What Are the Benefits of High Self-Esteem?

With poor self-esteem, life can be difficult at its best. Fortunately, we can improve our self-esteem. If you are willing to take the time to work at developing your self-esteem, there are many benefits.

You will feel happier about life. When you feel more positive about yourself, it is only natural that you will be able to cope with life and its interesting twists and turns better. When you have high self-esteem, you can maintain an “I can do it” or “I can get through it” type of attitude. People with high self-esteem live by Reverend Robert Schuller’s words, “Tough times never last, but tough people do.”

You are more motivated and ambitious. People with high self-esteem tend to set more goals and seem to accomplish more with their lives. These same people have the feeling that they make a difference in their world. Whether it be their work environment, their families, or their civic accomplishments, people with high self-esteem know they make a positive difference.

You will have better relationships. When you have high self-esteem, you tend to treat others better. You can do this easily because you feel good about yourself. When you treat others better, they will treat you better in return. When you have high self-esteem, it dictates what relationships you will even enter into. If you are treated poorly by someone, your self-esteem thermostat will tell you that you deserve to be treated better and you will look elsewhere for your rewards.

You will live life more humorously. Have you ever had an incident in your life that devastated you? Maybe it was a relationship that soured, an embarrassing situation, or a task that you did not perform as well as you would have liked. Usually, when one of these situations occurs, we feel terrible. We feel like we failed! Then, as time passes, we slowly start to see the situation as humorous. In fact, years later, we can sit around the dinner table and share the entire incident in the form of a joke. The benefit of having high self-esteem is that you have the ability to see the humor sooner.

You will be more open to change and risktaking. Whether it is new ideas, situations, opportunities, or challenges, high self-esteem makes you more willing to experience new things. Anything new requires learning. Along with learning comes mistakes. People with high self-esteem look at mistakes as learning and use this learning to grow. Sir Thomas Watson of IBM once said, “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate!”

You will be more open to criticism. Supervisors with low self-esteem do not have the ability to listen or accept feedback from their employees. When you have high self-esteem, you will find it easier to accept feedback from others. You recognize their responses as a learning experience and incorporate what you learn to make yourself a better person. People with low self-esteem spend their time defending their actions, blaming others, and making excuses about why things have to be the way they are.

You will be better able to think for yourself.Supervisors with high self-esteem are able to accept the opinions of others, assimilate the information, and form their own definite feelings, opinions, and positions. With high self-esteem, you have a strong sense of what is right and wrong and that makes your decision making an easier process. With strong self-esteem, you will find it easier to be more assertive and stick up for what you believe is right.

You will have the ability to accept people, including yourself, as they are, not as you would like them to be. When you have high self-esteem, you have the ability to walk in the other person’s moccasins. With high self-esteem, you will not feel a strong need to change your life for another person’s approval. You will also be less inclined to try to change others.