Dr K is basically re-writing how I think about the way I treat myself, and how I interact with people around me... It's still rough, but slowly things are seeming better, and I feel like I can handle things with a bit more confidence than 2 months ago.
Learning to put reason and understanding behind human behavior is key. And understanding builds confidence. Our society does not do a great job of teaching us to be human. At least you are on the journey to self actualization :)
People assume ego is only at play for people who are overly-confident when it's just as relevant for people who feel insecure. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can start change
Do you mean ego in the same way of like an inner dialogue/voice that's feeding incorrect information about yourself Regardless if that's positive or negative
As far as I know ego is when you're comparing yourself to others, whether you think you're better or worse than them, and it can distract you from seeing the world as it is
@@Adrian-fk6sl this always strikes me as something slightly frustrating But only because "seeing the world as it is" is to me exactly what I'm doing when I'm in the negative headspace because idk about you but to me the world in general is more negative than positive
@@adambaker6794 Well, I feel like it's hard to ever see the world correctly because it all has to get "filtered" through your worldview and biases, and you pretty much never know every detail. The world just "is", it may not be fair or positive, but you gotta make the most of what you have
I'm a soccer coach and I am a firm believer in building up your self-esteem and confidence through successful and unsuccessful repetitions of the same action. What I love about my job is that I can apply the same principles of coaching and training to my everyday life. You want to build up the confidence to pass the ball better? Pass the ball more. You want to build up self-esteem to talk to people in public? Talk to people in public. The more we show our brain success in a certain area, the more likely we are to have confidence in that area because we've "proven" to ourselves that we can.
I feel that this is different because it's a extrinsic and conditional view, it might work as a band-aid, and on selective activities. But i feel like the self esteem people struggle with is something a bit more all encompassing and unconditional. Though i won't deny that small successes are important or helpful.
This is a good mindset to have, but I feel like it doesn't address the whole problem. The main issue is tying outcomes to ego. For instance, even though I've been working for a yeah and a half in my current job which consists of some repetitive tasks, I have no confidence in what I'm doing. If it goes wrong? I'm a failure, like I've always known I was. If it goes right? That was a fluke, that task was easy so anyone else could've done it, I had too much help so I can't say I was the one who did it, etc. Doesn't matter how many times I've done it (and have actually had the quality of my work recognized in form of a raise), I don't develop confidence because I always assume that I'm a failure from the get go, and then I fit everything else around it.
My way to build self steem is pretty hands-on: Make a small promise to yourself, and keep it. One little promise at a time and you will slowly gain trust in yourself.
the voice in my head, the one of anxiet, is slowly changing into dr k's voice and its so amazing and everytime i think smth irrational i hear him outsmart it and it brings a smile to my face in all honesty i love this dude and everything he's done for my mental health gg dr.k
yau have to acknowledge that its not the real dr.k. he's just your expectation of someone that you respect. so, dont internalize that voice too much (especially if it becomes toxic), you have to do something about it. or else, you good bro. love you
This was a lot more thought-provoking than I expected. I've had zero self-esteem for longer than I can remember, hold myself to different expectations than I do others, deflect compliments and praise, and shoot down solutions for problems all the time with things like "I'm autistic and ADHD so there's really nothing that can be done about this", "I shouldn't need help with this", or "I don't trust myself not to fuck this up beyond all recognition". I need to think more on why I'm so convinced the outcomes of the things I do reflect on my value as a person.
That sounds a lot like someone who has been fed these lines from either people of authority like teachers/principals/parents Which adds another layer to the whole situation, and that is usually a mix of distain, hate and frustration of either one's self or other people who match the original problem individuals Like I have Chronic pain and many negative mental health problems, and I somehow managed to blame myself for being in said situation..... Like it's purely some genetic factors and some predisposed damage that triggered it all but for me in my head I'm a worthless individual who is a lesser percentage of a person as a whole. I hope that makes any sense lol just a "hey something different but feels similar in emotions"
@@bobobsen I'm no expert but ADHD is an issue with inability to focus and hyperactivity. While people with autism need structures in place to function at their best, that doesn't mean they automatically know how to put those structures into place and anybody can have trouble sticking to a routine neurodivergent or not. So the ADHD is just an obstacle in getting into a routine not necessarily cancelling out the need for a routine
I might not have the sane issues but when I derive my value from external outcomes, it's a defense mechanism to prevent myself from going lazy. It's a toxic "admittance of being a weakling" who "needs to be reminded that they can only be worth as much as the results they produce" cause otherwise the unconditional love would enable them to do the absolute minimum and just lie on the couch all day.
I just finished delivering a huge presentation at work that I got a lot of recognition and praise for. Through all of it and even still now, I feel like people were praising me and my presentation out of pity because I think that they think that I was nervous. This is helping me realize that maybe I’m framing they’re praise through my perception of myself which is that I’m not a great presenter / communicator. I feel like I delivered really well and even practiced countless times, but I can’t get over thinking that they’re giving me praise because “I’m a young professional” and i was nervous but made it through. This video is helping me realize that I am a good communicator and that I actually probably did deliver a good presentation. I need to reframe my perspective on other’s comments and appreciation. Thank you Dr. K ❤️
@@vardhansolanki8573 you and I are in the same boat, in a way (hopefully not after 2 years...). It /can/ be true that they are praising you out of pity. But pity comes with its own tell-tale signs. I think pity often comes from empathizing with someone else and feeling upset on their behalf that they didn't get a good result for unjust reasons. In your example, you didn't give a good presentation because you are young. If there is no indication that this is what is going on, then you should use Occam's razor and conclude they did not merely pity you. They simply enjoyed your performance. I say this since I had a recent experience just like this. In fact, I've been struggling with this for the last 8 years. LOGICALLY it is possible for them to genuinely enjoy your performance and yet your brain convinces you otherwise. The excuse your brain gives is actually irrelevant, because it is just an excuse and not a real reason. I know this because my brain does precisely that. What I don't know is how to make your brain listen to reason. I can tell my brain "They clearly like me. All evidence is firmly pointing in this direction. There is none against." and my brain will still disagree. Sure, it'll give a "reason", but you can argue with it in circles, and it might never give a logical reason that you can't easily refute. It will still "justify" self-loathing. Ideally, you can get very fast at recognizing that your brain isn't being logical and mentally note the most likely scenario. But just because you've noted "obviously, they all love me", doesn't mean your brain will let you feel loved by them. It /should/. And I don't know how to make it do that.
I developed my self-esteem when I had my first BAD, BAD year. I took a year of two for myself, didn't get into relationships, tried to understand about my past, heal my traumas, live by myself... it's almost like I became my own friend and recognized what I am capable of. It's not anything absurd, but I am very happy with who I am. My anxiety got considerably better, my need to excell in classes or games disappeared and my attachment also felt more secure.
interesting comment am dealing with the same think as u i always thought that self esteem , of who we are come form materialistic stuff and stuff that you can do in life
I think in terms of self esteem. It's about finding ways to cope and eventually break the cycle of low self worth and esteem. It's very very difficult especially if you have been through some dark stuff in childhood/teenage years. It does cause mental health issues but I think anyone can recover from anything and family can cause some mental health problems.
I’m on sick leave right now, battling stress and thoughts of low self worth. I realize that I never do things for myself just to feel good. I mean sure I’ll fulfill my needs but I don’t do things just to treat myself. I just can’t find the motivation for it, it feels unnecessary. But I can find the motivation to do it for a loved one. It feels very illogical to think in these tracks, I mean who am I to deserve things? We are all just organisms in the universe what do we really deserve. It feels wrong and self absorbed to think like that.
A much needed video right now. I've recently headed back to uni after taking a suspension due to suffering from depression. Alot of my family are also rather dismissive of me for falling victim to such an illness, mostly because they've always placed a massive amount of expectations on my shoulders that I've never failed to meet. After being in such a place of weakness, both emotionally and physically, I realised how much people take the opportunity to take advantage. However, I've recently gone back to uni and studied with great classmates and a wonderful tutor. Through working hard again and getting results I've started to feel better. Now I cook every day and write something. Seeing myself accomplish something, even small mundane things, really reinforces my self-esteem. It took over a year to realise, but I accept that not everything currently affecting me is a representation of my character. Crap happens. It's fine. My family has noticed this change in my mindset and scarily try to put me down because I'm doing more than I ever used to before my depression. It's unfortunate, but the fact that the biggest issue people have with me is that I'm doing well, I know I'm heading in the right direction. This video has helped reinforce how I feel. Keep striving bros, and realise that you're all human too. Give yourselves the consideration you give others. Y'all deserve it :)
Hey, i'm in a similar situation, and screw your family's actions right now. Good luck on caring less about what your family thinks, that's part of what uni is for, isn't it?
I know for a while that I've been entangled in this belief that my career path isn't good enough, that I should have discovered my true purpose at this point. But I also realize this mental dissatisfaction has caused me to perform worse at my job and feel very low about myself, sabotaging my efforts to pursue other things outside of my life. The timing on this video has been impeccable and has given me an effective toolset for questioning these outdated thought patterns.
Not necessarily. I can see improvement in things i try, and even receive praise but often my metric for success is comparative to those way ahead of me - so i never truly feel "good" at anything.
@@Balloonbot well, what works better then in creating confidence? ;D You just say that it is possible to not feel confident by creating an artificial environment by comparing only with better people^^
It is amazing to me how you can understand things about your own behaviour 15 or 20 years after things have happened and look at what you thought would be stuck with you forever in a different light. It's kind of unbelievable that all along there was a key to understanding yourself, healing and changing and at the same time you believed firmly there was no possible such key.
9:13 Attachment Theory: Early adverse life experiences = messed up attachment; the earlier the more difficult developing "good"(?) attachment 13:08 Most people [...] with low self-esteem tend to apply a different (lower) standard to others than they do to themselves. How to improve self-esteem: 1. Get it from peers (through statements of genuine appreciation of ppl in community) 2. Disentangle ego from external expectations (21:43) > see also 12:49 "If you have low self-esteem, you don't think you're worth very much. But where did you come up with the standard for your judgement?"
Dr K is amazing, this whole community is amazing. My biggest self takeaway: How did I conclude that my life is only fulfilled if I can be with my ex? The missing equation message is very strong. Internalising external information is something I need to work on, but just like a wrong calculation. You will always get the wrong answer if you give yourself the wrong formula.
@@ernestomendoza68 A lot has changed since I wrote this. But fundamentally I realised I have inner thoughts learnt from childhood telling myself I need to be a relationship to be fulfilled. I still do time to time but remember there's more to life than a relationship, It's really hard when media and movie constantly puts relationships on pedestals. But don't lose hope and seek help and grow to a person who can validate yourself. Hope that helps.
this made me realize how much value i place on others view of me. probably way too much. but i feel like im not in the position to not think that way. because i have to rely on other people to be alive at all. this also made me realize how hurtful a lot of the stuff i've said or thought is towards other people. because they likely place a lot of their self worth in the same way as i do
Ego X external factors Self esteem is based on 3 factors: 1. Unconditional human worth 2. Love 3. Growing Worth is not compatible or competitive Market/social worth can increase (money, status) but worth is stable and never in jeopardy, even if someone rejects you Emotional detachment - emotionally mirroring - feeling secure, self esteem is built
Dr k voice is just so calming. I find myself always revisiting the same videos to be re-taught the same thing and lately, trying to really set aside time to address the internal insecurities and fears that I avoid Thank you, Dr. K
13:20 that part foward hitted me so hard, e feel exactly like this, i push people up but deminish my self to a point of worthlessness, and i try to fight it, but it always come back
I am realizing about myself that I am used to using my critical thinking power to find ways in which I can blame myself, which leaves me with little energy left to use it on analyzing critically what's happening around me in order to come to proper conclusions about what's what. I am coming to realize that I need a degree of foundation within myself for having enough energy left to somewhat accurately perceive the cracks that are present externally.
