Self esteem is a measure of our self worth, self value and self identity. It can be assessed on a personal level and by others; its value is priceless. It may be developed where it does exist and its loss has huge ramifications in respect of our perception of self.

Self esteem is related to our inner being and enthuses or depletes our spirit; this impacts on the simplest of day to day activities and subconsciously influences our day to day interactions with others. It can make us feel powerful or powerless.

Self esteem is detectable to others by how we present ourselves and the value that we place on ourselves as individuals. This is in no way associated with arrogance and superiority but is based on a strong self identity and giving and expecting to receive mutual respect.

A number of factors have a positive or negative impact on our self esteem: the effectiveness of our relationships with others, our work/non work environments and our life structure. These factors influence our behaviour, our language, our actions and our results.

Levels of self esteem may vary in our work and non work environments; a person who is happy, secure and confident at work may not feel the same in their non work environment or vice versa. This means that the concept of ones self esteem is affected by how successful that we feel that we are in each sphere of our lives. Though this concept is subjective for many, success may be related to feelings of well being as a result of positive feelings of self or self esteem.

Our perception of success may also be affected by making social comparisons with others either consciously or subconsciously. This may have either a positive or negative impact on our self esteem.

Our self esteem is our source of personal power and must be constantly kept in check. It is possible for any shifts in its level to become habitual and lie undetected until a key learning event takes place. In order to prevent this, individuals need to review and reflect their actions, language and behaviour in order to identify causes of work and non work shifts in our self esteem levels. Self honesty is essential for this strategy to work effectively. It is easy to place the blame on issues of life dissatisfaction on external causes, when often internal causes such as ineffective choices, language and behaviour as a result of a lack of self esteem negatively affect our lives.

Our levels of self esteem are like the fuel tank of a car:

A full tank and you can go anywhere

Half full and you know that you still have some mileage to go

A quarter full you should really be planning to refuel before it gets too late

On the red, you