Self-esteem and self-worth are related but are also different. Self-esteem is about how you feel about yourself and often changes based on your mood, the situation you are in, how you feel you are performing and the approval of others, it’s judgement based in the moment, hence the changeable degrees of esteem a person can feel.

If you have low self-esteem, often you will also be less self-confident, and hold more negative thoughts and feelings about themselves. Self-esteem relies on the input from externals; people, tasks, information and validation/recognition for you to use in your processing to then compare, judge and evaluate yourself based on this input and your interpretation of it. People with low self-esteem are usually very self-critical.

Self-worth is something you have from knowing and believing in your worth and value as a person. It is much more based on your beliefs you hold about yourself, these beliefs are often described as core beliefs meaning they are deeply rooted, usually having been part of you for a very long time and so can be challenging to change. We all hold core beliefs and these beliefs can be sometimes negative or unhelpful.

If we work on improving or changing these negative unhelpful beliefs we are likely to have long lasting improved feelings about ourselves individually. If you think your self-esteem or self-worth is something that isn’t as you’d like it to be and want to work towards improving it then please get in touch.