It was nice to have someone like Dr K acknowledge how significant external validation can be, it made me feel less ashamed that I had recognized and craved that. It's made me realise how powerful giving a compliment can be so I want to make an effort now to say the thinks I like about people to them
Getting dumped after being together for 6 years hits your self esteem different than a no straight away. Thankfully being at a low point in life fuels my motivation. Though only until I'm comfortable again so I'm worried I'll just get complacant and end up where I was before the breakup and lose motivation to improve further.
Discomfort is a very strong motivator but there's a lot of other ways to get motivated to improve. You could also proactively seek out discomfort to stay get motivated.
I have such a hard time with this. I've always felt less than everyone around me, and every time I've felt confident or valuable I always fail. I've learned to see self-esteem and confidence as delusion. Because I'm mentally crippled at this point, my life reinforces this. It feels impossible.
18:10 I feel like for me personally I do have really low self esteem and beat myself over things but I still find what I'm doing wrong, like, "oh I did that wrong ever single time I'm so awful" and even though it feels awful the feeling gets worse when I go work on that and no improvement is made. I feel like that's also a missing piece here that leads to self-worth lowering even more.
I'll give a better example. Yesterday I lost my 3rd spot on my tennis team to drop to 4 and this what I said to myself, "why are you so fucking bad, you missed literally every single back hand, you work on it everyday and it's still trash, you only hit 2 backhands back. 2! And your serve, completely awful, sending it long every single time. Oh just follow through more, and there it goes flying out. Absolutely trash. Go work on it some more except I guess that won't work either because you have been for months. Saying literally any part of that match was not your fault is straight copium. Get real". Edits: spelling and also a post note that I do talk to myself like that.
I think the problem with that is you're distracting yourself in the moment when you're trying to focus on improving your skills. You know from experience that tennis requires you to focus on so many things at once when you're practicing a skill, like making sure all your body parts are coordinating to produce proper form, translating that into motion, then coordinating different movements depending on the complex context of the game as it progresses, and executing all of this quickly. But now on top of this difficulty you're adding to your mental burden by doubting yourself, so of course you're making mistakes - you're not focusing. And then since you start making mistakes from not focusing, the mistakes get programmed into your brain instead of your successes, so you don't improve. You are clearly capable of improving since you've made it to third rank before. You just need to convince yourself of it again. You already know what to do - going back to basics by breaking the skill down into parts, executing each part and then reflecting on it, learning what you need to do differently to improve, trying this different approach, and then executing it. And with each iteration you make less mistakes, giving your brain rewards for success, which drives further improvement. You not only become confident in your current abilities but also confident in your ability to improve. Full disclaimer: I don't know anything about tennis, but I play piano and I imagine the same general learning principles apply (although tennis is probably harder because you also have to focus on strategy and what your opponent is doing in real-time, then reflecting on your performance over a whole match to improve in the next one). Tl;dr: Tennis is hard af and you're only contributing to the difficulty by distracting yourself with negative thoughts, which you can work on through therapy and meditation.
@@gamingdragon2361 negative talk like that is extremely distracting. you're using half of your brain power to judge yourself in the moment, and the other half is playing. you have to learn to completely lose yourself in the moment, try mindful meditation; meditation that focuses on letting thoughts pass by, without getting hung up on them. the moment you have those negative thoughts, snap yourself out of them immediately. just focus on the game. you already know what you need to do better and what you're doing wrong. any more thinking about it is distraction
@@cheenis99 this was all after the game, I'm usually able to focus in when I need to it's just the failure that makes me down on myself. I try to keep a "full win" mindset until the game is done and I'm usually able to. It's just after when things go downhill.
@@gamingdragon2361 do you think this negative self-talk is a trauma response? was someone you trust super critical of you? or of other people and you felt like you had to fit their standards to not be criticized? another way of fixing your negative self talk is by childhood or trauma-focused therapy/self-work. it could be that your body is being emotionally flooded from all that shame from criticism, and anger from being unable to express this shame from when you were young and powerless. this might then lead to really intense negative self-talk. if emotional flooding is the cause, you would need to treat that, not the symptoms it causes (negative self talk).
4:39 I didn’t think of this. My parents always showed sympathy when I got hurt, but they overall said “suck it up, life’s tough” to me throughout my whole life
I was also recently facing a low self esteem, it sunk so deep that I used to sit isolated in my classroom, ignoring my friends. I also realised that maybe I was behaving like that for gaining attention. After few days of isolation, also by noticing myself in the class, I concluded that this wasn't right, then I started to interact with all. My friends companionship was good though they didn't knew my internal termoil, also I made some new friends, which boosted my self esteem, and gave some assurance that I am not that bad, though it was external but it works. But now I am recognising that I am a bit egotistical, so I am not able to show my real self fully to others and I am willing to work on it.
This video made me anxious and depressed. I don't really have any values anymore. I just sort of done away with them cause I don't know if anything I think is valid. Whenever I have a complaint that something is too hard or unfair I just stop thinking about it and just do it. I just tell myself that is is my fault the work is so hard in the first place. I'm fat, I'm lazy, I always look for the easy way to do things. Doesn't help that the only person I love in the world literally won't accept a compliment from me cause they said it doesn't count cause I like them... Everything is discouraging to me. I don't know if I line up with reality. This is the question I have been asking myself for years and I still haven't found the answer. Where does my world view come from?
Wonderful, I hadn't actually made the connection between self esteem and ego. I've realized that my self esteem is very low at times, and that has had some pretty harsh negative effects on my life, but hadn't pieced together that it was my ego that constructed the low self esteem from my experiences.
Havent Watched the video yet so it might be covered in this video but self love is something that doesnt get talked about enough. Self love is a huge step to becoming more confident and building self esteem
Just starting the video, posting up my info first to see if it's confirmed or denied: Once upon a time they found that kids with high self esteem performed better in schools, so they pushed the self-esteem movement, which didn't help. The causal relationship was reversed. Kids who performed better in school had higher self esteem as a result. Solution: If you want higher self-esteem, find something you can be good at and do it. Now to watch the video and see how wrong/right I am
Can you make a video about trust issues in a romatic relationship related to how our parents (especially the dad-daughter relationship) were distant? I know that therapy is the solution, but maybe you can give tips (e.g. journaling?) and how to approach the therapist
I remember having to do this with my grades. I was more disappointed with myself for a poor grade than my mother was. And then uni came in swinging with a different grading scale and then I failed a subject. I eventually worked through to the point that my performance in assessable work and exams was not a perfect indication of my knowledge on the subject being assessed. I like learning, so I would focus on concepts, but I didn’t like having to demonstrate it for the sake of demonstration in assignments and also would mentally blank in tests. My mental health improved a lot once I acknowledged that I was smart, but didn’t have good assessment/study skills. My grades, however… let’s just say because of my reduced anxiety, I was even less motivated to work on assessable things and subsequently discovered I had ADHD. Apparently prior to my diagnosis, I was living in continuous anxiety from rolling deadlines and an overloaded schedule, both of which contributed to defining me as a person.
The certain result we get from the external world doesn't necessarily determine identity. It's our decision to look at what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong. Troubleshooting (asking where our standards came from and so on) and then taking actionable steps to change our behaviors towards others. This may or may not produce different results, but positive feedback does help change how we frame things and our views of ourselves. This is a condensed version of what I had learned from Dr. K's videos. I hope it's helpful. Thank you.
This channel has brought me an unprecedented level of internal confidence and self belief as well as a plethora of mental health knowledge that I wouldn't have otherwise had. Thank you Dr. K
I love your content, Dr. K! It's been so helpful for me. My only piece of feedback for your videos would be to consider adding an outro to end the video. Sometimes I will be really vibing and listening while doing chores and the audio suddenly cuts off. It's a little abrupt. Just a friendly "let me know your thoughts, take care everyone" would go a long way. Keep it up, Dr. K! We all believe in you.
to be honest ive been abused for who i am since early childhood and it set my brain in such a bad mindset and people just keep proving my bullies and abusers right, it kinda sucks. I battle with suicidal thoughts every day and to be honest if I wasn't so scared of eternal nonexistence, I wouldn't be here right now nothing is keeping my alive but that. Whenever I tried to do some bare minimum to make myself feel better about me or life or whatever, life kept punishing me. When I started working out I fell on my hip and couldn't even walk without awful pain for a year, when I got a new haircut and piercings I got two separate infections because apparently people here don't clean their fkn equipement anymore. When I finally got a guitar after 10 years of wanting one and to learn to play it... I fall and hurt my elbow which made it impossible to play a guitar or even lift a cup of water. That's just few of million other things that happened to me, I keep getting fkt over. So it's not just confidence thing it's a whole being cursed for some reason which kills my confidence in process because im simply NOT ALLOWED to be happy.
i feel so dumb for even writing this but i guess there has to be someone who relates to my level of cursed. I never wanted riches and what not to be happy, just a normal life, maybe a friend, maybe someone to love me... I dont have anything. It's so tiring.
I've always struggled with self-esteem as an Autistic fella, as is the case with many Autistic individuals. We are often judged for not behaving "normally", even in cases when our behavior is completely harmless or innocuous. I've never performed well academically, so the only positive affirmations I would receive is from drawing, which was something my mom always attributed to being a "talent" that was a byproduct of my Autism (savantism). This of course began to create a negative feedback loop growing up, because people would correlate my artistic successes with my Autism, which was not the case, it was because I worked hard. Not having my successes attributed to my effort eventually started hampering on my self-esteem. This idea was so entrenched in my identity that I eventually dropped out of University because of the pressure, along with other issues that I won't get into. Least to say I don't really enjoy making art anymore. I think that I have low self-esteem because I grew up in an environment unheard, and misunderstood, due in part because of the prevailing ableist attitude that any issues expressed by me has to do with me being Autistic, and not because of any interpersonal or systemic issues I am experiencing in my day to day life. I feel like relying on other people's affirmation became such a crutch that I can't make decisions independently anymore without uncertainty. Another issue I've always had in self-esteem is related to my weight. My mother used to be an anorexic and almost died as a result, which heavily disrupted our lives for a few months. I've always thought I was fat because of this, even when I was 140 pounds, and in very good shape. The only time she ever complemented my build was when I was eating very little in my early 20s, which involved eating at most one meal a day. She never talked to us about it her anorexia, so I don't think anyone in my family was able to properly process the event, which was evident as my younger sister went through an episode a couple years ago being a dancer and all. My mom still comments on my weight to this day. Least to say, I don't feel comfortable talking to her these days. There's a bunch of other family matters that I could get into, but I'll stop rambling about that, as I could go on all day about it. I only started realizing a lot of this in the past couple years. The only thing I'm thankful for is that I have a wonderful wife whom I can turn to and articulate my thoughts on the matter.
