Every situation has a silver lining – discover a mindset that heals and enlightens.
October 11, 2021 · 7 min read
You're always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company. - Diane Von Furstenberg
“This looks too hopeless for it to work out”
“There’s almost no chance I’m going to pull this through”
“I’ve no idea where to start from and where it will lead me to”
Such sayings are signs of low self-esteem and having too little trust in yourself. Most certainly, we face some difficult situations that can look very unpromising.
However, having faith in yourself will always pay off and you’ll end up in a much better place than without even giving it a try.
Can good self-esteem help you through difficult situations?
Good self-esteem can help you through difficult situations even if they look hopeless. A person with good self-esteem will always try to overcome a difficult situation because he doesn’t want to end up in a place that a person with low self-esteem would.
Without good self-esteem you won’t be able to achieve goals, overcome fears and your obstacles in general. Confidence is the foundation of positive thoughts and happy outlook of the world.
People that have trust in themselves won’t hide. Instead, they’ll face the problem and will cope with it.
10 signs of good self-esteem
People that have good self-esteem might have a few or majority of these signs:
- Taking initiative
- Not being offended easily
- Not ignoring mistakes and learning from them
- Ability to take criticism
- Helping others instead of misleading on purpose
- Not being afraid to ask for help
- Positive self-talk
- Accepting possible failures
- Not comparing themselves with others
- Taking ownership of their own lives
What affects good self-esteem?
Good self-esteem is influenced by many factors, but here are the main ones:
- Mental and physical health. People who have problems with their self-image will always lack self-esteem and won’t be able to cope with their fears. Other mental factors like stress, anxiety, depression have also a negative toll on your self-esteem.
In addition, being physically ill, such as having issues with walking, being unfit, and having excess weight will always have a detrimental negative impact on your self-esteem.
- Relationships. Being surrounded by like-minded self-esteemed people will boost your likelihood to be just like others. Besides, having a supportive family, friends will help you to feel better and trust yourself more. Likewise, having the opposite relationships will have corresponding results.
- Traumatizing events. If you have ever experienced negative events that are still daunting you to this day, you might be lacking self-esteem. Definitely, there are exceptions when traumatizing events make people even stronger and exceptional self-esteem wise. However, this factor does have an influence on confidence and should be kept in mind.
The better you feel about yourself, the less you feel the need to show off. - Robert Hand
- Media. Social media, local and global news have a big toll on our self-esteem. Seeing influencers on vacation trips, living in big mansions, enjoying luxury, etc., has a negative impact on your self-esteem. You’ll start having negative self-talk and start questioning why that’s not you. Contradicting news also provoke a lot of negative thoughts. Therefore, be mindful of media’s impact.
How do I improve my self-esteem?
You improve your self-esteem through simple achievements. Your every success makes you have more trust in your abilities and skills.
That’s the shortest answer.
The long answer is not as simple. To be fair, you’ll have to be very mindful of what you do in the present and what have you already achieved in the past. Whenever you accomplish a goal, you have to note that in your mind.
Other points that you must do:
- Get rid of “I’m not good enough” mentality.
- Find a role model.
- Accept feedback.
- Seek for knowledge.
- Work on your essential communication skills.
- Don’t be a perfectionist.
- Stay positive.
I have to touch a very important topic – perfectionism. While in some scenarios that’s good, but generally speaking hurts your self-esteem. The bigger perfectionist you are, the more you let yourself down. Try to avoid that and give your best without having the perfect expectations.
10 Ways Good Self-Esteem Can Help You Through Difficult Situations
1. You believe in your strengths
People who have high self-esteem are leveraging their strengths to their advantage. To put it simply, knowing what you are good at can help you greatly in your relationships, career, communication, and other areas.
For example, if you are very proficient at persuading, you can use this skill to earn new clients, motivate friends, colleagues, and similar. Such strength is very beneficial and can be adapted to almost every life area.
Therefore, if you are facing a difficult situation, using your strengths to your advantage will greatly reduce the risk of failure. You’ll make sure that you are doing everything in your power to achieve success.
Definitely, knowing how to play very well a musical instrument won’t help you to make sales or win an argument.
Therefore, it’s very important to section your strengths to general and narrow.
General strengths are those that can be used for many life situations. Such strengths are usually “people skills” that are called soft skills, such as:
- Creativity.
- Teamwork.
- Adaptability.
- Time management.
- Problem solving skills.
… and many others. Try to differentiate your general skills and see what you are good at.
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. - William James
Narrow skills are usually limited to where you can utilize them, such as:
- Hairdressing.
- Good truck driving skills.
- Playing well piano.
… and similar skills. Such skills work well usually only in that particular field. However, there are of course some exceptions, such as being an engineer that helps you to solve problems faster and more efficiently.
2. You are more efficient in decision-making
Whenever you face problems and difficult situations, good-self esteem helps you to solve them more decisively.
It’s natural that if you don’t trust yourself, you make decisions slower and not so confidently. Such habit might harm you, especially if other people can see your reaction to your decision, for example, in a classroom, conference room.
However, social media has it’s own dark side.
Having faith in yourself helps you to keep things in perspective. If the outcome doesn’t necessarily come like you planned, you still believe in yourself and are not afraid to adapt and steer the wheel to your advantage.
