Overcome self-criticism and grow your sense of self-worth

Self-esteem is how you view yourself, including your sense of personal worth or value. Signs of low self-esteem include lacking confidence, worrying frequently, comparing yourself to others, having difficulty accepting compliments, and experiencing difficulty setting boundaries. You may struggle with anxiety, depression, disordered eating, or substance abuse as a result of these challenges.

Day to day, you may notice yourself second-guessing your decisions and choices. You likely have difficulty asserting yourself, such as speaking up in meetings or setting boundaries with loved ones. You put others’ needs before your own, and have trouble taking time for yourself. You might procrastinate and have a hard time getting started on things due to a fear of failure or incompetence.

Multiple factors go into creating your sense of self and your self-esteem levels. Your genetics, age, and physical abilities play a role. Your position in society, such as your socioeconomic status or gender, can also impact your self-esteem, as well as experiences with discrimination and bias.

A major contributor to self-esteem is your personal history. How you were raised has an impact, such as whether your parents were present or absent and whether they were encouraging or discouraging. Other experiences may play a role, such as experiences in school, work, and relationships. Overall, people who experience some form of positive regard from others in their lives tend to have healthier levels of self-esteem.

Your self-esteem has a significant impact on your mental health. If you struggle with low self-worth, you may deal with anxiety due to constantly questioning yourself, criticizing yourself, and comparing yourself to others. If this goes on for a while, you may also develop depression from the hopelessness that can emerge from long-term struggles with low self-esteem.

Low self-esteem also has a direct link to perfectionism. When you are perfectionistic, you set impossible standards for yourself. When you inevitably fall short, your self-esteem suffers.

Therapy offers a helpful space to work on your self-esteem and confidence. Your therapist is there to help you see past your harsh self-evaluations and explore what life might look like beyond that. As your therapist, my role is to gently nudge you to try new things and step out of the confines and limits of low self-esteem, which can eventually lead you to feel more confident.

Therapy for self-esteem starts with taking a look at unhelpful beliefs you have about yourself and beginning to challenge unrealistic expectations you hold for yourself.

We then explore building a kinder inner voice and exploring more supportive ways of viewing yourself. We’ll take a look at what matters most to you - so that you can spend more time pursuing a satisfying life and less time caught up in how you are being perceived.

A simple place to start is to catch your negative self-talk and recognize how harmful it is. Imagine that the things you’re saying to yourself are being said to someone you love - would you be ok with that?

Practice speaking to yourself with more support and kindness. Picture how you would encourage a small child or comfort a pet who was scared. Imagine the tone you might take and the language you might use, and direct that tone and language towards yourself. Notice what it feels like to be gentler with yourself - are you more willing to make mistakes? Do you feel a bit calmer?

I suggest taking a look at the guilt you feel and recognizing the difference between helpful and unhelpful guilt. Helpful guilt is tied to things that matter to us - for example, feeling guilty after yelling at someone you love. Unhelpful guilt is tied to overly rigid rules or moralistic thinking that doesn’t match how you really feel - such as feeling guilty when you are ill and take a sick day at work.

When you make this distinction, you can start to be more discerning about when you respond to guilt and when you let it go. Recognize when you want to set boundaries that you would want a friend or family member to be allowed to set. For example, would you want your partner or best friend to be able to say no to their boss when they are drowning in work?

If you experience a lack of confidence socially, you may be struggling with the spotlight effect. The spotlight effect describes how we can often overestimate how much others are thinking about us. We view ourselves as if we have a giant spotlight shining on us, which is generally not how others tend to actually view us.

Practice self-kindness while in social settings, allowing yourself to be imperfect. Remember that the spotlight effect doesn’t reflect reality, and in all likelihood, people simply don’t care that much if you don’t say the perfect thing, you are awkward, or you do something embarrassing. Focus instead on what you want out of the social experience - such as making new friends or practicing a hobby.

This depends on a variety of factors, including how deep your struggles with self-esteem go and how low your self-esteem is to begin with. Shifting your self-esteem in a positive direction takes practice, and for some, this is a slow and steady journey that may take time and intention.

If you seek therapy for these patterns, I recommend setting aside at least 2-3 months for weekly therapy. If you’ve been developing these behaviors for a long time or have childhood traumatic experiences that contribute, a longer-term counseling process may be helpful to allow for healing and growth.