Do you lie awake at night worrying about mistakes you may have made at work? Imagining your boss annoyed and overlooking you for the promotion? Or perhaps you take work home with you because the thought of getting behind on an impossible deadline fillls you with dread. But then you just end up tired at work the next day and at risk of making more mistakes. If so you might be creating a vicious cycle due to low self esteem.
What is Self Esteem?
Self Esteem describes how a person perceives themselves such as their personal qualities, skills, attractiveness but also includes whether they feel loveable and worthy as a person. Low self esteem means that a person has a low opinion of themselves for example, feeling there is something wrong with them or that they are not as good as others. It can mean lacking in confidence about their skills and abilities or feeling that they are only worthy of love if they behave in a certain way.
What are the signs of low self esteem?
If you struggle with stress at work due to low self esteem its possible its affecting you in other areas of your life too. Here are some common signs:
- Wondering what people think of you.
- Comparing yourself to others
- Finding hard to say no
- Struggle to prioritise your needs
- Being very self critical over small mistakes
- Putting pressure on yourself to do everything correctly (perfectionism)
- Needing to achieve certain things in order to feel good about yourself.
- Assuming people are judging you or have an bad opinion of you.
- Struggling in relationships because you do not feel loveable
Why do I have low self esteem?
Low self esteem can have a variety of causes but often it is due to environmental factors such as:
- Parents who were critical, abusive or emotionally distant
- Bullying at school
- Problems at work such as losing your job
- Social media which creates unrealistic expectations and images of people
- Major life changes such as loss of a relationship or ill health.
However, it is also very common to not recall diffcult experiences but still struggle with low self esteem.
How can I improve low self esteem to reduce work stress?
It can be a good idea to seek therapy to improve improve self esteem, particularly if due to stressful childhood experiences but it can be possible to use self help tools and work on it yourself.
Challenge thoughts: This technique comes from Cognitive Behaviourial Theray and involves looking for evidence for the thoughts you are having. Most of the time we think in a certain way because our brains are programmed to jump to conclusions and assume the worst but not based on actual evidence. For example, what evidence do you have that your boss thinks you are bad at your job? How realistic is if that you will get fired for making a mistake?
Mindfulness helps us to give space to difficult thoughts and feelings. Often if we have low self esteem we will be caught up in ruminating with unhelpful, self critical thoughts which make us feel worse. Mindfulness can help you take a step back from them.
Self Compassion We are often more critical of ourselves than other people. If you are giving yourself a hard time pause and ask yourself what you would say to a friend
Develop healthier core belief. Often at the route of low self esteem in relation to work stress is only feeling “good enough” if we do well. So the possibility of making a mistake feels really uncomfortable because deep down it makes us feel like a bad person. Bring attention to this and ask whether these are values you truly agree with. For example, do you think that loved ones are only valuable if they do well at work? If not then why are you applying this value to your own life.
Be realistic Its easy to compare ourselves to others and assume we don’t measure up but we are usually never comparing like with like. For example if you are new to a job do not compare yourself to people who have been there years and expect to be as good as them.
How can I access therapy for low self esteem?
If you are experiencing work stress and feel that therapy for self esteem will help then we can work on this together using the above techniqes. Visit my main page to find out more about this or contact me now to arrange a free consultation.