Just wanted to say your level of self reflection is so good, it seems like you’ll get a lot of value out of dr k‘s videos. And i agree there is still a long way to go when it comes to ableism and i am glad for you that you are considering systemic conditions and being compassionate toward yourself. I’m sure it wasn’t easy getting to that point of insight. Wish you well in life and that you’ll maybe find your way back to do doing art for the sake of enjoyment and expression eventually. :)
I can relate a lot but I’m not sure if I’m autistic. I’ve always been really good at singing since I was little because it was an escape from the abuse and it was the only thing that I got attention from. That and being good at videogames and knowing a lot of things about people and behaviors. I was told as a kid I was an old soul and I genuinely think that it was because of my parents abuse that I had to grow up quickly and analyze my parents behavior to know if they are going to get angry. I’d always hear all of the sides to their fights and had an understanding that we are all very similar and a lot of us just lack communication and listening skills. They are very narcissistic and now I have a hard time validating and being patient with myself because I have meltdowns and struggle to self regulate. They are so dismissive towards me and they don’t understand at all. It makes me genuinely angry and has completely messed me up mentally to a point where I struggle to take care of myself and leave my apartment. I’m angry and stuck and I want to be the loving and understanding kid I used to be but now I just feel bitter. I hope I can be less cold and more kinder to myself and others in the future and not feel like a burden or dismissed by the people around me. Even my boyfriend dismisses me without meaning to. Drives me insane
People treat me well, my friends are sweet and always say they enjoy my company. But honestly my self-esteem has been bad for so long, I'm not sure how I got entangled with being so critical of myself, probably from my family. Then again I don't really have any ill will towards my family, they did what they thought was best :/ I really hope I can build that "internal" sense of self-esteem because no matter what happens externally it doesn't change what I think of myself
I'd say familial expectations impacting the self-esteem of children is pretty common. Constant criticism and comparisons to others (like cousins that are better off) can really wear you down after a while. It's easier to internalize the negativity too since it's coming from a place that's supposed to be providing you with support. A lot of it is cultural from my experience. Just recognizing it goes a long way, but it's unlikely for family to change the way they interact.
So, self-esteem goes low when you internalize the expectations of other people, and when you don't meet those expectations. Can you also develop low self-esteem if you set, by yourself, expectations that you don't meet? Perhaps, it is that the set of all the possible incentives to do so is empty? I'm not sure.
I think so as well. So i just stopped assigning value and or worth to things i do, and specially about how well i do. i just stopped judging me.nothing is either good nor bad about me. But you know what? Others keep saying i have low self worth. Its like they do not even the see mee, they just see what they expect of me. And they desire for it to be like i think of myself worse than them and so i must have low self steem. Really weird. At the end of the day we all die, so the important thing is to do things the best we can and with good intentions, regardless the outcomes? Still thinking about this. In my mind i have already died so this is extra endgame time, like not fighting the final boss and enjoying castlevania. So what is self worth for then? Whats the problem if i am weak than others? None i just work around it. But people suddendly be like noo you cannot even dare to think yourself as weak!! And get mad. But alas, i am physically weaker than everyone i knowfor example. I do not care, my strenght is enough for what i need. Those things are just opninions either you can or not do things and work toward improving. Judging if its good or bad its just duv ad everything constantly changes you may be labelled good one moment and even if you did the same thing it now would not be good enough. Just like that. Its more about luck than anything i guess. So, o do kot tell em i did good/bad. I just do my best. And try to improve accosrding my values. No hard feelings lol.
Definitely. But I realized that my own expectations were still built around how others would respond to me. If you were the only person left in the world, you wouldn't have push yourself at all.
@@bobobsen or are they built around how you assume they would respond to you? Notice the difference? People are usually more kind than we give them credit for.
The best book I ever read was 6 Pillars of Self Esteem by Nathaniel Brandon. Self help books get a bad rep, but this one is a gem. It is written by a very intelligent psychiatrist, like dr. K! Except a bit older. I highly recommend it!
My narcissistic parents raised in a way where i cant pair bond, i cant socialize and I cant feel security in myself. They were not better off either growing up, but i think it's unfair i was given all their mental issues when I didn't choose to be this way. Im riddled with low self esteem, BPD, ADHD, anxiety...
I'm sorry that happened to you, punish your parents by removing their genes from the pool, if you weren't raised you don't know how to raise and inevitably will traumatise your children the same way you've been
ThankU this is pretty good and in sync with the message from my therapist that it's necessary to challenge my own core beliefs. Or as another friend put it, brainwash myself. It's been exhausting though. I'm glad I'm old. I hasten to mention the role of violence. Prolific since infancy, i can affirm violence turns a person into an object, a thing. Slaps in the face umm deface. A punch in the groin = a non medical transgendering. The mind/willpower have limited access to neuro disruption. I'm glad i stuck around, i was a good sport. But i'm not eager to prolong
It's hard to deal with people who put themselves down as a response to you, but I feel like after awhile and after we've talked to them about it, surely we can relieve ourselves of that guilt, right? It's like, we tried.
Whatever spark or soul or heart people have inside them to inspire love from other people I don't have. I've given up on love and happiness. Women spot me as the damaged goods I am and run away.
Literally started reading a book called the six pillars of self esteem by Nathaniel branden. And understood that 99% of my problems stem from self esteem issues and Dr K posts this video
Funny thing that happened to me a week ago I shipwrecked a relationship for being too clingy and I discover Dr K for the first time through that vid…funny how life works
I would love Dr K to elaborate on musicians going through the self discovery and his perspective on self esteem, ego, and how they relate to art and self expression
you can't get confidence from someone else. Confidence comes from when you face the shit that you don't wanna face, and you trust yourself to stand by you when you need to, that you'll set boundaries instead of letting people walk all over you.
I wish that person knew just how lucky they are to achieve ONE of those things. Im so poor that during covid I had to work 4 jobs just to make ends meet. Appreciate Dr.K as always but I wish I could be free of the poverty I was born into and get to actually do something with my life.
Dr K, thanks for the amazing work you do! You are helping me a lot! However I think this topic is suuuper important for your community and you could do better giving advice on how to improve self esteem. Maybe listening the inner critic, locus control, self empathy, social, negative self talk..
self-esteem is built from achieving competence. If you're mental or physical illness prevents that achievement, no self-esteem can robustly be gained. I wish I was wrong, and who am I to question a literal Harvard psychiatrist.
13:30 Thats an interesting perspective that I've never considered. I have high levels of anxiety, and I tend to have *extremely* high expectations of myself, and low expectations of others. I tend to put up with a lot of crap from others, and will do a lot for others. Should I lower the expectation for myself, or raise my expectation of others? Most likely both, but how much for each? Until it can be consistently achieved?
What I got from all I watched from Dr K is that you shouldn't have expectations of anyone. Expectations = results, and humans can't control results. Even if you try really hard, there'll be a lot of external things that have to go right for you to get the result that you want. I think you should ask yourself why do you think you need to have expectations from yourself and other people. I recommend Dr K video on Karma(sow seeds for your future self) and the one that compares western and eastern perspectives on the mind.
@@misterkite99 but how does that work? Yes expectations are difficult and can be problematic but I also think that never being expected to strive to be better in any way by being given said expectations can't be the best choice either. What I think happened is people in general used exceedingly more difficult expectations on others and themselves to make small improvements but in doing do they taught themselves and those around them it was either fail or don't fail that's it. So I think having expectations is fine as long as you acknowledge to those who are being expected of that failure is an option and it's inevitable so might as well limit the damage done by making mistakes early when you can more easily correct them
I think you can not have expectations for yourself/others while still doing your best at everything you do. I think there's this idea out there that if you don't set expectations for yourself you won't do anything but like I really don't think that's an issue? Or maybe we should be setting a different type of expectations. Like instead of a specific outcome (get a 4.0, hot significant other, own a house by age ___ ) We should set expectations of our own behavior/effort. I'm going to try at everything I do, I'm going to live in the moment to the best of my ability, I'm going to be kind to others. I'm going to accept help when I need it. etc. ?? Just midnight thoughts.
@@sunshinegirl2015 as a general rule for a great deal of people especially nowadays as that's what they have taught themselves, I would say there is a large number of people who rely on setting expectations for themselves to keep pushing themselves forwards Those people although they are technically working and going through the motions, can easily be seriously thrown off if all the sudden they fail said expectation But, I don't think that necessarily is the right or best way by any means If we could manage a society that there wasn't these sort of toxic expectations for everyone, while still continuing to excel further than the previous generation that would of course be much better. The issue is I don't see how that would be possible as everyone I've met in a authority role over me has has a toxic expectation of me at some point for example.
@@sunshinegirl2015 as an additional mention if you can actually go by those final "I'm going to..." statements do it that sounds like a good start for sure.
why don't we stop putting a value on us and other people? getting a 4.0 or 3.0 is just cause and effect. you can try to convince yourself you're still a "good" person, even with low grades... or you can just try and ditch the concept of good and bad persons altogether and just see yourself for what you are. an individual whose life story has led them to be exactly like how they are right now. there's only right/wrong, good/bad about this if you decide to put such a stamp on it.
I see that as extremely difficult to accomplish as we tend to hold ourselves to standards - standards that I think help or allow us to make movements and accomplish things in life. We tend to become hard on ourselves when we fall short to the ideal we want to be, and it seems to be that the higher the standard we hold ourselves to, the harder we are on ourselves (which makes sense). I don't think simply seeing ourselves for what we are is necessarily a solution to this issue as I think it's virtually impossible to divorce ourselves from our standards. I also very much think it can be healthy to attach labels such as good and bad to your output as this can be a way to gauge your progress or a way to improve yourself (maybe work ethic, or methods about doing things) it only becomes a problem when your ego succumbs to those labels. I think ways to go about not letting your ego rule you could be adjusting your standards by understanding that we aren't perfect and mistakes will occur and we won't always get what we want, and understanding that the outcome doesn't define you and your worth as a person. Perhaps it would be better if we came from the perspective of doing the best we can and being okay with that and realizing that our output doesn't equal our worth.
@@mpmedia6735 @MPMedia I think I understand what you're saying. Problem is from what I've seen this mindset is often based on self betrayal. I'm not perfect, I have flaws.... But I'm still good? That doesn't make sense at least to me. this sense of self is still focused on evaluation. My approach is basically one step further. I don't have any flaws. Because what's considered a flaw is a highly subjective matter and this concept exists only in our mind. As you said it's a difficult task to remind ourselves of this. We need to detect our ego being active and return to the place of just existing time and time again. If I understand you correctly, you mentioned the concern that our ego helps us stride for accomplishments and without it we basically have no goals and no values to live by. From my experience I kind of went through the opposite. Since I started to consider values as subjective concepts that are neither better or worse than other ones, I found the freedom to develop my own. Not because they're the right/good ones, in fact they're completely arbitrary in a sense, but because I like them.
In that scenario, why even do anything? If there is no bad, then there is no good. If there is no good, then why work hard to achieve anything? And if there is no bad why work hard to run away from anything?
@@kissenklauer7011 if you usually have good intent, I would say you're usually a good person. I don't think judging the totality of yourself on a few bad actions isn't useful or true. Your approach is an extreme, to which I wouldn't say is necessary as you can still be mentally healthy while putting your output on a scale of "this is in line with my ideal so this is good" or "this isn't in line with my ideal, so this is bad". If you were to just ignore your standards, I don't think you're really solving the problem at hand here and I think you would stagnate. Sure you can try to think more objectively about things, but humans are driven by desire and detaching from our standards competely seems counter productive. What I'm arguing for is balance and not throwing the baby out with the bath water. Judging your actions can be a good thing especially from an ethical standpoint. It's good to see flaws as our actions tend to affect others, so to ignore your standards is really just burying your head in the end, and not being honest with yourself from my perspective.
