GregFrost


In this day and age, it is not surprising to see how pervasive low self esteem has become. In an age where girls and women alike suffer from some form of eating disorders brought on by issues with their self image, self esteem related problems have definitely become a major issue. In America alone, 20 percent of college women suffer from bulimia. This is the age where many feel the need to be slim and trim and beautiful in order to be accepted by society at large.

The truth is, low self esteem can be caused by a great number of things. Feelings of jealousy, envy, emotional insecurity, loneliness, guilt, and even self pity can contribute to low self esteem. Symptoms of low self esteem include denial, the inability to express one’s feelings, a heavy dependence on others to feel good about one’s self, blaming others for one’s misfortunes, and not having personal boundaries.

Low self esteem is really about not valuing or having high regard for one’s self. People suffering from low self esteem feel inferior, as though they are not in charge of their lives. They feel victimized, ostracized from society, and unimportant to everyone around them. Because it affects their subconscious, low self esteem is really a deep-seated phenomenon that has its origins in one’s formative years as a child, and is often not an easy problem to fix.

People suffering from self pity tend to be manipulative, using their belief of low self worth to get what they want out of other people. They become almost like parasites, clinging onto the good will of others and becoming dependent on them just to get through their lives. Obviously this would breed negativity in any sort of relationship. Similarly, jealousy can also cause negativity when used as a tool of manipulation.

Some might consider the heavy dependence on others a disease, but in all actuality, it is not by definition a disease. It is a condition affecting the emotional and behavioural aspects of a person that is developed over time and learned, and it affects one’s ability of having healthy relationships or any relationships to speak of. Symptoms of this condition include guilt when expressing honest thoughts, giving more than one receives, and suffering from emotional hurt easily when one’s effort is not seen as significant or even recognised.

The factors contributing to emotional insecurity include a lack of a healthy balance between work and family and one’s self, the fear of intimacy with loved ones, and needing some form of validation in life through drama.

Overcoming these symptoms of low self esteem is crucial if you are aiming to live a healthy, well-adjusted life as an adult. If you are unsure of what to do to improve your relationships with those around you and your feelings of insecurity and self worth, always seek help, from loved ones or even a healthcare professional. The number one mistake people tend to make is believing that they can overcome this problem alone. Low self esteem is a condition that is affecting millions around the world every single day, and recognising the symptoms will definitely go a long way in preventing and overcoming the condition.



Anne-Marie

kavita thapliyal


Self Confidence: the key of all Locks

In this age of competition a student has to be very intelligent right from his childhood. In addition to be good in his academics, he requires special skills to establish his identity in this vast unfamiliar land where he has to traverse along.

To endure this prolonged journey of life, one has to develop self-confidence from his infancy. There is a vast difference between confidence and self-confidence. The first lead to the victory on not always being right but also not getting fear to be wrong, and the second is the competence over the complex and dangerous deeds by winning self. Self- confidence is related to your self worth and your value. Confidence is a mental process that arises from considering the capacity, if a person or thing is capable of something. Self-confidence is having confidence in oneself considering a responsibility of commitment and result.

We can never predict what kind of life we are going to have or what circumstances can make us crippled. In order to overcome the unwanted hurdles of our life we need to develop strong self- confidence and clear vision. We should always rise with an appetite to know our inadequacies and zeal for problem solving. We are never born with confidence from our birth as it is well said, “Rome was not built in one day”, and so is the confidence.

The very first step towards success is to stop obsessing about what others think of you. Avoid self-pity, or the pity and sympathy of others. Never allow others to make you feel inferior–they can only do so if you let them room for criticism. Who so ever had tried to do something different must have chased the hard road to toil and thus you can look more confident in long run. This will only be possible when we establish true self-confidence and must concentrate on small steps towards success and forget about the failures and the negatives in our life. So just chill yourself and sincerely target yourself towards destination and hold your head high and stand tall.

To build self confidence, we first need to be regular in our deeds and we should divide our tasks into small steps as in the story “the hare and the tortoise” we all have seen how impossible mission was made possible by the tortoise; the steps were small but the theme was consistency.

The strongest single factor in prosperity of consciousness is self-evaluation: believing you can do it, believing you deserve it, believing you will get it. Self-confidence is the most important factor in our life. It can be multiplied by feeling good, taking responsibility and being accountable to failures. Today we all have made a veil around us and never try to look beyond it and unnecessarily pretend our self with false and negative images. We do generally show that we are over burdened with work and the rest are enjoying the gala days. We need to learn the acceptance of our duty and responsibility and rather than transferring it on the shoulder of others we start accepting to say, “I am responsible ”.

The lamp of faith within us should always get the oil of consistency and there should be no dark clouds of disappointment. The major problem of our failure is that, we keep thinking what we have done is right and we don’t critically express ourselves, where we went wrong. If we really want to conquer diffidence, then we need to defeat greed, hatred and jealousy, as these evils never let us pursue right path in our life.

Everyone is born with strength and weaknesses. We can develop and excel our-self according to our environment and situation by sticking to our principles and we have to be generous enough to accept our failures positively and try to be adventurous enough to define our aim. Trust yourself, know yourself better than you think, stop thinking what is not with you and try chasing what is great in you that others don’t have. The day you start thinking so you’re moving towards creation of self-confidence.

If we look at some great men who achieved success in their life, it is their self-confidence, determination and consistency in their thoughts and achievements. A great man is great in himself and what is in him to be great is his self-confidence. Self –confidence teaches us to dream and leads to attain the goal disregarding; the hurdles come across in our life.

Personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill etc has great mission and it is their self-confidence helped to overcome the problems and attain what they wanted. However you are rich, intelligent and strong, without self-confident you will not cross the tunnel and perhaps you may stand where you stood.

Steps to master Self-Confidence.

•  Tracking inadequacies & Reframing Failures: It is failure that pushes people into depression and insecurities. Find out your failures and start working on it. Have patience and faith within you and take the life the way it comes and be positive.

•  Self Determination : Know your strengths, it alone will do miracles that you even never think off. Learn to evaluate yourself independently. Stronger sense of self will give you a platform and will prevent you from giving your personal power away to others.

•  Lessons from past victories : Learn from your past mistakes, they are lessons for you and focus on your successes encouraging yourself to greater achievements in the future. “Treasure every moment! Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present”!

•  Self Trust: Believe in the best, “Win yourself before winning others”. It needs right acumen, true and sincere approach towards life and consistent commitment towards goal.

Persistence: Persistence is the fifth and final pillar of self-discipline. Persistence allows us to keep taking action even when we don’t feel motivated. So we should always have a zeal for persistence in order to remain in action.

By: Kavita thapliyal