Self-esteem
Self-esteem is the assessment we make of ourselves according to the emotions, experiences and perceptions of such that we accumulate throughout our lives. Our self-esteem is responsible for whether we feel capable or incapable, whether we like ourselves or not. This self-assessment is very important as, for the most part, our life achievements depend on it.
Thereby, people that feel good about themselves have high self-esteem and are capable of assuming and answering life's challenges. Conversely, people with low self-esteem are prone to self-limiting tendencies and, hence, failure.
Some traits that distinguish an individual with low self-esteem are as follows:
Overgeneralisation (leading to low self-esteem): Drawing conclusions for everything from insignificant details. This limitation leads to situations that produce low self-esteem.
False sense of control (leading to low self-esteem): Misconceptions about self-control. Two underlying outlooks on life are victim mentality or feeling responsible for the suffering or happiness of those around. Both are detrimental to your self-esteem.
Emotional reasoning (leading to low self-esteem): The belief that things are a certain way because of how one feels about them. The problem with believing that emotionally driven reasoning is always valid is that if what one believes is negative, one's self-esteem will be affected.
Egocentrism (leading to low self-esteem): Tendency to relate everything to oneself and therefore having to compare oneself to everyone else. An egocentric individual believes that everything everyone else says or does is some form of reaction to them. This lowers self-esteem.
Labelling (leading to low self-esteem): Overgeneralisation implies identifying and portraying an individual or a situation based on an external perspective with a short phrase or word. There can be certain elements of truth to these labels but they aren't entirely accurate. Labelling oneself lowers self-esteem.
Polarized thinking (leading to low self-esteem): Precluding "grey areas" or reasoning in "black and white". Things are good or bad, amazing or horrible. Therefore, if one isn't perfect, one is a failure and rendered useless, undoubtedly lowering self-esteem.
Self-accusation and guilt (leading to low self-esteem): An individual's need to find a blameworthy culprit or to identify the person responsible for any given situation. This means that others find themselves obliged to assume responsibility for decisions that one should also be accountable for. This prompts some individuals to blame themselves or feel guilty about everything that happens around them, hence lowering there self-esteem.
Mind reading (leading to low self-esteem): An individuals sense of access to special knowledge concerning the intentions or thoughts of others. People may jump to inaccurate conclusions and assume that others think negatively of them, lowering self-esteem by doing so.