I almost feel like high expectations/ perfectionist mentality from mainly myself and others (in terms of my career choices) 'might' be a factor in my at times low self esteem. Also I belive social support in general is important to raising self esteem.
Yeah I still have no idea how to fix this. I have an inferiority complex. I feel inferior everywhere I go and everything I do is never good enough or sub-par. I'm extremely anxious around people and almost never leave my house. I can't even muster the courage to post something in a Discord. I'm afraid of people and have a lot of self-hatred. I'm a 30 year old virgin and things aren't getting any better. This lack of self-esteem and self-hatred seeps into everything in my pathetic life. I think about suicide constantly too and feel no hope for the future.
Best possible way to overcome this is to allow yourself to be vulnerable to your therapist and yes it will be scary but you have to want to succeed for this to work.
I thought I had a "good" sense of self esteem. I realize now I do not. It's hard for me to accept compliments and I internalize criticism. I do not fight it. I just accept it and tell my self I legitimately am inept. I really want to rewire my brain. 😅
We consider probabilities all the time. We depend on them. Are we to ignore probabilities in this case? What do we do if the probability of our negative belief being true is much higher than the probability of a positive alternative belief being true?
Dr. K is right in a nutshell as usual but there I see a few problems. - Using the example with the GPA... Yes, there are dumb people with high GPAs and smart people with low GPAs. However, low self-esteem usually comes from multiple sources. In that case, the GPA will be combined with other signs of that person not being intelligent. Also, even though there are exceptions, in my experience such conclusions come from averages. And there is a correlation between intelligence and a high GPA. Obviously, that's not to say low self-esteem is justified but that it makes believing the opposite that much harder. - The whole process although fascinating leaves me with no information on how to proceed. How do you figure out which expectations have been internalized? Are there some expectations that are purely yours and would be okay for them to affect your self-esteem? If you know exactly where those internalized expectations came from, how do you deal with them? Knowing by itself does not seem to help a lot of people. - Is there a difference between confidence and self-esteem? They're different in my eyes although I'm not sure where exactly one ends and the other begins. Self-esteem seems to be more about the value of a person as a human being. But then again, what is that value and how do you judge that? I can personally get behind the idea of loving yourself but the 'unconditional' part is hard to swallow. Is everyone equally deserving of love? It does not seem like that... It makes more sense that a kind, generous and competent would be loved but not so much a mean and narcissistic loser. Could the latter be a valuable human being worthy of love? Sure. But again, if you put things on a scale, my point remains. I think of confidence as more skill/domain oriented. You can be a confident software engineer because you have experience and you know how to deal even with difficult problems. I'm definitely not confident at flying planes as I have never flown one. One can be confident socially because one feels great when meeting people and are an effective communicator. Conversely, having social interaction correlated with mostly bad experiences will likely make you less confident in that domain. - If you don't trust yourself with doing anything, you don't trust your judgment and you don't take care of yourself how can you have confidence and/or even self-esteem? I'm aware that you need self-esteem to trust yourself but it also works the opposite way. Breaking your trust in yourself is a pretty good way to feel like shit and lower your self-esteem. In addition to that, there are certain actions you can do that improve self-esteem and they're mostly external.
I watched the whole video and it was great, however another problem of mine is retaining information though (especially with cognitive difficulties), hope you do a video on that one day.
No, never let someone else affect yourself esteem, this will only create a endless loop of seeking approval, recognition and attention to confirm it, you cannot base the opinions of others about yourself on them, most people are very subjective and less objective by far, you really think they are good at it, especially without even knowing 1% about you? Hell no, lol, just be objective about yourself when you are doing...anything really. Do you like who you are, do you want to change something about you and you know that you should but haven't doe that yet for whatever reason? Do it, earning respect from doing things for yourself is the only way to have a solidified self esteem that is not affected about other people's opinion. This doesn't mean that you should be 100% absolute and don't listen to anyone's opinion, just don't take what they have to say as correct about you without actually giving it a thought first + motivation and manipulation exist so...
i used to get bullied all throughout high school and it has destroyed my self esteem ever since. I was never able to build my self esteem up and i barely have friends and never had a gf at the age of 28m.
I'm in my 30's and really needed some advice regarding this matter this week specifically for my therapy session. Thank you Dr. K. Always love your content. It's so helpful and insightful and I feel like my own sessions are much more productive thanks to the things I've thought about or learned about thanks to you.
When i told my dad i got arrested for pot, he said "Matthew, you're not smart enough to smoke pot" He was right, and is a real man for telling the truth. Versus "its okay accidents happen"
I can't get out of the loop, my self worth is tied to how well entertained I can keep the other person in a conversation, and how does the other person see me at the end of the conversation. Those are the most important things in the world. To be accepted by the group, the tribe, being different is shameful. Being too different is almost a moral crime. I can't trust anyone, every other man could become a bully at any time, any woman would look at me with disgust and feel repulsed, if they were to see my weaknesses, and learn that I am too sensitive of a man. (if you can even consider me a man) I don't like sports and prefer fiction and videogames over partying. Those are not socially accepted hobbies, and therefore no one will ever love me if I don't manage to find socially acceptable ones. My father taught me that I deserved to be bullied because I was too stupid. Too weak. I won't get a girlfriend until I get other hobbies that women consider interesting, manage to find a good to high earning job, and manage to have such a charisma that I could talk to anyone for hours and hours. I won't be able to make friends until I get rid of all the things men consider weaknesses. I can't let anyone know I enjoy romantic movies for example, I would be publicly ashamed for something like that. Or et alone, watch anime. (this last one is specially repulsive to women) And there's no breaking the cycle, self-validation is arrogance, so it's wrong, it takes you away from virtuousness, you can't recognize your own self worth, society has to, otherwise it's just you telling yourself what you want to hear and that's the same than lying to yourself. If the tribe doesn't accept you then it means you don't deserve acceptance. Fortunately I can afford weed, and lose myself in daydreaming and fiction and videogames to forget how utterly worthless I had the misfortune to be born. I wish I had a heart attack right now. I'm tired of this life, of this society, this world. I wish I had never been born. Life is shit.
If you have to hide so much of yourself to feel like you fit in, then it sounds to me like you're not in the right "tribe". For example, you say that women would be repulsed by you liking anime---my partner and I developed a relationship precisely because we were both into anime. The same goes for my male friends that enjoy romantic movies, that prefer videogames over partying, that don't like sports. For all the things you think are shameful and repulsive, there's a group out there that enjoys it. In other words, find company that shares your hobbies and shares your joys. It sounds like you're suffering by trying so hard to fit in rather than finding a group that fits you. But of course, this might all fall on deaf ears. The tone of your comment already sounds like you're resigned to your state of being.
@@SadFace201 The problem is that a tribe I could belong into doesn't exist. What I described is mostly my school experience, when I got to college there were people with a few topics I could have potentially talked about, and yet still couldn't function there. I can have someone who have seen the same thing or played the same game and liked them and I still will not be able to hols a proper conversation. If it weren't for one specific very extroverted friend I wouldn't have been able to end up in a group to begin with. "sounds like you're resigned to your state of being" That's because it's too late for me. I'm 29 now and I can't function as a normal person. I can't even tell people when I disagree with them in any random topic. I lost my personality because I wasted that period from 15 to 25 years old. Now I don't even know what to even try. I can't even talk to strangers. Even if I could try searching for a hobby there's no way I could properly talk to people and make friends. My last resort would be to move to a bigger city, close to me is Buenos Aires, but I can't because of my job. So there's no much more to do. Yeah, my life is already wasted, there's not much I can do now. And even if there were, what for? I've already lost the part of life that's worth. What's left for me beside working and growing old? And without the slightest possibility of ever having a partner and forming a family I don't even want to. I can't even afford future gaming consoles to keep avoiding reality. If it weren't because I would ruin my mother's life, I would have killed myself already. There's just nothing to live for. There is no hope.
@@franacha Bro, did you even watch the video? You sound exactly like what Dr. K is describing @18:10. Your comments have a lot of assumptions about life that don't have to be. Use your extroverted friend as a resource. Go see a therapist. All I'm going to say is that life is not defined by a time period that makes up only 10-20% of your total lifespan. 29 years old is plenty young to make changes to your life if you want to, but nothing will happen with your current attitude.
@@SadFace201 I generally vent in the comments when I start watching the video, because my brain start with all of this and then I can't concentrate until that is out. I did therapy three different times now, I've watched videos and looked for information. But nothing works. I can't change my behavior. I need a better job yet I can't sit and study. I feel bored as fvck every day yet I can't look for hobbies. I can't keep conversations going yet I can't even read news, or look for things to talk about. I am lonely yet I can't even approach women to talk, let alone flirt. I can't control myself, discipline myself. No matter how much I know I should and how important I know it is, I just can't control myself. I can't. I just lack the sheer force of will necessary to through life. How can a person lack life itself from the core of its being? I've been years, maybe even decades stuck like this. And yet I can't get out. I just can't. So I vent in comments. I try to put my thoughts out of my head although it accomplished nothing. Maybe one day I will have the strength necessary to actually kill myself. I'm sorry for my mother, but I can't keep living only for not making other people sad. "All I'm going to say is that life is not defined by a time period that makes up only 10-20% of your total lifespan" but that's adolescence, it's precisely the part in which a human develops their own personality. It's precisely what defines who you're going to be after. All the way you build yourself until you become an adult. How can losing all that and STILL have a life worth living?
I have a really difficult time with this as I'm unable to see how confidence and intrinsic self-worth isn't make-believe. If I am worse than somebody else, they are better. How is that not more valuable? If you had to picked a trained surgeon or an untrained one, which would you prefer to work on you? The same applies across all areas. Same with IQ, depressing as it is. Higher the IQ, the better they will be in most areas of life. (until you reach genuis, where savantism kicks in) They'll learn faster, so they'll be better eventually. You can't compare a rotten apple to an apple pie and expect them to be of the same value. And I am a rotten apple.
I really dislike the emphasis of "look into the guide to find it" especially since often when I go into the guide it ends up being a vague video which covers the topic in an extremely summarized way rather than an in depth way as is implied here. I also wish there was a higher emphasis on how to do this on your own rather than relying on positive people around you. I feel like its really easy to develop a toxic dependence on people if you rely on them for how you feel about yourself.
Unfortunately, I put myself and others up to the same standards, and I'm now truly starting to realise that I'm worthless. very contradictory to the video, but I might be one of the rare cases where my low self esteem truly reflects reality.
Dr K is basically re-writing how I think about the way I treat myself, and how I interact with people around me... It's still rough, but slowly things are seeming better, and I feel like I can handle things with a bit more confidence than 2 months ago.
You're rewriting it! He is mostly providing the material to reflect on.
