How to Identify and Eliminate Low Self Esteem Symptoms

It seems hard to believe, but millions of people around the world are struggling with low self esteem this very second.  How is it possible, then, that most of those people don’t even realize they’re being affected by this serious mental health issue?

You can close your eyes and probably remember some cringe-worthy moments when your self esteem took a hit during your teenage years.  And for most of us, low self esteem symptoms begin to manifest at this age.  You might be surprised to learn, however, that low self esteem impacts people of all ages at different points in their lives, even young children.  Neglecting to address this mental health issue is unwise because its consequences can be serious and long lasting.  The worst part about it is how low self esteem stops you from chasing your dreams and actually living the life you always imagined.

A ton of us deal with our self esteem problems for such a long time we don’t even realize we still have it.  Negative images are constantly swimming around our mind, and we start to identify with those images after long enough time has passed.  Finally we come to believe the negative images we hold of ourselves are actually “us.”  These negative images deceive us into thinking we can’t change, and we buy into it hook, line and sinker because we trust our false perception.  The result is we are put into a kind of mental prison that’s difficult to escape.

If think you might be dealing with low self esteem, it’s hard to verify it because you’ve probably dealt with it for many years and many of its symptoms are subtle.  Read on to learn about some of the most common low self esteem symptoms below.  Do any of these sound familiar to you?

You constantly worry about your appearance or other minor personal issues. Feelings of isolation, particularly in social environments, are low self esteem’s calling cards. The reason for this is because people dealing with esteem problems have a difficult time getting out of their own heads.  Even when they’re around their loved ones or favorite pastimes, their minds are someplace else.  They’re focused on how they look and trying desperately not to say or do anything embarrassing.  Eventually, the never-ending sensation of being criticized and evaluated becomes daily reality.  For those with esteem issues, trying to let go of their pestering thoughts and enjoy life “in the moment” is practically impossible.

Little mistakes and errors can ruin your day.  Nothing they do is good enough for someone dealing with low self esteem because their standards are adjusted to a “perfect self” they manufactured in their mind.  So even minor deviations from the ideal, in the form of normal mistakes, can lead to over the top emotional responses.  This creates an environment of constant disappointment, and that disappointment in turn continues to lower an already fragile self esteem!  It’s tough to end this cycle once it gets started because it feeds on itself.

You have constant pains, aches, or digestion problems.  It’s weird, but the consequences of an unhealthy self esteem can make themselves known through adverse physical symptoms.  If you've struggled with headaches or strange pains but can’t discover the root cause, your self esteem could be the culprit.  It’s tiring to constantly bother about what everyone else is thinking, chastise yourself for minor mistakes, and to feel guilty when you can’t possibly live up to your “perfect self” standards.  Your system can only take so much stress.  Once it reaches its capacity, the emotional stress begins to overflow into different aspects of your life.

If you’ve been dealing with any of the issues described above, it isn’t too late to improve your self esteem!  Your self image, as seemingly fixed and permanent as it is, can be remolded.  And when you consciously replace your limiting view of yourself with a new, powerful image, your symptoms will disappear.

At its core, low self esteem thrives on a lack of confidence.  Therefore, the best way to repair your esteem is by consciously building up your confidence.  It’s essential for you to focus your attention on building up the right “type” of confidence, though.  Your efforts should be centered on improving your “core confidence.”  Core confidence is internal confidence; the most powerful thing about it is how it doesn’t depend on external sources of validation for it to help you feel better about yourself.