The Self-Esteem Question

What is the question you can ask yourself to know whether you have self-esteem? After discussion with a positive psychology colleague of mine, here is his suggestion, which is fascinating to me. (I don’t usually write about bad-feeling situations or scenarios on my site, but this post is on that map of a sphere below the equator of happy and pleasant thought.) You can ask yourself:

  • Why aren’t you loveable?

What’s your answer? Pause a second … What do you think? What’s your answer?

Exactly. In a way, it’s such a manipulative question because the high self-esteem answer to it is, “No, forget it, I’m extremely loveable.” And the low self-esteem person will go looking for answers where there don’t need to be any.

Here is another question:

  • How often do you doubt your actions and thoughts?

The high self-esteem person will sometimes doubt, and will just as often or more often be secure and comfortable with his own thoughts. Both questions lean the answer towards choosing the negative thoughts in your head – both questions are manipulative in that sense, which is why they seem to get to the question about self-esteem.

4 thoughts on “The Self-Esteem Question

  1. “A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself.”
    ~ Alexander Dumas

    How’s that for crystalizing negative self-talk and parts of resilience?!

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