Been on this journey for 1.5 years and I'm at my highest
Learning to put reason and understanding behind human behavior is key. And understanding builds confidence. Our society does not do a great job of teaching us to be human. At least you are on the journey to self actualization :)
Good job man it isn’t easy ❤️
@@testing123. u
People assume ego is only at play for people who are overly-confident when it's just as relevant for people who feel insecure. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can start change
Do you mean ego in the same way of like an inner dialogue/voice that's feeding incorrect information about yourself
Regardless if that's positive or negative
As far as I know ego is when you're comparing yourself to others, whether you think you're better or worse than them, and it can distract you from seeing the world as it is
@@Adrian-fk6sl this always strikes me as something slightly frustrating
But only because "seeing the world as it is" is to me exactly what I'm doing when I'm in the negative headspace because idk about you but to me the world in general is more negative than positive
@@adambaker6794 Well, I feel like it's hard to ever see the world correctly because it all has to get "filtered" through your worldview and biases, and you pretty much never know every detail. The world just "is", it may not be fair or positive, but you gotta make the most of what you have
@@Adrian-fk6sl ahh okay fair enough
I'm a soccer coach and I am a firm believer in building up your self-esteem and confidence through successful and unsuccessful repetitions of the same action. What I love about my job is that I can apply the same principles of coaching and training to my everyday life. You want to build up the confidence to pass the ball better? Pass the ball more. You want to build up self-esteem to talk to people in public? Talk to people in public. The more we show our brain success in a certain area, the more likely we are to have confidence in that area because we've "proven" to ourselves that we can.
Wow, that's really cool. Thank you for sharing that.
I feel that this is different because it's a extrinsic and conditional view, it might work as a band-aid, and on selective activities. But i feel like the self esteem people struggle with is something a bit more all encompassing and unconditional. Though i won't deny that small successes are important or helpful.
This is a good mindset to have, but I feel like it doesn't address the whole problem. The main issue is tying outcomes to ego. For instance, even though I've been working for a yeah and a half in my current job which consists of some repetitive tasks, I have no confidence in what I'm doing.
If it goes wrong? I'm a failure, like I've always known I was. If it goes right? That was a fluke, that task was easy so anyone else could've done it, I had too much help so I can't say I was the one who did it, etc. Doesn't matter how many times I've done it (and have actually had the quality of my work recognized in form of a raise), I don't develop confidence because I always assume that I'm a failure from the get go, and then I fit everything else around it.
@@leonardocarvalho7306 I felt that 10/10 comment
Success builds on success.
My way to build self steem is pretty hands-on:
Make a small promise to yourself, and keep it. One little promise at a time and you will slowly gain trust in yourself.
the only right answer
makes sense, thank you for this
I fulfiled lot of promises yet no self worth
the voice in my head, the one of anxiet, is slowly changing into dr k's voice and its so amazing and everytime i think smth irrational i hear him outsmart it and it brings a smile to my face in all honesty i love this dude and everything he's done for my mental health gg dr.k
yau have to acknowledge that its not the real dr.k. he's just your expectation of someone that you respect. so, dont internalize that voice too much (especially if it becomes toxic), you have to do something about it. or else, you good bro. love you
This was a lot more thought-provoking than I expected. I've had zero self-esteem for longer than I can remember, hold myself to different expectations than I do others, deflect compliments and praise, and shoot down solutions for problems all the time with things like "I'm autistic and ADHD so there's really nothing that can be done about this", "I shouldn't need help with this", or "I don't trust myself not to fuck this up beyond all recognition". I need to think more on why I'm so convinced the outcomes of the things I do reflect on my value as a person.
That sounds a lot like someone who has been fed these lines from either people of authority like teachers/principals/parents
Which adds another layer to the whole situation, and that is usually a mix of distain, hate and frustration of either one's self or other people who match the original problem individuals
Like I have Chronic pain and many negative mental health problems, and I somehow managed to blame myself for being in said situation..... Like it's purely some genetic factors and some predisposed damage that triggered it all but for me in my head I'm a worthless individual who is a lesser percentage of a person as a whole.
I hope that makes any sense lol just a "hey something different but feels similar in emotions"
How can you have autism and ADHD? They feel like opposites. You like both structure and variety?
@@bobobsen I'm no expert but ADHD is an issue with inability to focus and hyperactivity. While people with autism need structures in place to function at their best, that doesn't mean they automatically know how to put those structures into place and anybody can have trouble sticking to a routine neurodivergent or not. So the ADHD is just an obstacle in getting into a routine not necessarily cancelling out the need for a routine
I might not have the sane issues but when I derive my value from external outcomes, it's a defense mechanism to prevent myself from going lazy. It's a toxic "admittance of being a weakling" who "needs to be reminded that they can only be worth as much as the results they produce" cause otherwise the unconditional love would enable them to do the absolute minimum and just lie on the couch all day.
@@bobobsen It's a very common co-morbidity
I just finished delivering a huge presentation at work that I got a lot of recognition and praise for. Through all of it and even still now, I feel like people were praising me and my presentation out of pity because I think that they think that I was nervous. This is helping me realize that maybe I’m framing they’re praise through my perception of myself which is that I’m not a great presenter / communicator.
I feel like I delivered really well and even practiced countless times, but I can’t get over thinking that they’re giving me praise because “I’m a young professional” and i was nervous but made it through.
This video is helping me realize that I am a good communicator and that I actually probably did deliver a good presentation. I need to reframe my perspective on other’s comments and appreciation.
Thank you Dr. K ❤️
Sounds like you really earned that praise. At the risk of sounding superficial: if you can't trust yourself, trust the effort you put in. :-D
Sounds like a classic case of imposter syndrome.
@@SadFace201 you have no idea my man 😔
@@vardhansolanki8573 you and I are in the same boat, in a way (hopefully not after 2 years...). It /can/ be true that they are praising you out of pity. But pity comes with its own tell-tale signs. I think pity often comes from empathizing with someone else and feeling upset on their behalf that they didn't get a good result for unjust reasons. In your example, you didn't give a good presentation because you are young. If there is no indication that this is what is going on, then you should use Occam's razor and conclude they did not merely pity you. They simply enjoyed your performance.
I say this since I had a recent experience just like this. In fact, I've been struggling with this for the last 8 years. LOGICALLY it is possible for them to genuinely enjoy your performance and yet your brain convinces you otherwise. The excuse your brain gives is actually irrelevant, because it is just an excuse and not a real reason. I know this because my brain does precisely that.
What I don't know is how to make your brain listen to reason. I can tell my brain "They clearly like me. All evidence is firmly pointing in this direction. There is none against." and my brain will still disagree. Sure, it'll give a "reason", but you can argue with it in circles, and it might never give a logical reason that you can't easily refute. It will still "justify" self-loathing. Ideally, you can get very fast at recognizing that your brain isn't being logical and mentally note the most likely scenario. But just because you've noted "obviously, they all love me", doesn't mean your brain will let you feel loved by them. It /should/. And I don't know how to make it do that.
i needed something like this right now, thank you dr K
Same
Licherally
Same. Seriously watching dr.k’s video is way more effective than talking to my shrink
l i’ll
I developed my self-esteem when I had my first BAD, BAD year. I took a year of two for myself, didn't get into relationships, tried to understand about my past, heal my traumas, live by myself... it's almost like I became my own friend and recognized what I am capable of. It's not anything absurd, but I am very happy with who I am. My anxiety got considerably better, my need to excell in classes or games disappeared and my attachment also felt more secure.
interesting comment am dealing with the same think as u i always thought that self esteem , of who we are come form materialistic stuff and stuff that you can do in life
The thought of becoming your own friend is very heartwarming, I hope I get there soon
I think in terms of self esteem. It's about finding ways to cope and eventually break the cycle of low self worth and esteem. It's very very difficult especially if you have been through some dark stuff in childhood/teenage years. It does cause mental health issues but I think anyone can recover from anything and family can cause some mental health problems.
I’m on sick leave right now, battling stress and thoughts of low self worth. I realize that I never do things for myself just to feel good. I mean sure I’ll fulfill my needs but I don’t do things just to treat myself. I just can’t find the motivation for it, it feels unnecessary. But I can find the motivation to do it for a loved one. It feels very illogical to think in these tracks, I mean who am I to deserve things? We are all just organisms in the universe what do we really deserve. It feels wrong and self absorbed to think like that.
A much needed video right now. I've recently headed back to uni after taking a suspension due to suffering from depression. Alot of my family are also rather dismissive of me for falling victim to such an illness, mostly because they've always placed a massive amount of expectations on my shoulders that I've never failed to meet. After being in such a place of weakness, both emotionally and physically, I realised how much people take the opportunity to take advantage. However, I've recently gone back to uni and studied with great classmates and a wonderful tutor. Through working hard again and getting results I've started to feel better. Now I cook every day and write something. Seeing myself accomplish something, even small mundane things, really reinforces my self-esteem.
It took over a year to realise, but I accept that not everything currently affecting me is a representation of my character. Crap happens. It's fine.
My family has noticed this change in my mindset and scarily try to put me down because I'm doing more than I ever used to before my depression. It's unfortunate, but the fact that the biggest issue people have with me is that I'm doing well, I know I'm heading in the right direction. This video has helped reinforce how I feel.
Keep striving bros, and realise that you're all human too. Give yourselves the consideration you give others. Y'all deserve it :)
Thank you for sharing your experience. Needed to hear it
Hey, i'm in a similar situation, and screw your family's actions right now. Good luck on caring less about what your family thinks, that's part of what uni is for, isn't it?
I know for a while that I've been entangled in this belief that my career path isn't good enough, that I should have discovered my true purpose at this point. But I also realize this mental dissatisfaction has caused me to perform worse at my job and feel very low about myself, sabotaging my efforts to pursue other things outside of my life. The timing on this video has been impeccable and has given me an effective toolset for questioning these outdated thought patterns.
Nothing works better than actually _knowing by experience_ that you are very good at something due to your own work
That's definitely a "Feels Good" moment.
Not necessarily. I can see improvement in things i try, and even receive praise but often my metric for success is comparative to those way ahead of me - so i never truly feel "good" at anything.
@@Balloonbot well, what works better then in creating confidence? ;D You just say that it is possible to not feel confident by creating an artificial environment by comparing only with better people^^
I miss that, I used to have things like that in my life and I was a lot happier
Not if you keep having to re-prove it
It is amazing to me how you can understand things about your own behaviour 15 or 20 years after things have happened and look at what you thought would be stuck with you forever in a different light. It's kind of unbelievable that all along there was a key to understanding yourself, healing and changing and at the same time you believed firmly there was no possible such key.
9:13 Attachment Theory: Early adverse life experiences = messed up attachment; the earlier the more difficult developing "good"(?) attachment
13:08 Most people [...] with low self-esteem tend to apply a different (lower) standard to others than they do to themselves.
How to improve self-esteem:
1. Get it from peers (through statements of genuine appreciation of ppl in community)
2. Disentangle ego from external expectations (21:43)
> see also 12:49 "If you have low self-esteem, you don't think you're worth very much. But where did you come up with the standard for your judgement?"
Dr K is amazing, this whole community is amazing. My biggest self takeaway: How did I conclude that my life is only fulfilled if I can be with my ex?
The missing equation message is very strong. Internalising external information is something I need to work on, but just like a wrong calculation. You will always get the wrong answer if you give yourself the wrong formula.
You'll also get to the wrong answer if you find yourself analyzing erroneous data... ;o)
what did you do bro-? I'm having a similar issue
@@ernestomendoza68 A lot has changed since I wrote this. But fundamentally I realised I have inner thoughts learnt from childhood telling myself I need to be a relationship to be fulfilled. I still do time to time but remember there's more to life than a relationship, It's really hard when media and movie constantly puts relationships on pedestals. But don't lose hope and seek help and grow to a person who can validate yourself. Hope that helps.
@@jjmcvideo I’m agree with you bro I’m also interested what did you actually do to change? Some tips about it?
