If you didn't tick any of these statements, it means your self‐esteem is probably pretty healthy at the moment. That's great, but remember that self‐esteem isn't something that stays the same; it can change depending on how you're thinking, or what challenges or problems or victories you're facing in life.
The self‐esteem spiral
When something happens to us (it doesn't have to be as major as failing to save the universe — we might get bullied or go through a challenge of some other sort), we either think positively about the situation, or we think negatively.
When we think positively about a situation, we are more likely to make positive choices about how to act or behave. When our actions reflect our positive thoughts, we feel good about ourselves. We feel valuable. This means that our self‐esteem spirals upwards.
If we experience negative thoughts, we tend to act on these thoughts by behaving in ways that aren't good for us or beneficial for those around us. It makes us feel bad about ourselves. We may start feeling like we aren't worthy or valuable. Our self‐esteem spirals downwards.
My story
As a kid, I loved running. Standing on the track, feeling the air fill my lungs and the sun against my skin felt good. Taking off, feeling my muscles engage and my heart beat as my feet pounded the grass felt really good. Passing the finish line first, having everyone cheer me on and winning the race felt really, really, really good. From Years 1 to 3, I was ‘Champion Boy’ and the best runner in my class. I loved being picked to go last in the relay because everyone knows the fastest kid goes last.
Being sporty meant I was automatically popular at school. It also made me feel like I was valuable, liked and accepted.
Things were the opposite at home. Although I knew my parents loved me, the constant yelling and arguing between them was scary and stressful. My big brother Paul was four years older than me, and it felt like I hardly knew him. It doesn't seem like much now that we are older, but four years is a lot when you're a kid.
This photo of me with my brother Paul was taken when he was 10 and I was 6.
Don't get me wrong, there were brief periods when it felt like we were just a normal family (like on Sunday afternoons when we'd sit around together watching Disney movies and eating McDonald's). However, most of the time I felt pretty lonely at home. It didn't feel like I belonged and I didn't feel valuable. So I started looking outwards for a sense of self‐esteem.
At first, running provided me with the sense of value that I was desperately seeking. Then, in Year 4, I had to start taking steroids to treat eczema on my feet (yep, I was on the 'roids at the tender age of nine). Pretty rapidly I stacked on the KGs. The steroids made me supersized. I'd stand on the track at school, acutely aware of my belly beneath the tightly stretched fabric of my green faction t‐shirt (go green!). It felt like everyone was laughing at me. As I took off, I felt my belly jiggle and I'd see other kids overtake me. Passing the finish line, puffing, I'd feel ashamed. I lost the title of Champion Boy. I started finishing second … third … then fourth. By Year 7 I'd dropped to the B Division in sports. I wasn't any good at running anymore.
So, I just gave up.
My long, painful downward spiral
In Star Wars (I love Star Wars), Master Yoda explains, ‘Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; and hate leads to suffering’. This was me. From Year 4 until Year 7 I became more and more afraid of losing my sporting ability because it was the only thing that made me feel good about myself. In Year 4, I started getting bullied. By the time I reached Year 7, the kids who were supposed to be my friends beat me up instead, leaving my confidence in tatters. (I'll share this story with you later in the book.)
I went into Year 8 (the first year of high school in Western Australia at the time) with my self‐esteem having spiralled to an all‐time low. I had completely stopped trying at school. I hated myself, and it was really painful.
No‐one ever told me that it was okay to feel things. I didn't know that our emotions are a really important part of who we are. I don't blame my parents because they didn't know any differently and they acted in ways that tended to be ‘normal’ for their generation: ignoring negative feelings or reacting with anger. I grew up thinking this was normal. I thought I had to push down my anger and push away my negative feelings and pretend they weren't there. This had a huge impact on my self‐esteem.
How do you improve your self‐esteem?
Just remember, if you're struggling with low self‐esteem, it's not your fault. It's not because you are a ‘bad person’. It's not because you were born with the self‐esteem ‘part’ of you missing.
If you have low self‐esteem, it means that, right at this moment in time, you aren't feeling too crash hot about yourself. And that's okay! Self‐esteem is something we can work on and improve.
As humans, I believe we are born with two ingrained psychological needs: we need to feel loved, and we need to feel like we belong.
If we don't get these needs met (at home and at school) when we're growing up, it can be really hard to develop healthy self‐esteem. When I was a kid, I didn't understand why I felt angry all the time. Although I knew Mum and Dad loved me, it didn't feel like I was part of a loving family because of all the fighting going on. When I was getting bullied at school, I thought it was because there was something wrong with me. I thought I was an outcast, a freak. I didn't feel loved, or like I belonged, at home or at school. Now I realise that I wasn't unique. Lots of other students go through similar things to what I went through, and far worse. Resilience is about being able to bounce back from the problems we face, and if we don't feel valuable, it's impossible to overcome life's challenges.
So, how do we start working on improving our self‐esteem? Here are some tools you can use to help build your self‐esteem:
Change the way you think.
Be self‐aware.
Choose your friends and relationships wisely.
Be grateful.
Talk to someone.
Change your lifestyle.
Let's take a look at each of these tools in more detail.
Change the way you think
The human mind does one heck of a lot of thinking. Some psychologists suggest that the average human brain has up to 60 000 thoughts a day! But hang on — 95 per cent or so of these thoughts are actually the same ones we had the day before. What's more, around 85 per cent are negative thoughts. These thoughts seem to pop up out of the blue. But why do we have them?
If you're interested in psychology, or if you've studied it at school, you might have heard of a famous psychiatrist called Dr Aaron Beck. He's known as the father of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). In the 1960s, Dr Beck spent a lot of time working with patients who were experiencing symptoms of depression. Dr Beck noticed that his patients