It’s not our job to fix someone else’s low self-esteem — even if we choose to partner them.
However, recognizing the signs can help us understand their sensitivities, avoid triggering their insecurities, and help open up conversations about vulnerability, self-esteem, and direct communication.
Sometimes, we misattribute all these signs to selfishness, narcissism, or any number of other negative characteristics and fail to recognize them as signs of low self-worth.
For those who now realize these behaviors are indicative of low self-esteem, there is hope.
Here’s how to fix your low self-esteem:
- Avoid self-deprecating humor and pay attention to the kind you use. You may have an area of your life that needs attention and healing.
- Ask directly for support from partners and friends rather than complaining or seeking out indirect support. Experts have found that indirect bids for attention often garner negative reactions rather than loving support.
- Allow yourself the opportunity to celebrate your achievements without picking apart any possible mistakes you might have made.
- Assess your need for outside validation. How can you sometimes meet this need for yourself?
- Learn to listen to constructive feedback. Realize that someone’s honesty is an attempt to heal and continue a relationship with you, not an attack.
- Remember that life is not a competition. There’s no need to compare yourself to anyone else or to feel jealous of them. In fact, doing so will only guarantee you unhappiness.
- Practice being a positive support for other people. Celebrate their wins. Allow grace for their failures. Embrace their imperfections — along with your own.
- Learn to trust your own inner knowing without having to rely on outside advice. Over time, this will become easier.
- Learn to redirect your thoughts when you find them drifting to criticism, comparison, second-guessing, and over-thinking. Your mind can be a beautiful tool or your worst enemy. You decide which it will be.
- Practice being real rather than being right or looking right. Practicing authenticity even when you’re struggling can help you check the impulse to hide your vulnerability in favor of making everything look good. You’ll find that people appreciate you more when you’re real and raw more than they ever will when you just give the impression of perfection.
- Look for silver linings. Stop waiting all the time for the other shoe to fall.
- Address your low self-esteem and any resulting anxiety in therapy. It’s not a failure to ask for help. In fact, it could be your greatest strength.
- Utilize positive affirmations and a gratitude practice to help focus on the good in your life rather than dwelling on and anticipating the bad.
Signs of Low Self-Esteem in a Man: Final Thoughts
Low self-esteem can be terribly painful — for the people who suffer from it and for the people who love them.
