First of all, what is self-esteem? It’s complex for kids, adults – basically everyone. Self-esteem is a person’s confidence in themselves that is likely at a different level compared to how others see them.
Healthy self-esteem is what everyone wishes to have – confidence in their ideas, abilities, and their realistic expectations. Many individuals in human society, myself included, have often gone off-balance in this concept. You may lean too far in one direction and develop low self-esteem: having no confidence in yourself with the feeling of being worthless. Or, you may lean too far in the other direction and develop narcissistic traits.
I was always comparing myself to others – how I write, how I draw, and how hard I work. The problem was that I rarely compared myself to how I was before. Instead, I was comparing myself to successful people or really skilled students. I’m not saying that comparing yourself to others is always bad, it can be a healthy way to achieve self-improvement. But when taking it too far, it’ll backfire and ruin one’s self-image.
So your faith in yourself broke, what now? To be honest, I’m still asking that to myself. But if there’s one thing I know that could give you a push, it’s to try challenging your negative thoughts. It’s fairly common to have unkind thoughts boasting about how “awful” you are or how “you’ll never succeed.” I initially thought of responding to myself with, “I’m not awful, you are awful!” and “you are me, so never mind!” But how about this? Start treating yourself like a friend instead. Even better if you tend to put your friends before yourself since you can put yourself at the same level as you put your friends. So as soon as those terrible thoughts start bashing you, ask yourself, “Is this how you would talk to a friend?” The answer is “no”, of course. Otherwise, it’s much more than your self-esteem that you have to improve at the moment.
Now, here comes the more difficult part: Once again, quit comparing yourself to others. The person you should compare yourself to is your former self. View your previous works, see how much you’ve improved and I am sure that will drive you to improve right away. The comparison of yourself to the more “successful” individuals did the opposite for me; it destroyed my confidence.
For instance, you’ve decided to improve your drawing skills. You may feel tempted to view your skills as inferior to the professional artists on social media, always feeling like your worth has been reduced to a mere ant. But let’s get back to reality here; the amazing people on social media all started from zero. Their success is the result of hours in skill polishing and hours in studying with talent only affecting the rate of their skill development. All they post on YouTube is the result, they likely won’t show the long process behind that result, and all you will see is the result. It’s only a matter of time for you to take the remaining steps to the podium with them if you’re willing to stare at the previous steps you’ve already taken, already conquered.
Art and writing by Marcus Liang – Year 11