If you’re up to a call since I’m also wanna learn that, let me know
this made me realize how much value i place on others view of me. probably way too much. but i feel like im not in the position to not think that way. because i have to rely on other people to be alive at all. this also made me realize how hurtful a lot of the stuff i've said or thought is towards other people. because they likely place a lot of their self worth in the same way as i do
Ego X external factors
Self esteem is based on 3 factors:
1. Unconditional human worth
2. Love
3. Growing
Worth is not compatible or competitive
Market/social worth can increase (money, status) but worth is stable and never in jeopardy, even if someone rejects you
Emotional detachment - emotionally mirroring - feeling secure, self esteem is built
Dr k voice is just so calming. I find myself always revisiting the same videos to be re-taught the same thing and lately, trying to really set aside time to address the internal insecurities and fears that I avoid
Thank you, Dr. K
13:20 that part foward hitted me so hard, e feel exactly like this, i push people up but deminish my self to a point of worthlessness, and i try to fight it, but it always come back
I am realizing about myself that I am used to using my critical thinking power to find ways in which I can blame myself, which leaves me with little energy left to use it on analyzing critically what's happening around me in order to come to proper conclusions about what's what. I am coming to realize that I need a degree of foundation within myself for having enough energy left to somewhat accurately perceive the cracks that are present externally.
It was nice to have someone like Dr K acknowledge how significant external validation can be, it made me feel less ashamed that I had recognized and craved that. It's made me realise how powerful giving a compliment can be so I want to make an effort now to say the thinks I like about people to them
Building a sane self esteem without ego is what I have been working on lately so this is probably going to be really interesting
How are you doing now?
Getting dumped after being together for 6 years hits your self esteem different than a no straight away. Thankfully being at a low point in life fuels my motivation. Though only until I'm comfortable again so I'm worried I'll just get complacant and end up where I was before the breakup and lose motivation to improve further.
Discomfort is a very strong motivator but there's a lot of other ways to get motivated to improve. You could also proactively seek out discomfort to stay get motivated.
@@danethenice That's an interesting strategy, I'm gonna think about it and see what I can do.
I have such a hard time with this. I've always felt less than everyone around me, and every time I've felt confident or valuable I always fail. I've learned to see self-esteem and confidence as delusion. Because I'm mentally crippled at this point, my life reinforces this. It feels impossible.
18:10 I feel like for me personally I do have really low self esteem and beat myself over things but I still find what I'm doing wrong, like, "oh I did that wrong ever single time I'm so awful" and even though it feels awful the feeling gets worse when I go work on that and no improvement is made. I feel like that's also a missing piece here that leads to self-worth lowering even more.
I'll give a better example. Yesterday I lost my 3rd spot on my tennis team to drop to 4 and this what I said to myself, "why are you so fucking bad, you missed literally every single back hand, you work on it everyday and it's still trash, you only hit 2 backhands back. 2! And your serve, completely awful, sending it long every single time. Oh just follow through more, and there it goes flying out. Absolutely trash. Go work on it some more except I guess that won't work either because you have been for months. Saying literally any part of that match was not your fault is straight copium. Get real".
Edits: spelling and also a post note that I do talk to myself like that.
I think the problem with that is you're distracting yourself in the moment when you're trying to focus on improving your skills. You know from experience that tennis requires you to focus on so many things at once when you're practicing a skill, like making sure all your body parts are coordinating to produce proper form, translating that into motion, then coordinating different movements depending on the complex context of the game as it progresses, and executing all of this quickly. But now on top of this difficulty you're adding to your mental burden by doubting yourself, so of course you're making mistakes - you're not focusing. And then since you start making mistakes from not focusing, the mistakes get programmed into your brain instead of your successes, so you don't improve.
You are clearly capable of improving since you've made it to third rank before. You just need to convince yourself of it again. You already know what to do - going back to basics by breaking the skill down into parts, executing each part and then reflecting on it, learning what you need to do differently to improve, trying this different approach, and then executing it. And with each iteration you make less mistakes, giving your brain rewards for success, which drives further improvement. You not only become confident in your current abilities but also confident in your ability to improve.
Full disclaimer: I don't know anything about tennis, but I play piano and I imagine the same general learning principles apply (although tennis is probably harder because you also have to focus on strategy and what your opponent is doing in real-time, then reflecting on your performance over a whole match to improve in the next one).
Tl;dr: Tennis is hard af and you're only contributing to the difficulty by distracting yourself with negative thoughts, which you can work on through therapy and meditation.
@@gamingdragon2361 negative talk like that is extremely distracting. you're using half of your brain power to judge yourself in the moment, and the other half is playing. you have to learn to completely lose yourself in the moment, try mindful meditation; meditation that focuses on letting thoughts pass by, without getting hung up on them. the moment you have those negative thoughts, snap yourself out of them immediately. just focus on the game.
you already know what you need to do better and what you're doing wrong. any more thinking about it is distraction
@@cheenis99 this was all after the game, I'm usually able to focus in when I need to it's just the failure that makes me down on myself. I try to keep a "full win" mindset until the game is done and I'm usually able to. It's just after when things go downhill.
@@gamingdragon2361 do you think this negative self-talk is a trauma response? was someone you trust super critical of you? or of other people and you felt like you had to fit their standards to not be criticized?
another way of fixing your negative self talk is by childhood or trauma-focused therapy/self-work.
it could be that your body is being emotionally flooded from all that shame from criticism, and anger from being unable to express this shame from when you were young and powerless.
this might then lead to really intense negative self-talk.
if emotional flooding is the cause, you would need to treat that, not the symptoms it causes (negative self talk).
4:39 I didn’t think of this. My parents always showed sympathy when I got hurt, but they overall said “suck it up, life’s tough” to me throughout my whole life
I was also recently facing a low self esteem, it sunk so deep that I used to sit isolated in my classroom, ignoring my friends. I also realised that maybe I was behaving like that for gaining attention.
After few days of isolation, also by noticing myself in the class, I concluded that this wasn't right, then I started to interact with all. My friends companionship was good though they didn't knew my internal termoil, also I made some new friends, which boosted my self esteem, and gave some assurance that I am not that bad, though it was external but it works. But now I am recognising that I am a bit egotistical, so I am not able to show my real self fully to others and I am willing to work on it.
good stuff blud
This video made me anxious and depressed. I don't really have any values anymore. I just sort of done away with them cause I don't know if anything I think is valid. Whenever I have a complaint that something is too hard or unfair I just stop thinking about it and just do it. I just tell myself that is is my fault the work is so hard in the first place. I'm fat, I'm lazy, I always look for the easy way to do things. Doesn't help that the only person I love in the world literally won't accept a compliment from me cause they said it doesn't count cause I like them... Everything is discouraging to me. I don't know if I line up with reality. This is the question I have been asking myself for years and I still haven't found the answer. Where does my world view come from?
what about this video depressed you?
Wonderful, I hadn't actually made the connection between self esteem and ego.
I've realized that my self esteem is very low at times, and that has had some pretty harsh negative effects on my life, but hadn't pieced together that it was my ego that constructed the low self esteem from my experiences.
Havent Watched the video yet so it might be covered in this video but self love is something that doesnt get talked about enough. Self love is a huge step to becoming more confident and building self esteem
or just a lack of self hatred/deprecation.
Can we also have a similar video on confidence? Namely what is confidence and how can you develop it. Thanks
This is my therapy homework for the week and it's hard but your video is extremely helpful, thank you ❤️
Just starting the video, posting up my info first to see if it's confirmed or denied:
Once upon a time they found that kids with high self esteem performed better in schools, so they pushed the self-esteem movement, which didn't help.
The causal relationship was reversed.
Kids who performed better in school had higher self esteem as a result.
Solution: If you want higher self-esteem, find something you can be good at and do it.
Now to watch the video and see how wrong/right I am
Can you make a video about trust issues in a romatic relationship related to how our parents (especially the dad-daughter relationship) were distant? I know that therapy is the solution, but maybe you can give tips (e.g. journaling?) and how to approach the therapist
I remember having to do this with my grades. I was more disappointed with myself for a poor grade than my mother was. And then uni came in swinging with a different grading scale and then I failed a subject. I eventually worked through to the point that my performance in assessable work and exams was not a perfect indication of my knowledge on the subject being assessed. I like learning, so I would focus on concepts, but I didn’t like having to demonstrate it for the sake of demonstration in assignments and also would mentally blank in tests. My mental health improved a lot once I acknowledged that I was smart, but didn’t have good assessment/study skills. My grades, however… let’s just say because of my reduced anxiety, I was even less motivated to work on assessable things and subsequently discovered I had ADHD. Apparently prior to my diagnosis, I was living in continuous anxiety from rolling deadlines and an overloaded schedule, both of which contributed to defining me as a person.
The certain result we get from the external world doesn't necessarily determine identity. It's our decision to look at what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong. Troubleshooting (asking where our standards came from and so on) and then taking actionable steps to change our behaviors towards others. This may or may not produce different results, but positive feedback does help change how we frame things and our views of ourselves. This is a condensed version of what I had learned from Dr. K's videos. I hope it's helpful. Thank you.
Ahh yes Been waiting for his advice !!!
This channel has brought me an unprecedented level of internal confidence and self belief as well as a plethora of mental health knowledge that I wouldn't have otherwise had. Thank you Dr. K
I feel like your videos were meant just for me. Uhg. Such great content. Thanks!
I love your content, Dr. K! It's been so helpful for me.
My only piece of feedback for your videos would be to consider adding an outro to end the video. Sometimes I will be really vibing and listening while doing chores and the audio suddenly cuts off. It's a little abrupt. Just a friendly "let me know your thoughts, take care everyone" would go a long way.
Keep it up, Dr. K! We all believe in you.
to be honest ive been abused for who i am since early childhood and it set my brain in such a bad mindset and people just keep proving my bullies and abusers right, it kinda sucks. I battle with suicidal thoughts every day and to be honest if I wasn't so scared of eternal nonexistence, I wouldn't be here right now nothing is keeping my alive but that.
Whenever I tried to do some bare minimum to make myself feel better about me or life or whatever, life kept punishing me. When I started working out I fell on my hip and couldn't even walk without awful pain for a year, when I got a new haircut and piercings I got two separate infections because apparently people here don't clean their fkn equipement anymore. When I finally got a guitar after 10 years of wanting one and to learn to play it... I fall and hurt my elbow which made it impossible to play a guitar or even lift a cup of water.
That's just few of million other things that happened to me, I keep getting fkt over. So it's not just confidence thing it's a whole being cursed for some reason which kills my confidence in process because im simply NOT ALLOWED to be happy.
i feel so dumb for even writing this but i guess there has to be someone who relates to my level of cursed. I never wanted riches and what not to be happy, just a normal life, maybe a friend, maybe someone to love me... I dont have anything. It's so tiring.
i understand
I've always struggled with self-esteem as an Autistic fella, as is the case with many Autistic individuals. We are often judged for not behaving "normally", even in cases when our behavior is completely harmless or innocuous.
I've never performed well academically, so the only positive affirmations I would receive is from drawing, which was something my mom always attributed to being a "talent" that was a byproduct of my Autism (savantism).
This of course began to create a negative feedback loop growing up, because people would correlate my artistic successes with my Autism, which was not the case, it was because I worked hard. Not having my successes attributed to my effort eventually started hampering on my self-esteem. This idea was so entrenched in my identity that I eventually dropped out of University because of the pressure, along with other issues that I won't get into. Least to say I don't really enjoy making art anymore.
