Your Relationships: With Others. With Yourself.
I have good news, and I have bad news. Unconditional self-esteem is very hard to come by, for all of us. And it is incredibly important. When you value yourself extrinsically — based on your performance through life, what others tell you, or the things you have — you are conditioned upon those external factors. Have a good performance, get smiled at, buy a Jaguar: you feel good. Have a bad performance the next day, someone glares at you, you can’t afford that Rolex: you feel bad. That is no way to go through life. And per globally recognized experts and research, it’s very unhealthy to have external-based esteem.
Previous research and theory (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001; Kernis, 2003) suggests that adaptive self-esteem stems from just being oneself, and is characterized by a sense of authenticity. Maladaptive self-esteem is derived from meeting external standards and social comparisons, and is characterized by a sense of superiority.
That sense of superiority we have all seen. At minimum it’s incredibly annoying. But it also kills relationships, both interpersonal and professional. And it’s hard to overcome once it sets in, because it is a self-enforcing loop. The more you feel it, the less likely you are to see it, or to read and believe something like the above. The more people need to come down from feeling superior, the less likely they will hear that message. Psychology as a field has done a great job of helping people come from down to up — but a terrible job of helping people go from up to down, from grandiose to balanced and healthy.
So what’s the good news? There is a way out. I recently had the great fortune to speak with a world-recognized therapist and author who focuses on the up to down need. Terry Real’s book I Don’t Want To Talk About It has been on the best-selling list for over 20 years. He has been featured on 20/20, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Oprah, The New York Times, and many more.
If you are having self-doubts, if people in your life treat you as inferior, please give it a listen. It’s under 40 minutes. If you know someone who masks their insecurities (and we all have them) by treating others as inferior, maybe find a good, pleasant way to share with them too. Because at the end of the day, none of us are “better” or “worse” humans. We are all in this life together as equals.