Do you want to feel better about yourself? Start behaving favourably toward yourself.
Getting ‘stuck’ in low self-esteem
Many of my clients in self-esteem counseling tell me it’s hard for them to improve their self-esteem because they feel ‘stuck.’ They tell me that because they don’t like themselves, they don’t feel like doing anything positive for themselves. Or, they tell me they feel like they’re being ‘phony’ by doing something good for themselves when they don’t like themselves. This desire to avoid feeling ‘phony’ leads them to often avoid being with people who like them and automatically reject any compliments people give them. When I ask them the Dr. Phil question—‘How is that working for you?’—they tell me that their strategy is not helping their self-esteem. But they add that they don’t know any other ways to dig themselves out of their ‘low self-esteem hole.’
How to dig out of your low self-esteem hole
There is a way to dig yourself out of your low self-esteem hole: If you want to like yourself more, start behaving like you already like yourself. You can do this in many ways: Start accepting compliments, hang out with people who like you and validate you rather than with people who treat you poorly, set boundaries with people to convey the message that you deserve to be treated with respect, start doing activities you enjoy and which give you a feeling of mastery and confidence, and start listing the positive qualities you possess—people with low self-esteem tend to be unaware of or do not acknowledge their positive qualities. If you do these kinds of behaviours and activities regularly, research predicts that your self-esteem will gradually improve.
Why ‘behaving your way to higher self-esteem’ works: Attitude-behaviour consistency
Why do people grow to like themselves more when they behave like they already do? It has to do with attitude-behaviour consistency. People are strongly motivated to keep their attitudes and their behaviours consistent with each other. For example, if you like someone you will tend to behave toward them in a positive way to keep your attitudes and behaviours consistent. If you dislike someone, you’ll be motivated to behave consistently with your negative attitude toward them and treat them negatively.
The same notion applies to attitudes and behaviours you have toward yourself. So if you have low self-esteem—a negative attitude toward yourself—you will tend to be motivated to behave consistently with that negative attitude and treat yourself in negative ways. If you don’t behave consistently with your negative attitude toward yourself, you will experience ‘cognitive dissonance’—an unpleasant feeling caused by your attitudes and behaviours being ‘out of sync’ with each other. Cognitive dissonance is the primary reason people with low self-esteem tend to avoid doing positive behaviours for themselves including things as seemingly easy as accepting compliments. Rejecting a compliment is a negative behaviour which confirms your negative view of yourself. This allows you to achieve attitude-behaviour consistency and avoid the unpleasant state of cognitive dissonance.
How people with low self-esteem usually respond when they feel cognitive dissonance
Suppose that instead of your behaving negatively toward yourself to stay consistent with your negative attitude toward yourself, you make it a point to behave in a favourable manner toward yourself by accepting compliments, listing your favourable qualities and hanging out more with people who validate you. How would this affect you? Initially, you would likely feel uncomfortable because you would be behaving in a positive manner toward yourself which is inconsistent with your negative view of yourself. You would therefore experience cognitive dissonance which you would naturally want to get rid of by getting your behaviours back in line with your attitude. You would be tempted to do this in the easiest and quickest manner which would be to stop doing the positive behaviours—stop accepting compliments, stop listing your positive qualities, stop hanging out with people who validate you, etc. This would indeed reduce the cognitive dissonance but it would do so in a manner which perpetuates your low self-esteem.
A better way to deal with cognitive dissonance which improves self-esteem
Now suppose that, in the same situation, you choose a different way to get rid of your cognitive dissonance which would help you to improve your self-esteem. This would involve continuing to behave in favourable ways toward yourself even though it is inconsistent with your negative view of yourself and feels unpleasant as a result. Although you would have to put up with the unpleasant feeling of cognitive dissonance for some time, eventually this state would diminish and go away. It would go away because, if you continued to behave as if you like yourself, your negative attitude toward yourself would eventually shift to become more positive to match those positive behaviours to restore attiude-behaviour consistency. This way of restoring consistency between your attitudes and behaviours toward yourself takes longer but leads to a better result. Your self-esteem would improve with your attitude (‘I like myself’) matching your behaviours (‘I behave as if I like myself’).
Does this technique really work?
A plethora of research findings supports cognitive dissonance as a reliable method to change people’s attitudes on a wide range of issues including their attitudes toward themselves. In essence, if you want to change someone’s attitude in a particular direction, get them to behave in that direction. If you want to change your attitude toward yourself in a positive direction, behave toward yourself in a ‘positive direction.’ My experience as a Calgary psychologist with many clients suffering from low self-esteem who have used this technique is consistent with these findings.
How to start using this technique to improve your self-esteem
Begin by listing as many activities you can think of which fit the definition of ‘behaving as if you like yourself’ as well as those which involve ‘behaving as if you don’t like yourself.’ Next, determine how often you engage in each of these two kinds of activities. Then try to schedule more of the first type of activities and fewer of the second type. If it feels strange or phony to do more of the activities which represent a favourable view of yourself, remind yourself that this is the normal and expected feeling of cognitive dissonance. Continue participating in these favourable activities as often and consistently as possible and then rate your self-esteem. The improvement you will see should motivate you to continue to use this behavioural technique. So why not give it a try? All you have to gain is self-esteem.
Here’s to behaving your way to higher self-esteem,
-Dr. Pat
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