identity development and Self-Esteem Therapy

How do I gain self esteem?

The 4 Step process to gain self esteem starts with understanding how self esteem works and the ideas that are associated with self esteem.

Step 1 Notice what you say to yourself

Gaining self esteem starts with learning that your brain might be wrong when it tells you that you aren’t good enough.

Do you compare yourself to others?

People often ask themselves “How do I gain self esteem?” when they are feeling worthless, have self doubt, or lack self confidence. When you are trying to figure out who you are and answer the questions “How do I gain self esteem?”  “Am I worthless?” and “Am I good enough?” it makes sense that one of the ways you might do that is to compare yourself to others.  When people compare themselves to others they often look at the external signs of worth: Beauty, Success, Wealth, Friends, Family, Esteem of others.  It can feel like these are easy ways to assess your value as a person.  If you answer the question “Am I worthless?” by comparing how much money you make to someone else’s income, you might conclude that you have value only if you about as much or more money than them. Or you could decide “I am good enough” after comparing the prestige of your job with the other person’s as long as your job isn’t too much worse than theirs.  Using these types of comparisons increases self doubt, lowers confidence, and contributes to low self esteem.  Before you add another reason to your list of why you are worthless, hear this: It is not your fault that you feel this way.

Why People Compare Themselves to others

Children in the US learn early to compare themselves to others when they are too young to question the practice.  Before your brain was fully developed, you had probably seen your parents, family members, friends, and even teachers comparing themselves to others or comparing one person to another.  So you learned it was the thing to do and got good at it.  If you learned to judge yourself and others by comparison, that’s great news!  Why is that great?  It means you are capable of learning and adapting.  It means you can learn something new about self worth and decrease self doubt.  It means we at Quality Counseling of New England can help you gain self esteem.

Since childhood, you probably have had many times when you questioned the rules about who is most worthy of love, friendship, and happiness.  It doesn’t make sense that only those people who meet society’s standard of beauty can find love.  It doesn’t make sense that people won’t like you unless you conform.  But our brains have this habit of trying to hold onto the theories we developed when we were kids.  Rather than saying, “This theory is wrong,” our brains say “I found an exception.  This theory is correct, except in this rare occasion.” Voilà! Our brains get to keep the theory that really doesn’t make any sense any more and our brains get to relax, no more stressing about how the theory might be wrong.

Do you judge yourself more critically than other people? 

Here’s the most hurtful exception that leads to low self esteem: Our brains think other people shouldn’t be judged harshly, But that We Should! How can we judge someone faily given all the ways that their life experiences influence their  perspectives and motivations?  In fact, there are so many components that go into making a person who they are that we can’t judge them based on a few external factors.

You might be saying, “right, I try to have compassion for others and know I can’t really judge them based on what little I know about them.”  But when it comes to you, your brain is likely throwing out the exception, the “But it’s different for me.”

Maybe your brain is even saying, “I’m the exception because I know about all the times when I don’t measure up.” That’s your brain doing that pesky habit again, trying to stick to the theory it likes so much.

Step 2 Make an appointment for CBT

We help you to notice when you the exceptions occur and help you to create new theories, theories that better relfect what’s really going on. Schedule a session with one of our CBT counselors. Its as easy as sending us a message through our website, emailing or calling.

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Hear this: It’s just a theory that you don’t measure up.  That low self esteem you feel is because your brain wants to keep doing what it’s doing, judging.

You can teach your brain some new tricks.  You can gain confidence and belief in yourself.  Cognitive Behavioral Therapists like those at Quality Counseling of New England have tools that help your brain learn to new ways to think about yourself.

Step 3 Doubt Conclusions

Noticing and questioning the assumptions your brain wants you to ignore let you counteract jumping to conclusions about yourself. You can turn what seemed like a fact back into a theory by creating doubt.  Little by little, you decrease the belief in the hurtul false belief. Our therapists love this step.

Connect to Partner with your therapist

Step 4 Develop New Impressions

Here’s the best part and another  CBT therapist’s favorite.  Once you doubt your conclusions, you create room for new impressions of yourself.  With your therapist, you create a more accurate understanding of yourself.

A more accurate understanding of yourself Increases Self Esteem

Contact Us to Make New Impressions with CBT