Self-esteem: what it is and how to build it
Self-esteem is the overall opinion you hold of yourself — how much you value and accept who you are. Low self-esteem is not an illness, but it makes life harder: people with it avoid challenges, dismiss praise and judge themselves harshly, and over time it raises the risk of depression and anxiety. It often starts with early experiences such as constant criticism, comparison or bullying. Simply telling people they are wonderful does not fix it. What helps is testing harsh self-beliefs, building real skills, setting limits with others and treating yourself with the kindness you would show a friend.
Health writers · Aslam Clinic
Self-esteem is the opinion you hold of yourself — whether, overall, you see yourself as a person of worth. When it is healthy, you can feel good about your strengths, admit your weaknesses without collapsing, and cope with setbacks. When it is low, you tend to see yourself, your future and other people's reactions more negatively, and to avoid the very challenges that could change that view.
Low self-esteem — what many people in Pakistan call ehsas-e-kamtari — is not a mental illness. It is common, it usually has understandable roots, and it can change. But it is not trivial either: it makes and more likely, and it quietly shapes decisions about study, work and marriage.
Self-esteem, confidence and arrogance
These are often confused. Self-confidence is trust in a particular skill — you can be confident at cricket and unconfident at public speaking. Self-esteem is your global sense of worth. And very high, loud self-regard is not the same as healthy self-esteem: a major 2003 review by Roy Baumeister and colleagues pointed out that people scoring high on self-esteem include both those who frankly accept their good qualities and those who are defensive, conceited or narcissistic. Healthy self-esteem is quieter and steadier. It does not need to win every comparison, and it is a different thing from , which is inflated but brittle.
Signs of low self-esteem
- A harsh inner voice — calling yourself stupid, useless or ugly
- Brushing off compliments and remembering every criticism
- Avoiding challenges, new people or opportunities in case you fail
- Apologising constantly, or struggling to say no
- Putting everyone else's needs first and feeling resentful afterwards
- Constantly comparing yourself with siblings, cousins, classmates or people online
- Believing that people will leave or look down on you once they ‘really know’ you
The NHS notes that avoidance gives short-term relief but, over time, reinforces self-doubt, because you never collect evidence that you could have coped.
Low self-esteem or depression?
The two overlap, and each feeds the other. A 2013 analysis of long-term studies by Julia Sowislo and Ulrich Orth found that low self-esteem predicts later depression more strongly than depression predicts later low self-esteem — although both directions exist. The practical difference is shown below.
| Low self-esteem | Depression |
|---|---|
| A long-standing way of seeing yourself | A change from how you usually feel |
| Mood can still lift with good news or good company | Low mood most of the day, nearly every day, for two weeks or more |
| You still enjoy things, even if you doubt yourself | Loss of interest or pleasure () |
| Sleep, appetite and energy usually unaffected | Changes in sleep, appetite and energy are common |
| Responds to self-help and CBT-based work | Needs assessment; treated with talking therapy and sometimes medicine |
Where low self-esteem comes from
The NHS lists childhood messages from parents, teachers and peers, struggling to meet expectations, stress, traumatic events such as bereavement, and traits such as perfectionism or a habit of negative thinking. Melanie Fennell, an Oxford clinical psychologist, built these into a model that underpins most for low self-esteem.
- Early experiences — criticism, neglect, bullying, being compared, or never quite matching what the family valued.
- The ‘bottom line’ — a global conclusion drawn from them, such as ‘I am not good enough’ or ‘I am unlovable’.
- Rules for living — ways of protecting yourself from that belief, such as ‘I must never fail’, ‘I must please everyone’ or ‘I must never show weakness’.
- Triggers — when a rule is broken (a bad mark, a rejected rishta, a critical remark), the bottom line is switched on and brings anxious predictions and self-criticism.
Some triggers are particular to Pakistani family life: marks compared with cousins' in front of relatives; comments on skin colour, weight or height, especially in the rishta process; daughters measured by marriage prospects and sons by earnings. None of these are the person's fault, and naming them helps.
What the self-esteem movement got wrong
From the 1970s onwards, schools and self-help books in the West set out to raise self-esteem directly, on the belief that it would improve grades, behaviour and happiness. Baumeister's 2003 review for the Association for Psychological Science tested that belief. It found that self-esteem was only modestly linked to school performance and did not seem to cause it, and there was little evidence that boosting self-esteem through school programmes or therapy produced the promised benefits. The authors suggested that praise should reward real effort, good behaviour and self-improvement rather than being handed out regardless.
The lesson is not that self-esteem is unimportant. It is that telling someone they are wonderful does not change the beliefs underneath. Self-worth that depends on beating others, or on constant reassurance, is fragile — it rises with every win and crashes with every loss.
Self-compassion: a steadier alternative
Psychologist Kristin Neff describes self-compassion as having three parts: being kind to yourself when you fail rather than harshly critical; recognising that struggle and imperfection are part of being human, not proof you are uniquely flawed; and holding painful feelings in balanced awareness () rather than being swallowed by them.
Neff's 2023 review of the research reports that, compared with self-esteem, self-compassion is linked with steadier self-worth that depends less on appearance, performance and approval, and with less social comparison. Trials of self-compassion training show improvements in depression, anxiety and stress. Much of this work relies on questionnaires and comes from researchers who champion the idea, so the size of the benefit may be smaller than claimed, but the direction is consistent. Many people of faith find the idea familiar: being merciful to yourself is not the same as excusing wrongdoing.
How CBT treats low self-esteem
CBT based on Fennell's model helps you identify your bottom line and rules for living, notice the biased predictions and that keep them alive, test them in small real-world experiments, and gradually build a more balanced view of yourself. A 2018 meta-analysis found large improvements in both self-esteem and depression in trials of weekly individual or group CBT built on this model, although only a handful of studies were available.
Practical exercises
Looking after the basics also helps: regular sleep, physical activity and time with people who treat you well. These are not cures, but low self-esteem is harder to shift when you are exhausted and isolated.
When to get help
See a doctor or psychologist if you have felt worthless or hopeless most days for two weeks or more; if you have stopped enjoying things; if you are cutting, starving or otherwise harming yourself; or if low self-worth is keeping you in a relationship where you are being hurt or controlled.
Common questions
Still not sure what to do?
Reading about a symptom only goes so far. A doctor who can ask you questions and examine you will get further in ten minutes than any article can.
