Do you sometimes feel like you’re not good enough, attractive enough or smart enough? You can achieve a lot and function well in everyday life, yet still doubt yourself and your own worth.

When your self-esteem is low, it can feel scary to show your true self. You may look to others for recognition rather than trusting that you’re good enough as you are.

Low self-esteem can make you more self-conscious

You may worry about what other people think of you. Perhaps you try too hard to be liked or try to please everyone. Your inner critic can quickly take up more space. Negative thoughts like “I’m not good enough” or “Nobody likes me” can start to feel true, even when they aren’t necessarily true.

Low self-esteem can show up in many different ways. Becoming more aware of how you think about yourself and the patterns you fall into can help you understand how your self-esteem affects you.

Self-esteem and self-confidence – what’s the difference?

Self-esteem and confidence are often connected, but they’re not the same thing.

Confidence is about what you believe you can do. You might feel confident at work, for example, but feel unsure when giving a speech or doing something you’ve never done before.

Self-esteem is about your sense of worth as a person, regardless of what you achieve. You can therefore be confident and achieve a lot, yet still wonder whether you’re good enough as you are.

In Mindfit, you can get to know yourself better, recognize your patterns, and train yourself to notice more of what’s good – what you achieve and what you like about yourself.

Signs of low self-esteem

Low self-esteem can show up in different ways. Perhaps you recognise some of these:

• You put yourself down and are critical of yourself, often without even noticing it.
• You become very focused on what other people think of you.
• You seek recognition from others and try hard to be liked.
• You tend to please everyone, even when it comes at the expense of your own needs.
• You find it difficult to accept praise or feel good about what you’ve achieved.
• You notice what went wrong more than what went well.
• You quickly feel like you’ve failed when you make a mistake or can’t do something.
• You may interpret a critical look or comment as a sign that you’re not good enough.

You don’t need to recognise yourself in all of these. But if several feel familiar, they may be signs that you’re struggling with low self-esteem.

Negative thoughts and low self-esteem often go together

When you have low self-esteem, it can be easier to notice the things that confirm what you already believe about yourself.

Perhaps you make a mistake and feel like you’ve made a fool of yourself. Instead of thinking, “That didn’t go quite as I’d hoped,” your thoughts quickly become: “I’m stupid”, “I never get anything right” or “I’m not good enough”.

You become more focused on everything you don’t get right. The situation becomes evidence for what you already believe about yourself.

When this happens again and again, it can develop into core beliefs about yourself – thoughts and beliefs about who you are that can eventually start to feel like truths.

You become more likely to notice the things that confirm these beliefs, while praise, achievements and the things you actually do well get less attention.

What can you do if you have low self-esteem?

You can work on how you think and feel about yourself. Good self-esteem isn’t about thinking positively all the time. It’s about accepting yourself and knowing that you have worth as a person – even when you make mistakes or don’t get everything right.

Your inner dialogue plays an important role. What do you say to yourself when something goes wrong? What thoughts come up when you feel unsure of yourself or not good enough?

When your self-esteem is low, it’s easy to focus more on what didn’t work than on what you actually achieved. You may also interpret a comment or a look from someone more negatively than it was intended.

You can practise challenging negative thoughts and your inner critic, and become more aware of the patterns you tend to fall into.

1. Acknowledge yourself as someone with both strengths and weaknesses. You don’t have to be perfect or get everything right to have worth as a person.

2. Challenge negative assumptions about yourself
   Ask yourself: Do I have good reason to think this way? What would I say to a friend in the same situation? 

3. Take up a little more space and show more of who you are
   Don’t always do what you think other people expect of you. Practise saying no when you mean no, setting boundaries and giving more space to what you think and need.

4. Train yourself to notice what you achieve
   Practise noticing moments when someone praises you, when you’ve achieved something or when you’ve helped someone. These experiences can give you a more balanced picture of yourself than the one your inner critic gives you.

How can Mindfit help if you have low self-esteem?

Mindfit gives you tools to help you understand yourself a little better, recognise your patterns and become less self-critical.

In Mindfit you can:

• Get to know your reaction patterns and how you think, feel and act in different situations.
• Challenge negative thoughts and practise seeing situations from different perspectives.
• Train yourself to notice what you achieve, appreciate and are grateful for.

Mindfit was developed in Norway in collaboration with a clinical psychologist specialist and is based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), positive psychology and EMDR-inspired techniques.