Good self-esteem is like gold dust nowadays. We all want high self-esteem, but it can be so hard to raise it to a healthy level, let alone maintain it at that healthy level. But I’ve got you covered. So why not check out this article and then check out my self-esteem workbook afterwards?
Disclosure: This article contains links to my Unwanted Life Shop. Read my full disclosure here.
What Is Self-Esteem?
Self-esteem, in and of itself, doesn’t exist. It’s not something you can hold or find on a map, yet we all know what it is when someone says it. Self-esteem is a construct that we and the social sciences use to quantify the sum of own or another person’s personality and attributes as an evaluation of one’s value, self-worth, and importance (Blascovich and Tomaka, 1991).
You’ll notice that I talk about healthy self-esteem in this article and my self-esteem workbook, and that’s for an excellent reason. There’s low self-esteem which my self-esteem workbook will help you work on. And there’s healthy/high self-esteem, which is the goal, but there’s also inflated self-esteem, which is bad.
Being overconfident can be risky in certain situations. Thinking your skill and abilities are massively greater than they actually are can cause you to take risks you shouldn’t. However, the ones we’re most likely familiar with are the versions of inflated egos at work that mimic the Peter Principle, where people’s skills elevate them to a position where they become incompetent. Accept, in this case, they didn’t even have those skills that got them into this position to start with.
As Exploring Your Mind put it, having excessively high self-esteem can lead to problematic behaviours and attitudes, making you think certain things are beneath you, that you’re entitled to things, and blinds you to mistakes you’re making. Mistakes that can cause people harm. Think Christopher Daniel Duntsch, aka Dr Death, the former neurosurgeon whose story was turned into a TV series by Peacock. Excellent series, I highly recommend it.
How Can Low Self-Esteem Affect Us?
Having low self-esteem can have a wide range of effects on our quality of life, with the obvious one being how it affects our mental wellbeing. Low self-esteem can stop us from taking on new experiences, cause us to avoid things that seem like a challenge, and cause us to avoid social situations. In the long term, this behaviour ends up reinforcing your underlying doubts and fears (NHS).
Shutting yourself away from social situations and new experiences can lead to a decline in your self-care, cause a growing feeling of hopelessness, and in certain situations, can lead to self-harm, eating disorders, and substance abuse.
Furthermore, the need for perfection is often born out of having low self-esteem. Because you feel inadequate, you feel everything you do is inadequate as well. Thus, people will try to overcompensate for that by trying to do everything perfectly, which is just an impossible goal to set yourself.
Not only that, low self-esteem can cause us to become people-pleasers, as we allow ourselves to endure unreasonable behaviours from the people in our lives I know I have. Because we don’t love ourselves, we don’t think we’re worthy of love from others, while at the same time craving that love. This inner dilemma puts us at risk of being abused. It’s also the reason abusers seek to weaken your self-esteem little by little, so they can gain control over you.
The Self-Esteem Workbook
So how can the self-esteem workbook help you with your self-esteem? I hear you ask. Well, the self-esteem booster workbook features several important sections, all with an explanation of how that section can help your self-esteem. Plus, in each section, you get a worksheet to complete, but don’t worry, I’ve also included a step-by-step guide of how to complete the worksheet, with examples.
The sections of the self-esteem workbook
Section one – Understanding self-esteem
The section will outline how you can build healthy self-esteem and outline a common thinking error for people with low self-esteem. Then comes a step-by-step guide on how to fill in the worksheet for this section, which comes with examples to help avoid any confusion. After that, you get the worksheet to complete.
Section two – Self-labelling
In this section, you’ll learn about how unhealthy self-talk can be for your self-esteem. Following that comes the step-by-step guide of how to fill in the first worksheet for this section and its handy examples to help avoid any confusion. Then, you’ll get the worksheet to complete.
However, after that, there are instructions on how to complete the second worksheet in this section. Again, this comes with a walkthrough of how to complete the second worksheet with accompanying examples before you get a blank worksheet to fill in.
