Healthy self-esteem - isn’t it great? In general, instead of the word “self-esteem” I prefer the word “self-worth”, it gives some other color to the phenomenon: not evaluating oneself (you can give yourself a bad mark), but realizing one’s own worth. And it is self-worth that is healthy self-esteem, not overestimated, not underestimated, but the one to which you need to strive. What is self-esteem Let us first understand what the essence of self-esteem is, why is it even needed? Normally, awareness of one’s own value is a colossal resource that supports and helps to overcome various life difficulties. Healthy self-esteem takes into account not only advantages, but also disadvantages, not only strengths, but also weaknesses. But at the same time, all negative qualities are not perceived as a brick pulling down, but are simply taken into account neutrally or serve as points of growth. Self-esteem allows us not to criticize ourselves, not to scold ourselves for mistakes and failures, but to perceive them as another life lesson from which we can benefit. What is bad about low self-esteem? If a person has low self-esteem, he lives as if constantly making excuses for your existence. He is constantly tormented by thoughts of why he behaves this way and not otherwise, why he said this and not otherwise, why he looks this way and not otherwise. Lying in bed before going to bed, he replays the day's events and dialogues a hundred times, each time finding a reason to consider himself stupid, incompetent, funny. How to recognize low self-esteem? It’s simple: treating yourself from the position of looking for flaws (a sort of Samoyed husky, not a person); these people cannot say “no” to others because they are afraid of losing the favorable attitude of others and categorically do not want to enter into conflict; their life credo is: “what will people say?”, all their actions and words are evaluated by some mythical other people; they ignore their own needs and desires, they are afraid to delve into the thoughts “do I like what I do?”, “is it really not difficult to help ME?”, “how do I feel now?” etc.; the word “sorry” occupies 70% of the vocabulary: I, of course, am exaggerating a little, but this makes it clearer that a person does not just ask for forgiveness if, say, he stepped on your foot, but apologizes in general for something that he stands here, breathes, exists. People with low self-esteem are very comfortable. They strive with all their might not to cause trouble, will easily take on the additional burden of tasks, and will never enter into conflict. But this does not mean that they really like it all. They simply push thoughts about their own comfort into the farthest corner. Low self-esteem makes a person unhappy. What is bad about high self-esteem? It would seem that high self-esteem is cool. You are all on a white horse, in the image of a king... But no. Here, too, not everything is so simple. Since such an individual does not see his shortcomings at all, in his inner mirror he is ideal in everything, and those who disagree are simply jealous, this leads to a number of problems: usually such a person does not have close friends: you must admit, it is difficult to be friends with a person for whom you are obviously in a lower position. At work, the boss for some reason is in no hurry to prostrate himself before his Excellency, does not listen to brilliant ideas and does not forgive mistakes, in general, you cannot count on a promotion; if a person with healthy self-esteem sees points in his shortcomings growth, then a person with high self-esteem already considers himself perfect, that is, he does not strive for self-development, improving the quality of his knowledge and skills; he is not able to accept responsibility for his actions: he is ideal and always does everything right, it is other fools who mess up , they misunderstood him, perceived him, etc. It must be said that to some extent such a person can be successful. His impenetrable self-confidence will open many doors for him. But all this will last until he meets a person on his way who, under a thick layer of tinsel, sees the true content and opens.__________________________________________________________________________