Online Class: Building Self Esteem

Your self-esteem needs your attention, as the consequences of low self-esteem are often the precursor for many other health related problems. Avoid future personal health issues by evaluating your level of self-esteem today! This self-paced course will examine what self-esteem is, the development and factors effecting self-esteem, an examination of the consequences and symptoms of low self-esteem, the behaviors associated with the symptoms of low self-esteem, and methods to rebuild self-esteem and maintain a good level of self-esteem throughout life. Anyone who is enduring the draining experience of low self-esteem, anyone who may know others suffering from low self-esteem, or anyone who is interested in maintaining a healthy and happy life in general, should enroll in this course today!

Courses Frequently Bought Together:

Conflict Resolution 101

Anger Management 101

Time Management 101

Course Motivation

Understanding Self-Esteem

Where Does Self-Esteem Come From?

The self-esteem that you have for yourself is based on many different elements in your life, and the attitude that you hold toward those elements. These include:

• The value you believe you have as a person
• The job you have in your life (tasks or employment)
• Your achievements
• The way you believe that others see you
• Your purpose in life
• Your situation in the world
• Your success potential
• Your strengths and your weaknesses
• Your social status and your relations with other people
• Your independence and ability to be autonomous and self-supporting.

Naturally, these aren't the only elements that will impact your self-esteem in your life, but they are the most commonly observed.

Though there have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of books written in the past about self-esteem, it is important to understand how very personal the topic is. No book or person can tell you how to build or maintain good self-esteem. The only way that you can achieve these outcomes is through willing self-discovery and self-examination. This will take time, but as you will see, it is well worth the effort.

The Importance of Self-Esteem

As human beings, our entire experience with the world is based on different relationships, and the attitudes that we form about those relationships. In fact, we use each of these relationships to build a consciousness about the potentials and possibilities that exist in our world.

As we are forming our notions about the behaviors and relationships we have with objects, animals, and other people, we are also creating an impression of ourselves. This includes how you think you are, and how you think you'd react in any given situation.

Throughout your life as you are faced with obstacles and decisions, through your actions, reactions, and thoughts (or lack of thoughts), you will begin to build a strong sense of self, which will continue to grow your entire life. Furthermore, you will begin behaving in accordance with that judgment that you have of yourself, and this will impact the future decisions, choices, and thoughts that you will have.

All of these judgments and behaviors add up to create your overall self-evaluation and self-concept, which creates your self-esteem. The self esteem is this concept - as a whole - which we form of ourselves. Think of it as a reputation that you have with yourself.

The overall concept of self-esteem is usually broken down into two parts by experts, so that they may better understand its development, improvement, and maintenance. These two parts are:

Your self-confidence or efficacy

Your sense of self-respect and self-worth.

Self-Confidence and Efficacy

As you see, hear, feel, and in other ways process all of the information that is always being sent to us from the "outside" world and our social environment, you are consistently experiencing an "inside" state of being in control, of efficacy, and of an ability to take in, use, and handle all of that incoming information. It is this state that leads you to direct yourself within your environment.

In a person lacking self-confidence/efficacy, s/he would instead feel helplessness, inefficacy, powerlessness, and the sensation of being completely overwhelmed.

Living both with and without self-confidence and efficacy is something children experience very early in their development. Already at this early stage, it is instinct for children to value their feelings of self-confidence and efficacy, and disvalue any sensations of helplessness. This instinct is further encouraged because the feelings of helplessness often occur alongside sensations of physical of psychological pain. Conversely, the feelings of confidence, efficacy, and control frequently occur alongside pleasure - or at least a lacking of a pain sensation.

Self-Respect and Self-Worth

Throughout our lives, beginning very young, we learn about the world around us and ourselves within it. During this time, we develop certain expectations about specific actions that will lead to specific types of consequences. This is what allows us to create habits and live in a world that we can understand and in which we can feel comfortable.

If this time is consistent with your perception of reality, continues to be life-enhancing, and remains faithful to your moral principles, then your expectations of the consequences of your actions will be positive ones. This means that you will have developed a sense of worthiness. You know that you "deserve" your happiness.

Conversely, if your experiences work in contrast to our perception of reality, your behaviors are self-destructive, and are in violation of your moral principals, then you will expect that consequences of your actions will be negative. Instead of feeling worthy, you will feel inappropriate in your life, and that you don't deserve happiness.

Self-esteem, therefore, is a matter of experiencing different feelings, and knowing that you are competent for living in your reality, and that you deserve happiness.

This being said, it is important to note that true self-esteem is not something that depends on the approval of those around you. Of course, it is natural to want other people to have good opinions of you, however, this is not the real deciding factor for building self-esteem. Only you can give yourself self-esteem.

Should you link your self-esteem to the opinions, judgment, and approval of other people, it means that your self-esteem is already hurting, and that you're at risk of having it slip even further.

As you can see, self-esteem isn't the same thing as just feeling positive about yourself. It is not the same as egotism, conceitedness, narcissism, arrogance, or any desire to feel like you're "better" than someone else. In fact, these attitudes can actually be destructive to genuine self-esteem.

Genuine self-esteem is something that takes time to develop, and is consistently maintained. Therefore, it isn't the same thing as the temporary, sudden boost that you may feel after a promotion or a marriage proposal. It is a long-term reputation that you keep with yourself, and an overall attitude that must be nurtured and maintained.