You can't touch it, but it affects how you feel. You can't see it, but it's there when you look at yourself in the mirror. You can't hear it, but it's there every time you talk about yourself. What is this important but mysterious thing? It's your self-esteem! Self Esteem is defined as confidence in your own merit as an individual. Our self esteem is instilled in us during our youth. There are two types of self esteem. There is high self esteem which is when you feel good about yourself, and then there is low self esteem which is when you feel bad about yourself. Being constantly criticized by family, friends, and society tends to slowly strip us of our feelings of self worth. Our low self esteem strips us of our self confidence to make even the smallest of decisions. We think little of ourselves, and feel we are not worth a penny and do not deserve to be happy. High self esteem is good most of the time, but some people have too high self esteems and they could come on strong. People may call refer to these type as “cocky” or “annoying.” But since low self esteem is still worse than the higher one, let’s see what solutions there are to fixing it.
Improving your self esteem increases your confidence and is a first step towards finding happiness and a better life. Individuals with truly high self esteem feel good about themselves and continue believing in themselves regardless of what others think of them. Some people feel good about themselves only as long as others support them and approve them. The moment another person criticizes them, or withdraws her or his support from them, they not only feel bad about themselves, they may even hate themselves. That would be the first step into low self-esteem. When a person acts like that, life can be hurtful for most of the time and they might find themselves at the mercy of others. When these kind of persons don't have the emotional freedom and independence from the criticism and approval of others, their...