What is Self-Esteem and Why is it Important?

Wondering what self-esteem is and why you should care about it? This post will explore the ins and outs of self-esteem and why it is important in your own life.

What is Self-Esteem?

Self-esteem is defined in the dictionary as, “a confidence and satisfaction in oneself: Self respect.” Another definition quotes,”confidence in one’s own worth or abilities; self-respect.” But the way I like to look at self-esteem is simply to ask, “how much do you value yourself?”

It’s not exactly an easy answer. You see, we tend to view value in terms of monetary payoff. But you can’t put a price tag on a human life so we need to look at how we define value. Let’s go back to the dictionary, and dig a little deeper shall we?

Value: defined in the dictionary as, “relative worth, merit, or importance.” with the verb defined as, “to consider with respect to worth, excellence, usefulness, or importance.” You’re probably thinking, umm this just causes more questions and you’d be right. Bear with me as we untangle these definitions because I promise it will all make sense.

Now that we have the definitions of self-esteem and value, we need to define what this means for us as individuals. Here are some of the questions I pull from these definitions when trying to figure out how they actually apply to us.

1. How much do you value yourself?
2. How important are you?
3. How useful are you?
4. How excellent are you?
5. How much do you respect yourself?

The goal in asking these questions isn’t to score you on these things- there is no grade for this. The goal is to get you to pinpoint how you feel about yourself. For example, you might feel important to the people close to you, to the ones that need you, but do you feel important to the world? Why or why not? Do you consider yourself useful? Why or why not? Do you think you are excellent? Why or why not? Think about how you would answer these questions to help you understand where you can improve your self-esteem.

Value in others vs ourselves

As women, we get busy with the things we need to get done, the people we need to see, the relationships we need to foster, the job we need to do, the children we need to care for, etc, that we often forget to take time to truly define ourselves. The good news is we seem to know value when we see it. For example, how many of us see one of our friends dating a guy we don’t think is good enough for her? How many times do we look our friend in the eye and say, girl, he just doesn’t respect you, he doesn’t see your value!

We tend to see value in our friends and loved ones, but we don’t see it enough in ourselves. To further illustrate this point, If you were to make a list of all the things that make you excellent and I asked your friends and loved ones to make a list about what makes you excellent, 9 times out of 10 their list will be longer. Why is that? Why do we see value in others but not ourselves?

Pride vs Self-Esteem

My theory on why we see value in others but not ourselves is that I think we, and especially we as christian women, don’t want to be prideful or boastful. And since I’m getting good at definitions, I’ll add another one here. Pride: “pleasure or satisfaction taken in something done by or belonging to oneself or believed to reflect credit upon oneself.” The Bible talks about this in Proverbs 11:2 “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” and again in Proverbs 16:5 “The Lord detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.” And the one you’ve heard before, Proverbs 16:18 ” Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Whew! Those are some strong words! No wonder it’s easy for us to steer clear of talking about our importance, or our “excellence”. We don’t want to come near the thought of being prideful so it’s easier for us to just discount or disregard some of the great things that make us who we are. Sadly, as a result, we tend to have a lower self-esteem and aren’t accurate in our assessment of who God designed us to be. When we don’t view our selves accurately, we miss out on opportunities to walk in our purpose. That’s why self-esteem for a christian is so important to understand.

Why Self-Esteem is so important

Self-esteem isn’t so much about viewing yourself as super valuable as it is about accurately assessing your capabilities, your gifts and talents, your characteristics and what you offer this world. As I mentioned in this post, God created you with purpose for a purpose. If you are over here telling yourself you aren’t important, that you aren’t capable, in other words experiencing low self-esteem, How will you ever reach your full potential and the purpose that God designed for you live out?

Let me tell you a story about a friend of mine who went through this recently. My friend Anna has a beautiful voice, she’s the type of singer that when you close your eyes and listen, you feel like you’ve been transported into a place all by yourself, no matter how many people are in the room. For months, her friends and family tried to convince her to try out for her church’s worship team but instead she insisted she couldn’t sing well enough. She kept comparing herself to the current singers on the team and gave every excuse in the book. “I can’t hit high notes”, “I’m too young”, “I like singing by myself better anyways” these were just some of her excuses.

Next thing we know, the lead singer of the worship band chose to step down opening up a spot made just for her. God had opened the door, all she had to do was walk through it. Except, she didn’t. She chose to believe that her talent was not enough, that somebody else could sing better.

You see, Anna did not accurately assess her talents nor did she didn’t trust God with the gift he had given her even after several open doors. I look at that example and think, if only she had better self-esteem, she would be living out her purpose for this season in life but instead, she wasted her talent.

Sisters, I do not want that for you. One day, we are going to stand at the seat of judgement, and we will be asked, “What did you do with the talents I gave you? What did you do with the time and money I gave you? Did you know my son?” I want us all to live a life that will be rewarded in heaven one day but none of us will get there with low self-esteem.

To reiterate, the reason why self-esteem is so important is because it is what gives you the confidence to walk in your purpose. To be obedient when God is calling you to something. Self-esteem will hold you back and none of that is worth it if it threatens your moment at the seat of judgement.

Importance of Encouraging Self-Esteem in Others

While this post has been mainly dedicated to you and the way you view yourself, I want to pivot for a minute to talk about how important it is to build self-esteem in others. Some of you may have grown up without anybody to help you build your self-esteem so it may be more difficult for you to help others see their own value. But I want to encourage you especially if you struggle to see your own worth to perhaps start with helping somebody else. You might think you’re unqualified and I would tell you that’s just your low self-esteem talking! -kidding, but not really. You have what it takes because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.

I just want to take a little bit of pressure off because I think it’s easy for us to read about the importance of self-esteem especially when I’m throwing out that part about the seat of judgment- geez- you think I could be a little softer? haha- and want to do something about it. And if that’s you, I’m so proud of you! And this may sound weird but sometimes the best way to help yourself is to help somebody else first. By helping another person see their value, you’ll be more in tune for what good parts of you that you are able to recognize. You might find for example that you have a servants heart, or you’re a good listener, whatever it is, you will discover it in the process of asking somebody else to hold the mirror up to themselves. Just try it and let me know how it goes.

Besides, the Bible says to. 1 Thessalonians 3:11 “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had.”