Section three – Accepting mistakes
Here the workbook talks about how chasing perfection can be a lost cause and how there’s nothing wrong with making mistakes. The workbook then walks you through how to complete the worksheet for this section, providing examples, before allowing you to complete your blank worksheet.
Section four – Accepting yourself
In this section, you learn about how you can build healthy self-esteem by learning to accept yourself and make improvements in ways that matter to you. Following that is the usual step-by-step guide, worksheet examples, and then your own blank worksheet to complete.
However, once you complete this exercise, you get another quick walkthrough and examples of how to complete the next worksheet in this section.
Section five – Daily reflection task
This section is a simple daily journaling task designed to build upon the work of the previous sections. Again, this comes with a step-by-step guide with a completed example of the worksheet. Your own worksheets follow this so you can complete this journaling task.
Section six – Achievements
In this last section, the self-esteem workbook talks about how our sense of achievement can affect our self-esteem. Accompanying this are two exercises to finish, all packaged up with their guides and examples of how to complete this section.
Covers for the self-esteem workbook
There are two choices of covers, for no other reason than why not.
If you’d like to check out the self-esteem workbook over on my store, and maybe even buy it, you can do so by clicking here.
As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, feel free to share your experiences with having low self-esteem and using a self-esteem workbook in the comments section below as well. Don’t forget to bookmark my site and if you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, then sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, get push notifications for new articles by clicking the red bell icon in the bottom right corner.
Lastly, if you’d like to support my blog, you can make a donation of any size below. Until next time, Unwanted Life readers.
References
Blascovich, J. & Tomaka, J. (1991). Measures of self-esteem. John P. R., Phillip R. S., and Lawrence S. W. (Eds), Measures of personality and social psychological attitudes: Volume 1 in measures of social psychology attitudes series, (pp. 115-160). London: Elsevier. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-07551-2 and https://pdf.xuebalib.com:1262/xuebalib.com.43624.pdf.
This self-esteem workbook sounds amazing. It’s also good for self-care. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you
Great idea to create this self esteem workbook. It can turn out to be a really useful tool to boost self esteem. Thank you for sharing ?
Thank you ?
Great article. We all can do with a higher self esteem at times, as long as we don’t overdo it.
Indeed
Great tips, this is interesting book! Definitely need to learn to accept ourselves and mistakes. Learn from them and grow
Indeed we do
I love that you have designed your own workbook! I find that making something based off your own experiences helps shape a workbook that is more helpful and relatable. The sections in the book sound beautifully organized and presented, and I love that you have included exercises to complete. >3
Thank you kindly ☺️
Low self esteem can really have a negative impact on our mental health and wellbeing, I like the look of these self esteem worksheets x
Lucy | http://www.lucymary.co.uk
I’m glad you like the look of them
This is a wonderful way to share what you know to support others. Yes, blogging does that but when you create something that the reader has to take part in themselves make it go to another level. Congratulations on this. I know it will reach and help many.
Thank you very much ?
Self-compassion helps improve your self-esteem. ❤️
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This is so amazing. I have a very low self-esteem so I totally see how this can be helpful. I am currently working on a anxiety help book where I entry my daily notes and fill out the sheets. I love the examples in the workbook and I love your answers. It is so nice to hear that you do not keep a social media count and you simply focus on interaction. That’s the most important part of social media. To be honest, I do check my numbers on social media, but I am not crazy about them just yet. I prefer to focus more on the people as well as keeping up with the stats.
I have a post that is coming up soon about my notes on the anxiety book so this is why I loved reading this post. It is so nice to hear that you are working on yourself. I love when people better themselves. It is so wonderful.
It’s always good to take some time to work on self development
Great post! Thanks for reminding me that false thoughts cause low self esteem, and thank you for the workbook recommendation. My daughter and I need this.
