Boosting self-esteem: A guide for women

I see many women in my private practice who are struggling with anxiety, low mood and low confidence. When we begin to explore and dig a little deeper, we see that the feelings of anxiety often stem from low self-esteem.

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How we can work with low self-esteem

Though closely related, there is a difference between self-esteem and confidence.

Confidence comes from the Latin word fidere which means to trust. When we think about that, we can quickly see that confidence is about trusting our abilities, knowledge, skills, and self. Confidence is about what we believe we can do and it is having faith in our ability to achieve these things if we practice and put in the effort.

Esteem comes from the Latin word aestimare, which means to estimate, appraise or value. This means that self-esteem is how we evaluate or value ourselves. Esteem is our belief in ourselves at our core – the belief that we are inherently a ‘good’ person – likeable, relatable, loveable, trustworthy, etc.

For example, I might have a lot of confidence in my ability to rock climb. However, my confidence in public speaking is pretty low. My self-esteem and how I value myself as a human being is high. If my self-esteem was low, I might view myself as having no self-worth, or I’m not good enough at anything, and no one likes me.

Confidence is an easier issue to fix than having low self-esteem. To acquire confidence in our ability to do something we try the task at hand until our confidence increases (not always as easy as it seems!) We might ‘feel the fear and do it anyway.’

Sometimes, understanding why we have low self-esteem can be helpful.


The root causes of low self-esteem

The layering of adverse situations throughout our lives can chip away at our self-esteem. We begin to build limiting self-beliefs, believing that we are unlikable and can’t make friends, or that things that happen are our fault and we are useless or inadequate.

Examples of adverse life events

Perhaps we were bullied at school, so we became afraid to socialise and isolated ourselves. This isolation only made us feel inadequate and further eroded our confidence in our ability to make friends. We develop a limiting self-belief that we can't make friends and are unlikeable. This powers our self-esteem further and perpetuates the cycle.

Maybe we had difficult home lives with parents who were alcoholics or maybe there was mental illness in the family. This can leave us feeling anxious as kids and a belief that the world is unsafe. Usually, in a healthy family environment, we look to our parents for a sense of safety and reassurance, and as we grow our caregivers help to raise our self-esteem through validation. If this was not received and we were made to feel ‘not good enough’, then we internalise this and look for further ‘evidence’ as we grow up that we are deficient in some way.

Our first relationship may have been great in the beginning and we saw our confidence increase until later when the arguments and upset began. Our partner became a bully and again, our self-esteem hit an all-time low. 

Can you see how life events can have us build limiting self-beliefs that shape our thinking. “I’m not good at making friends. I am terrible in relationships. I’ll never find anyone who loves me. I’m a terrible mother/employee/wife.” Limiting self-beliefs also shapes our behaviour and feelings and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Is it any wonder we become anxious and depressed?

Addressing low self-esteem

There are a few ways that you can address low self-esteem.

Identifying negative self-talk can be the first step. Would you talk to your best friend or child that way? Probably not, yet we do it to ourselves all of the time. Changing how we talk to ourselves can help us to become kinder to ourselves.

Working with a mental health professional. This can give you tools and techniques to change negative self-talk. We can challenge some of the things that we catch ourselves saying, or we can look for evidence in our lives that, for example, we are loved or liked.

We can look at our strengths and qualities. Notice each day when we have worked well, shown our kids love and care, and been a good friend – it is often these things that we overlook since our brain naturally has a negativity bias and will look for evidence to ‘support’ our limiting self-belief.

Take a mental inventory of who is in your life. Who are you trying to please? Who do you have in your family or friendship group that makes you feel ‘less than’ or bad about yourself? Ask yourself if you need better boundaries and how might you work on your boundaries.

Working with a mental health professional can help you identify toxic relationships and support you in building boundaries, saying no, and becoming assertive. Exploring your self-esteem issues with a counsellor can lead you to understand yourself on a deeper level and help you to live a happier life.

If any of this resonates and you would like a chat about how counselling can help you, please reach out.

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author. All articles published on Counselling Directory are reviewed by our editorial team.

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High Peak, Derbyshire, SK23
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Written by Samantha Hill
Anxiety Therapist (PGDIP, Registered member of BACP)
location_on High Peak, Derbyshire, SK23
I am a member of BACP with a level 7, PGdip in Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy. I am qualified to work with many issues which include but are not limited to: emotional abuse, relationships, trauma, anxiety, substance mis-use, developmental...
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