How’s Your Self-Esteem?

Spending time on social media isn’t top of my to-do list, but when I do, I’m struck by some of the behaviour. In old-school assertiveness training language, there’s a lot of passive-aggression going on out there. And very often, behaviour that’s other than assertive is linked to low self-esteem. So if you’re about to unleash some bile on A.N.O. online, or indeed if you find you are the victim of it, stop and check your self-esteem.

Think about what you feel, think, and do in each of these situations:

• When someone pays you a compliment on your appearance
• When you have to say ‘no’ to someone
• When you describe your strengths and capabilities to others
• When you ask someone to do something
• When someone praises you for a job well done
• When you get constructive feedback on how to improve
• When you describe your strengths and capabilities to yourself.

So for each of the seven situations, note down what you feel (as in emotions – angry, sad, frustrated, delighted, optimistic, grateful, anxious, etc, not “I feel it’s” – which is actually a thought), what you think, and what you do. Some of us can find the ‘feel’ part hard, if we’ve been suppressing some emotions that we don’t want to acknowledge or want the world to see.

Now consider the results you get in each of those situations:

Great?
Utterly unpredictable?
Generally rubbish?
No idea, never thought about it?
Time to reflect?
 

How do you feel about the other people involved in those situations?

Despairing?
Confused?
Forgiving?
 

How do you feel about yourself having thus reflected?

And how do you want to feel?