This point brings us to the next advantage.
3. You manage anxiety better
It’s nearly impossible to stay calm all the time, especially when difficult situations come along.
That’s when good self-esteem can help you through difficult situations, such as anxiety, stress, or fear of missing out.
A person’s worth in this world is estimated according to the value they put on themselves. - Jean De La Bruvere
Let’s admit it. Anxiety is a feeling that just drives everyone around. Our mind wanders and can’t seem to find peace. It’s just an awful feeling in general.
However, our confidence can put everything in perspective:
- Is the situation really that bad for me to be anxious?
- Is there a situation that I couldn’t handle with my strengths?
- How being anxious can benefit me anyway?
- What’s the worst that could happen?
Once we have a perception that we can endure the failure and survive it, we have the power to overcome it. Not only we get our problem out of the way, but by overcoming it we become stronger. It’s essential for our personal growth.
4. You are more creative
Due to your self-esteem, you can pivot your strengths in a creative way. People that have a healthy self-esteem are not narrow-minded and find ways to adapt to the situation. They possess innovative thinking.
Creativity is another trait that helps to solve problems. Instead of having a linear approach, you can approach problem from different angles. When you face a difficult situation, you learn better on your own.
To utilize your creativity, you have to be prepared to be vulnerable, unless you really know what you are doing. This simple reason justifies the correlation between self-esteem and creativity – they are directly linked to each other. The more creativity you have, the more confident you are.
5. You don’t run away
People with low self-esteem might run away from their problems.
For example, if you know you’ll have to do a presentation on a certain day, some people might bail out and use excuse, such as being ill or having to do some other urgent things.
Morale is self esteem in action. - Avery Weisman
People with low self-esteem prefer comfort. In fact, most of us do. However, it’s a matter of a healthy mindset to realize what’s the best for you. The reality of life is that you must face your difficult situations and deal with them. That’s the only way to achieve success and not to be mediocre.
6. You don’t procrastinate (or procrastinate less)
It’s a very common mistake to keep on delaying a hard task.
This happens usually because of not having enough self-esteem to cope with that task quickly and efficiently.
However, procrastination is eliminated with a healthy self-esteem. The best way to cope with difficult situations is to eliminate them immediately. The longer we wait, the more anxious we become, which puts stress on other important things in our life.
For example, if you are delaying making a call for your dream job interview, that thought will be haunting you for days if not weeks. This will have an impact and stress on your other activities. You won’t be able to focus well and your productivity will plummet.
Therefore, developing a good self-esteem is important to avoid procrastination and live a less stressful life.
7. You stay positive
10% of happiness depends on environment and 90% of happiness depends on how you perceive it.
Truth is that we chase for success. Only then we allow ourselves to be happy.
However, the reality is that once a task is achieved, we are happy only for a short period of time. Then we thrive to achieve a more difficult task and our standard of happiness increases.
Low self esteem is like driving through life with your hand-break on. - Maxwell Maltz
The secret of happiness is to enjoy the present. Healthy self-esteem allows us to enjoy present because it allows to grasp more freedom and not to worry too much.
Even if we face difficult situations, we always know that everything will turn out alright.
8. You take ownership of a difficult situation
You might ask: “how being an owner of a difficult situation is in any way good?”
The answer is that you are in control and the outcome depends mainly on you. Whenever you leave a difficult situation for someone else, you risk facing a failure.
Definitely, even if the outcome depends only on you, it’s still possible that the task will be failed. However, at least you won’t feel hopeless and you’ll feel in control of the situation. It creates a sense of security and comfort.
Here’s an informational and interesting video about self-accountability:
9. You acknowledge your good qualities
Good qualities are the foundation of your personality.
The more you recognize that you are good at something or that you have positive personal qualities, the better you can cope with difficult life situations.
A very simple example is personal quality of perseverance. Most of the time why people fail to establish their business within the first year is because they give up. They can’t grasp the result and their patience runs out.
Acknowledging your good qualities and holding onto them can help you through difficult moments.
10. You are not afraid to ask for help
Good self-esteem allows people to go over their ego and ask for others’ advice.
In my scenario I didn’t want to ruin my reputation (or that’s what I thought at the time). I didn’t want to bother anyone with my questions. I thought that my questions are too silly and I’ll look dumb.
However, I was fighting in my head. The biggest fears and obstacles were not the other people. It was me.
Be everything to you, not everything to everybody. - Lisa Lieberman-Wang
Therefore, the faster you get over yourself, the better you can cope with challenges. Everyone will gladly help you if you just ask kindly.
The secret of getting through difficult situations is to seek for help. Mentorship and learning from others’ mistakes will allow you to cope with challenges faster and more efficient.
Final Words From Delightful Mindset
Good self-esteem can definitely help you get through difficult situations in many ways. You must not only be mindful that you are self-esteem, but also about the privileges that you get. It’s very simple to forget and be grateful for who you are.
Difficult situations should be perceived as an opportunity to get more experience and become a stronger person.
Certainly, one difficult situation is not equal to another. Whatever it is – don’t lose hope and faith in yourself. You are your own goldsmith of your life.