You could still have very low self esteem by thinking very little of those achievements, even though everyone else finds them amazing, because it is your thoughts about your capabilities and the achievements that matter, not the achievements themselves.
The lesson, here, is that self esteem comes from you and the thoughts in your mind, not from anything else. This means that even if you appear to have ‘nothing’ going for you, you can have extremely high self esteem, and even if you have seem to have everything going for you, you can have very low self esteem, which can contribute to you feeling depressed.
It also means that if you want to have higher self esteem, it’s very simple: improve your thinking so that you think more highly of yourself. The fantastic news is that you can change your thoughts very quickly, which means you can boost your self esteem very quickly.
Why is self esteem important?
Just because you can change the way you think about yourself to develop higher self esteem, why do it?
To appreciate why it’s so important to improve your self esteem, it’s helpful to think of high self esteem as being something that helps lift you up in life, while low self esteem is something that drags you down in life.
Indeed, high self esteem is like hot air that helps lift a hot air balloon through the air, while low self esteem is like heavy rocks that can weigh down a hot air balloon, and prevent it from every going anywhere.
Think about it: when you have high self esteem, you naturally hold your head up high, find it easier to interact with other people, and you’re naturally happier, more confident, and more successful. All of this helps you become and remain depression-free.
Inversely, when you have low self esteem, you naturally hang your head down low, find it more challenging to interact with other people, and you’re naturally less happy, less confident, and less successful. All of this makes it more likely that you will feel bad and struggle with depression.
So self esteem is important, because it affects your entire experience of life, including whether or not you struggle with depression.
Keep in mind that it’s not ‘right’ to have high self esteem, or ‘wrong’ to have low self esteem; rather, you’re better off in every way having high self esteem, which is why it’s so important to increase your self esteem by improving your thinking, especially since it will help you become and remain depression-free.
Learn more about low self esteem & high self esteem
You have just learned why self esteem is important, since it affects your entire experience of life, including whether or not you struggle with depression.
The next step is to learn more about the differences between low self esteem and high self esteem, so that you appreciate why low self esteem works against your and makes your life worse, while high self esteem helps you and makes your life better.
This clear understanding will naturally help you let go of ways of thinking that create low self esteem, and make it easier for you to think in ways that create high self esteem.
The end result is that you’ll find it easier to develop high self esteem, which will naturally translate into greater confidence, happiness, and success in life for you, as well as an easier time becoming and remaining depression-free.
Next: How Can Low Self Esteem Contribute To Depression? →
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Section 8 Lessons:
- What is self esteem & how is it related to depression?
- How can low self esteem contribute to depression?
- How can high self esteem help you beat depression?
- How to build self esteem & beat depression faster in 1 hour