Thanks for commenting
This post helps me to think about self-esteem, I didn’t knew how much I needed it. Keep sharing.
Blog- https://jenyscloset.wixsite.com/jenyscloset/post/self-made-slip-dress
Thanks for commenting
Congratulations on the workbook! This would be such a helpful tool for everyone as self esteem is something I think we mostly struggle at one point in life. Love the covers you made for it ! x
Thank you ?
This looks like an incredibly thorough resource. I’d like to be able to provide it to my counseling clients. Do you have a digital version available for clients with sdisabilities or those made anxious by collecting physical objects, et cetera?
It’s a digital PDF download so the workbook can be filled in with Adobe by using the ‘Fill & Sign’ tool
Great read! Self esteem is so important to learn and I bet this workbook will be useful to someone in the future.
Thank you ?
A workbook sounds like such a good idea and a worthwhile activity to take time on. Our self-esteem is pretty much central to all aspects of our wellbeing and it can be hard to sometimes know how to protect it, nourish it and heal it. Having some guidance is so helpful — thank you so much for sharing this!
Indeed
I loved this post on self esteem. Having a good self esteem is so important. And the idea of a self esteem work book is fantastic to say the least. Our self esteem affects our lives in more ways than we can imagine from helping us make the right decisions for ourselves to making sure we don’t settle for less. Having a high self esteem is extremely important. Thank you for sharing. x
Indeed it does, yet we often don’t give it enough thought or care
Wow! You always put so much work into all of your blog posts and now this new workbook – great job.
Thank you
I LOVE THIS IDEA!! never thought about a workbook so great !
shy -https://www.shyyshianne.com/
Thanks
As someone who has struggled with self-esteem and being a people pleaser for some time now, I really appreciated reading this. I think your workbook is going to be a GREAT resource for so, so many people!
Thank you. Yeah, I’ve struggled with those things as well for a very long time
I think this is just wonderful. Fingers crossed that you get lots of interest!
Thank you ?
I’ve struggled with self-esteem issues and related perfectionism/people-pleasing too, so this looks like a really helpful guide. I like being able to see an overview of the different sections and their purposes.
People-pleasing can be a hard habit to give up, but so worth while for your self-esteem when you do
This sounds like an incredible resource that you have created. I live your writing style so I imagine your workbook is equally user friendly.
Congratulations!
Thank you ?
What a great idea to create a workbook! And really helpful for your readers. I used to have low self esteem up until a couple of years ago but have managed to boost it a bit. I love the covers you designed for your workbook too. Really great job!
Thank you ?
This self esteem workbook sounds amazing, something we all should focus on more! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks
Self care always needs to be a priority. This workbook sounds interesting!
Thank you
wow! this is a really amazing thing you’ve put together and i hope it will be able to help people with self esteem issues
Thank you ?
The self-esteem workbook is a really great idea. Low self-esteem is one of those underlying issues that it can be hard to pick out. Doing reflection on your daily interactions seems like a really clever way of helping you understand yourself more!
Indeed
Great idea, this workbook looks awesome. I’m used to write them on my laptop though. I would love to get it though. Thank you for sharing!
Self-esteem is something that I’ve always struggled with so I’m going to save this post and come back to it when I have some spare time and purchase the workbook and work through it over maybe 6 weeks, this is something I really want to try because I’ve not found anything yet that has helped build me up. Thank you for creating the workbook, it looks and sounds incredible!
I hope you find some benefits from it
I am a sucker for self improvement and find this post incredibly beneficial. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for commenting
I personally have days where I feel like my self esteem is so low and I don’t want to go out and be around people. Then I have moments where my self esteem is great and I feel like I can go out. I have been trying to gain more self esteem.
It’s often an ongoing process
Just what I Need. Thanks for the tips.
Thank you
Absolutely fantastic resources that will be very helpful – thank you for sharing them! xx
Thank you 😊
Great article!
Thanks