I think that I have low self-esteem because I grew up in an environment unheard, and misunderstood, due in part because of the prevailing ableist attitude that any issues expressed by me has to do with me being Autistic, and not because of any interpersonal or systemic issues I am experiencing in my day to day life. I feel like relying on other people's affirmation became such a crutch that I can't make decisions independently anymore without uncertainty.
Another issue I've always had in self-esteem is related to my weight. My mother used to be an anorexic and almost died as a result, which heavily disrupted our lives for a few months. I've always thought I was fat because of this, even when I was 140 pounds, and in very good shape.
The only time she ever complemented my build was when I was eating very little in my early 20s, which involved eating at most one meal a day. She never talked to us about it her anorexia, so I don't think anyone in my family was able to properly process the event, which was evident as my younger sister went through an episode a couple years ago being a dancer and all. My mom still comments on my weight to this day.
Least to say, I don't feel comfortable talking to her these days.
There's a bunch of other family matters that I could get into, but I'll stop rambling about that, as I could go on all day about it.
I only started realizing a lot of this in the past couple years. The only thing I'm thankful for is that I have a wonderful wife whom I can turn to and articulate my thoughts on the matter.
Just wanted to say your level of self reflection is so good, it seems like you’ll get a lot of value out of dr k‘s videos. And i agree there is still a long way to go when it comes to ableism and i am glad for you that you are considering systemic conditions and being compassionate toward yourself. I’m sure it wasn’t easy getting to that point of insight. Wish you well in life and that you’ll maybe find your way back to do doing art for the sake of enjoyment and expression eventually. :)
I can relate a lot but I’m not sure if I’m autistic. I’ve always been really good at singing since I was little because it was an escape from the abuse and it was the only thing that I got attention from. That and being good at videogames and knowing a lot of things about people and behaviors. I was told as a kid I was an old soul and I genuinely think that it was because of my parents abuse that I had to grow up quickly and analyze my parents behavior to know if they are going to get angry. I’d always hear all of the sides to their fights and had an understanding that we are all very similar and a lot of us just lack communication and listening skills. They are very narcissistic and now I have a hard time validating and being patient with myself because I have meltdowns and struggle to self regulate. They are so dismissive towards me and they don’t understand at all. It makes me genuinely angry and has completely messed me up mentally to a point where I struggle to take care of myself and leave my apartment. I’m angry and stuck and I want to be the loving and understanding kid I used to be but now I just feel bitter. I hope I can be less cold and more kinder to myself and others in the future and not feel like a burden or dismissed by the people around me. Even my boyfriend dismisses me without meaning to. Drives me insane
People treat me well, my friends are sweet and always say they enjoy my company. But honestly my self-esteem has been bad for so long, I'm not sure how I got entangled with being so critical of myself, probably from my family. Then again I don't really have any ill will towards my family, they did what they thought was best :/ I really hope I can build that "internal" sense of self-esteem because no matter what happens externally it doesn't change what I think of myself
I'd say familial expectations impacting the self-esteem of children is pretty common. Constant criticism and comparisons to others (like cousins that are better off) can really wear you down after a while. It's easier to internalize the negativity too since it's coming from a place that's supposed to be providing you with support. A lot of it is cultural from my experience. Just recognizing it goes a long way, but it's unlikely for family to change the way they interact.
1. External-Accept people’s complement
2. Internal-Re-evaluate what value you have internalized and know the poor outcome isn’t part of your identity
So, self-esteem goes low when you internalize the expectations of other people, and when you don't meet those expectations.
Can you also develop low self-esteem if you set, by yourself, expectations that you don't meet?
Perhaps, it is that the set of all the possible incentives to do so is empty? I'm not sure.
I think so as well. So i just stopped assigning value and or worth to things i do, and specially about how well i do. i just stopped judging me.nothing is either good nor bad about me. But you know what? Others keep saying i have low self worth. Its like they do not even the see mee, they just see what they expect of me. And they desire for it to be like i think of myself worse than them and so i must have low self steem. Really weird. At the end of the day we all die, so the important thing is to do things the best we can and with good intentions, regardless the outcomes? Still thinking about this. In my mind i have already died so this is extra endgame time, like not fighting the final boss and enjoying castlevania. So what is self worth for then? Whats the problem if i am weak than others? None i just work around it. But people suddendly be like noo you cannot even dare to think yourself as weak!! And get mad. But alas, i am physically weaker than everyone i knowfor example. I do not care, my strenght is enough for what i need. Those things are just opninions either you can or not do things and work toward improving. Judging if its good or bad its just duv ad everything constantly changes you may be labelled good one moment and even if you did the same thing it now would not be good enough. Just like that. Its more about luck than anything i guess. So, o do kot tell em i did good/bad. I just do my best. And try to improve accosrding my values. No hard feelings lol.
Definitely. But I realized that my own expectations were still built around how others would respond to me. If you were the only person left in the world, you wouldn't have push yourself at all.
@@bobobsen Second this.
@@bobobsen or are they built around how you assume they would respond to you? Notice the difference? People are usually more kind than we give them credit for.
“Who you are is not tied to outcomes” powerful stuff, but if not, then what else can help us discover that?
How do you know what I'm tackling about myself right now? This is so on point dude!!! Thanks
I literally can't take anything away from this.
why not?
The best book I ever read was 6 Pillars of Self Esteem by Nathaniel Brandon. Self help books get a bad rep, but this one is a gem. It is written by a very intelligent psychiatrist, like dr. K! Except a bit older. I highly recommend it!
My narcissistic parents raised in a way where i cant pair bond, i cant socialize and I cant feel security in myself. They were not better off either growing up, but i think it's unfair i was given all their mental issues when I didn't choose to be this way. Im riddled with low self esteem, BPD, ADHD, anxiety...
I'm sorry that happened to you, punish your parents by removing their genes from the pool, if you weren't raised you don't know how to raise and inevitably will traumatise your children the same way you've been
ThankU this is pretty good and in sync with the message from my therapist that it's necessary to challenge my own core beliefs. Or as another friend put it, brainwash myself. It's been exhausting though. I'm glad I'm old. I hasten to mention the role of violence. Prolific since infancy, i can affirm violence turns a person into an object, a thing. Slaps in the face umm deface. A punch in the groin = a non medical transgendering. The mind/willpower have limited access to neuro disruption. I'm glad i stuck around, i was a good sport. But i'm not eager to prolong
This explains why music makes me feel more connected to myself sometimes
OMG thank you for this!!!! I needed it
pure gold here, thanks dr k, youre an amazing person
It's hard to deal with people who put themselves down as a response to you, but I feel like after awhile and after we've talked to them about it, surely we can relieve ourselves of that guilt, right? It's like, we tried.
Whatever spark or soul or heart people have inside them to inspire love from other people I don't have. I've given up on love and happiness. Women spot me as the damaged goods I am and run away.
Christ why are Dr. K's videos always so pertinent and timely.
Literally started reading a book called the six pillars of self esteem by Nathaniel branden. And understood that 99% of my problems stem from self esteem issues and Dr K posts this video
Great book
Funny thing that happened to me a week ago I shipwrecked a relationship for being too clingy and I discover Dr K for the first time through that vid…funny how life works
This book saved me from my constant low self-esteem. Defo recommend it
I would love Dr K to elaborate on musicians going through the self discovery and his perspective on self esteem, ego, and how they relate to art and self expression
I can’t believe how much this channel grew. Been here since forever!
you can't get confidence from someone else. Confidence comes from when you face the shit that you don't wanna face, and you trust yourself to stand by you when you need to, that you'll set boundaries instead of letting people walk all over you.
I wish that person knew just how lucky they are to achieve ONE of those things. Im so poor that during covid I had to work 4 jobs just to make ends meet. Appreciate Dr.K as always but I wish I could be free of the poverty I was born into and get to actually do something with my life.
Dr K, thanks for the amazing work you do! You are helping me a lot!
However I think this topic is suuuper important for your community and you could do better giving advice on how to improve self esteem. Maybe listening the inner critic, locus control, self empathy, social, negative self talk..
One of your best videos yet!! 🔥
Great information, Dr. K! 🙌🏻
14:00
17:31 18:10 ego blanket blames but absolves responsibility
21:40
self-esteem is built from achieving competence. If you're mental or physical illness prevents that achievement, no self-esteem can robustly be gained. I wish I was wrong, and who am I to question a literal Harvard psychiatrist.
Thank you dr K, timely advice as always
The thumbnail’s amazing
This man helps me so much
That thumbnail got me 😂💗
Added to watch later.
13:30 Thats an interesting perspective that I've never considered. I have high levels of anxiety, and I tend to have *extremely* high expectations of myself, and low expectations of others. I tend to put up with a lot of crap from others, and will do a lot for others. Should I lower the expectation for myself, or raise my expectation of others? Most likely both, but how much for each? Until it can be consistently achieved?
What I got from all I watched from Dr K is that you shouldn't have expectations of anyone.
Expectations = results, and humans can't control results. Even if you try really hard, there'll be a lot of external things that have to go right for you to get the result that you want.
I think you should ask yourself why do you think you need to have expectations from yourself and other people.
I recommend Dr K video on Karma(sow seeds for your future self) and the one that compares western and eastern perspectives on the mind.
@@misterkite99 but how does that work? Yes expectations are difficult and can be problematic but I also think that never being expected to strive to be better in any way by being given said expectations can't be the best choice either.
What I think happened is people in general used exceedingly more difficult expectations on others and themselves to make small improvements but in doing do they taught themselves and those around them it was either fail or don't fail that's it.
So I think having expectations is fine as long as you acknowledge to those who are being expected of that failure is an option and it's inevitable so might as well limit the damage done by making mistakes early when you can more easily correct them
I think you can not have expectations for yourself/others while still doing your best at everything you do. I think there's this idea out there that if you don't set expectations for yourself you won't do anything but like I really don't think that's an issue? Or maybe we should be setting a different type of expectations. Like instead of a specific outcome (get a 4.0, hot significant other, own a house by age ___ ) We should set expectations of our own behavior/effort. I'm going to try at everything I do, I'm going to live in the moment to the best of my ability, I'm going to be kind to others. I'm going to accept help when I need it. etc. ?? Just midnight thoughts.
@@sunshinegirl2015 as a general rule for a great deal of people especially nowadays as that's what they have taught themselves, I would say there is a large number of people who rely on setting expectations for themselves to keep pushing themselves forwards
Those people although they are technically working and going through the motions, can easily be seriously thrown off if all the sudden they fail said expectation
But, I don't think that necessarily is the right or best way by any means
If we could manage a society that there wasn't these sort of toxic expectations for everyone, while still continuing to excel further than the previous generation that would of course be much better.
The issue is I don't see how that would be possible as everyone I've met in a authority role over me has has a toxic expectation of me at some point for example.
@@sunshinegirl2015 as an additional mention if you can actually go by those final "I'm going to..." statements do it that sounds like a good start for sure.
why don't we stop putting a value on us and other people? getting a 4.0 or 3.0 is just cause and effect. you can try to convince yourself you're still a "good" person, even with low grades... or you can just try and ditch the concept of good and bad persons altogether and just see yourself for what you are. an individual whose life story has led them to be exactly like how they are right now. there's only right/wrong, good/bad about this if you decide to put such a stamp on it.
I see that as extremely difficult to accomplish as we tend to hold ourselves to standards - standards that I think help or allow us to make movements and accomplish things in life. We tend to become hard on ourselves when we fall short to the ideal we want to be, and it seems to be that the higher the standard we hold ourselves to, the harder we are on ourselves (which makes sense).
