Developing Real Self Esteem
- Without real self esteem you will never be happy in life.
- Fake self esteem comes from the need for external approval.
- True self esteem is what you think and feel, not what other people think.
Sometimes you see people who appear to have everything, but yet they still experience times of anxiety or depression. They may project the appearance of high self esteem, but in reality it is just an illusion.
A good example of this could include “celebrities”. From a “normal” person’s perspective they appear to have everything.
Yet we still hear stories of celebrities becoming addicted to drugs, suffering from anorexia, depression or even committing suicide.
This shows that without authentic self esteem, all the material goods in the world will never satisfy you.Â
Instead you will be left with varying degrees of anxiety, insecurity and self doubt. A feeling like you don’t belong, like you are lacking something or that something is wrong with you.
This state tends to be painful, and because it is painful people are strongly motivated to evade it, to deny their fears, rationalize their behaviour and create the appearance of a self esteem they do not actually possess. This is known as fake self esteem.
What is Fake Self Esteem?                  Â
Fake self esteem is the illusion of self efficacy and self respect without the reality. It is like wearing a mask to cover a face you are ashamed of.Â
By wearing the mask you experience a sense of security and comfort by hiding the real you. However the price for wearing the mask is that the real causes of the lack of self esteem will remain ignored.
Where True Self Esteem Comes From
True self esteem is an intimate experience, and can only truly come from inside of you. True self esteem is what you think and feel about yourself, not what someone else thinks and feels of you.
For example, you could be loved by your family yet still not have any love for yourself. You could be admired by lots of people, yet still feel inadequate and unworthy inside.
This is not to say that other people are not important in influencing your level of self esteem, of course, people play a large role in shaping your self esteem, but ultimately it is you who determines whether your self esteem is high or low.
(Artwork By Rita Loyd - Click Here To Visit Rita’s Site)
Where Fake Self Esteem Comes From
If true self esteem comes from within you, then fake self esteem must come from outside of you. This means that instead of seeking self esteem through consciousness, responsibility and integrity, fake self esteem is sought through popularity, material goods or sexual experiences.
In other words, fake self esteem comes from looking to external sources to make you feel valuable and worthwhile as a person.
However when these sources disappear, so does the fake self esteem. And if fake self esteem is all you have, ultimately this will leave you with feelings of anxiety and depression.
Is Fake Self Esteem Really That Bad?
There is nothing wrong with pretending to have high self esteem, when you actually have low self esteem. In fact this is one method that can be used to improve your self esteem, and is often called “fake it, until you make it”.
The idea behind this is that by acting like you have high self esteem, eventually you will develop high self esteem.
This is what actors do when they play a character. By acting like the character, eventually they become the character, and this is the key to giving a convincing performance.
So fake self esteem can be used for good, however it is important to recognise that fake self esteem is generated by external factors.
If you are constantly seeking other people or other things to raise your self esteem and make you feel good, then as long as you rely on those external factors you will never develop a genuine level of true self esteem. Because when those things disappear, so will your self esteem.
This is great advice. Thank you.
thank you i wish i would av read this years ago…..
Thank you for all of the information! It is completely on par.
I just want to say again that you are a natural at this stuff and I genuinely hope you dedicate a large part of you life to getting this information out there….
Cheers
Derek
Hi Martin;
I just wish if you include this test in your article so people could practically test for themselves that how much true self-esteem they possess. the test is on this site;
http://www.queendom.com/jff_access/the_self-esteem_test.htm
Thanks
Hi Martin, Thanks for this article. I have been meditating on this topic and my findings were same as yours but due to self doubts I was searching for authentic answers….. Now i know that all the answerrs are within me, only what I need to do is to believe in myself.
thanx
Sushma
thanks! this is informative and i feel like i learnt something.
Wow. Thank you so much for sharing this wisdom. I was once told by a friend that I have “an unnatural lack of self doubt”. A comment with which I strongly disagreed as I felt like it wasn’t unnatural at all! I’ve read your articles on Self Esteem and think they are fantastic. Your ability to communicate the essence of how to achieve this is a skilI I did not posess at that time. And I now recognise this as a skill that I can work on to develop for myself. It’s a great feeling. Thank you for sharing your widom. You embody exactly what you teach by sharing this on the internet.
Thank you very much for this great article… it helped me to understand a friend of mine. Now I can understand his behaviour towards me much better (I’ve got a high self-esteem, which obviously caused conflicts.) Could you please tell me if there exists a way to help him to build up his self-esteem? Thank you.