I don't think simply seeing ourselves for what we are is necessarily a solution to this issue as I think it's virtually impossible to divorce ourselves from our standards. I also very much think it can be healthy to attach labels such as good and bad to your output as this can be a way to gauge your progress or a way to improve yourself (maybe work ethic, or methods about doing things) it only becomes a problem when your ego succumbs to those labels.
I think ways to go about not letting your ego rule you could be adjusting your standards by understanding that we aren't perfect and mistakes will occur and we won't always get what we want, and understanding that the outcome doesn't define you and your worth as a person. Perhaps it would be better if we came from the perspective of doing the best we can and being okay with that and realizing that our output doesn't equal our worth.
@@mpmedia6735 @MPMedia I think I understand what you're saying. Problem is from what I've seen this mindset is often based on self betrayal. I'm not perfect, I have flaws.... But I'm still good? That doesn't make sense at least to me. this sense of self is still focused on evaluation. My approach is basically one step further. I don't have any flaws. Because what's considered a flaw is a highly subjective matter and this concept exists only in our mind.
As you said it's a difficult task to remind ourselves of this. We need to detect our ego being active and return to the place of just existing time and time again.
If I understand you correctly, you mentioned the concern that our ego helps us stride for accomplishments and without it we basically have no goals and no values to live by.
From my experience I kind of went through the opposite. Since I started to consider values as subjective concepts that are neither better or worse than other ones, I found the freedom to develop my own. Not because they're the right/good ones, in fact they're completely arbitrary in a sense, but because I like them.
In that scenario, why even do anything? If there is no bad, then there is no good. If there is no good, then why work hard to achieve anything? And if there is no bad why work hard to run away from anything?
@@kissenklauer7011 if you usually have good intent, I would say you're usually a good person. I don't think judging the totality of yourself on a few bad actions isn't useful or true.
Your approach is an extreme, to which I wouldn't say is necessary as you can still be mentally healthy while putting your output on a scale of "this is in line with my ideal so this is good" or "this isn't in line with my ideal, so this is bad". If you were to just ignore your standards, I don't think you're really solving the problem at hand here and I think you would stagnate. Sure you can try to think more objectively about things, but humans are driven by desire and detaching from our standards competely seems counter productive. What I'm arguing for is balance and not throwing the baby out with the bath water. Judging your actions can be a good thing especially from an ethical standpoint. It's good to see flaws as our actions tend to affect others, so to ignore your standards is really just burying your head in the end, and not being honest with yourself from my perspective.
Thank you this video is actually so useful
I almost feel like high expectations/ perfectionist mentality from mainly myself and others (in terms of my career choices) 'might' be a factor in my at times low self esteem. Also I belive social support in general is important to raising self esteem.
This video is just what I needed to hear btw. One of my biggest challenges atm is finding stable social ties outside family
Give me love give me dreams give a good self esteem.
But that thumbnail tho - 10/10 Chef's kiss 👌
Not gonna lie, recently saw some videos that made me see Dr K in not the greatest light, but his videos still help me.
Continue to explore that. Not seek to believe, but seek for the truth.
This is actually so helpful thank you so much
Yeah I still have no idea how to fix this. I have an inferiority complex. I feel inferior everywhere I go and everything I do is never good enough or sub-par. I'm extremely anxious around people and almost never leave my house. I can't even muster the courage to post something in a Discord. I'm afraid of people and have a lot of self-hatred. I'm a 30 year old virgin and things aren't getting any better. This lack of self-esteem and self-hatred seeps into everything in my pathetic life. I think about suicide constantly too and feel no hope for the future.
I feel the same way you feel, you are not alone
Best possible way to overcome this is to allow yourself to be vulnerable to your therapist and yes it will be scary but you have to want to succeed for this to work.
Volunteering is one option ❤ itll be okay, small steps.
Love this man
I thought I had a "good" sense of self esteem. I realize now I do not. It's hard for me to accept compliments and I internalize criticism. I do not fight it. I just accept it and tell my self I legitimately am inept. I really want to rewire my brain. 😅
We consider probabilities all the time. We depend on them. Are we to ignore probabilities in this case? What do we do if the probability of our negative belief being true is much higher than the probability of a positive alternative belief being true?
Dr. K is right in a nutshell as usual but there I see a few problems.
- Using the example with the GPA... Yes, there are dumb people with high GPAs and smart people with low GPAs. However, low self-esteem usually comes from multiple sources. In that case, the GPA will be combined with other signs of that person not being intelligent. Also, even though there are exceptions, in my experience such conclusions come from averages. And there is a correlation between intelligence and a high GPA. Obviously, that's not to say low self-esteem is justified but that it makes believing the opposite that much harder.
- The whole process although fascinating leaves me with no information on how to proceed. How do you figure out which expectations have been internalized? Are there some expectations that are purely yours and would be okay for them to affect your self-esteem? If you know exactly where those internalized expectations came from, how do you deal with them? Knowing by itself does not seem to help a lot of people.
- Is there a difference between confidence and self-esteem? They're different in my eyes although I'm not sure where exactly one ends and the other begins.
Self-esteem seems to be more about the value of a person as a human being. But then again, what is that value and how do you judge that? I can personally get behind the idea of loving yourself but the 'unconditional' part is hard to swallow. Is everyone equally deserving of love? It does not seem like that... It makes more sense that a kind, generous and competent would be loved but not so much a mean and narcissistic loser. Could the latter be a valuable human being worthy of love? Sure. But again, if you put things on a scale, my point remains.
I think of confidence as more skill/domain oriented. You can be a confident software engineer because you have experience and you know how to deal even with difficult problems. I'm definitely not confident at flying planes as I have never flown one. One can be confident socially because one feels great when meeting people and are an effective communicator. Conversely, having social interaction correlated with mostly bad experiences will likely make you less confident in that domain.
- If you don't trust yourself with doing anything, you don't trust your judgment and you don't take care of yourself how can you have confidence and/or even self-esteem? I'm aware that you need self-esteem to trust yourself but it also works the opposite way. Breaking your trust in yourself is a pretty good way to feel like shit and lower your self-esteem. In addition to that, there are certain actions you can do that improve self-esteem and they're mostly external.
I watched the whole video and it was great, however another problem of mine is retaining information though (especially with cognitive difficulties), hope you do a video on that one day.
Simple & easy to understand
Thank U Dr. K 🙏🏼🐇
No, never let someone else affect yourself esteem, this will only create a endless loop of seeking approval, recognition and attention to confirm it, you cannot base the opinions of others about yourself on them, most people are very subjective and less objective by far, you really think they are good at it, especially without even knowing 1% about you?
Hell no, lol, just be objective about yourself when you are doing...anything really.
Do you like who you are, do you want to change something about you and you know that you should but haven't doe that yet for whatever reason?
Do it, earning respect from doing things for yourself is the only way to have a solidified self esteem that is not affected about other people's opinion.
This doesn't mean that you should be 100% absolute and don't listen to anyone's opinion, just don't take what they have to say as correct about you without actually giving it a thought first + motivation and manipulation exist so...
What I've been doing is playing elden ring. Doesn't matter if you just killed a dragon, you can still die to a rat
And cheesing the enemies is fair game that way too.
i used to get bullied all throughout high school and it has destroyed my self esteem ever since. I was never able to build my self esteem up and i barely have friends and never had a gf at the age of 28m.
same its hard
Having a girlfriend wont fix you
@@StarmenRock it depends
@@nickolazcarters what do u mean? (Genuinely curious)
Dr K I have one request. Please do a lecture on forming habits. I am not consistent in meditation or anything.
I'm in my 30's and really needed some advice regarding this matter this week specifically for my therapy session. Thank you Dr. K. Always love your content. It's so helpful and insightful and I feel like my own sessions are much more productive thanks to the things I've thought about or learned about thanks to you.
When i told my dad i got arrested for pot, he said "Matthew, you're not smart enough to smoke pot"
He was right, and is a real man for telling the truth. Versus "its okay accidents happen"
I can't get out of the loop, my self worth is tied to how well entertained I can keep the other person in a conversation, and how does the other person see me at the end of the conversation. Those are the most important things in the world. To be accepted by the group, the tribe, being different is shameful. Being too different is almost a moral crime.
I can't trust anyone, every other man could become a bully at any time, any woman would look at me with disgust and feel repulsed, if they were to see my weaknesses, and learn that I am too sensitive of a man. (if you can even consider me a man) I don't like sports and prefer fiction and videogames over partying. Those are not socially accepted hobbies, and therefore no one will ever love me if I don't manage to find socially acceptable ones.
My father taught me that I deserved to be bullied because I was too stupid. Too weak.
I won't get a girlfriend until I get other hobbies that women consider interesting, manage to find a good to high earning job, and manage to have such a charisma that I could talk to anyone for hours and hours.
I won't be able to make friends until I get rid of all the things men consider weaknesses. I can't let anyone know I enjoy romantic movies for example, I would be publicly ashamed for something like that. Or et alone, watch anime. (this last one is specially repulsive to women)
And there's no breaking the cycle, self-validation is arrogance, so it's wrong, it takes you away from virtuousness, you can't recognize your own self worth, society has to, otherwise it's just you telling yourself what you want to hear and that's the same than lying to yourself. If the tribe doesn't accept you then it means you don't deserve acceptance.
Fortunately I can afford weed, and lose myself in daydreaming and fiction and videogames to forget how utterly worthless I had the misfortune to be born. I wish I had a heart attack right now. I'm tired of this life, of this society, this world. I wish I had never been born. Life is shit.
If you have to hide so much of yourself to feel like you fit in, then it sounds to me like you're not in the right "tribe". For example, you say that women would be repulsed by you liking anime---my partner and I developed a relationship precisely because we were both into anime. The same goes for my male friends that enjoy romantic movies, that prefer videogames over partying, that don't like sports. For all the things you think are shameful and repulsive, there's a group out there that enjoys it. In other words, find company that shares your hobbies and shares your joys. It sounds like you're suffering by trying so hard to fit in rather than finding a group that fits you.
But of course, this might all fall on deaf ears. The tone of your comment already sounds like you're resigned to your state of being.
@@SadFace201 The problem is that a tribe I could belong into doesn't exist.
What I described is mostly my school experience, when I got to college there were people with a few topics I could have potentially talked about, and yet still couldn't function there. I can have someone who have seen the same thing or played the same game and liked them and I still will not be able to hols a proper conversation. If it weren't for one specific very extroverted friend I wouldn't have been able to end up in a group to begin with.
"sounds like you're resigned to your state of being"
That's because it's too late for me. I'm 29 now and I can't function as a normal person. I can't even tell people when I disagree with them in any random topic. I lost my personality because I wasted that period from 15 to 25 years old. Now I don't even know what to even try. I can't even talk to strangers. Even if I could try searching for a hobby there's no way I could properly talk to people and make friends.
My last resort would be to move to a bigger city, close to me is Buenos Aires, but I can't because of my job. So there's no much more to do.
Yeah, my life is already wasted, there's not much I can do now. And even if there were, what for? I've already lost the part of life that's worth. What's left for me beside working and growing old? And without the slightest possibility of ever having a partner and forming a family I don't even want to.
I can't even afford future gaming consoles to keep avoiding reality. If it weren't because I would ruin my mother's life, I would have killed myself already.
There's just nothing to live for. There is no hope.
@@franacha Bro, did you even watch the video? You sound exactly like what Dr. K is describing @18:10.
Your comments have a lot of assumptions about life that don't have to be. Use your extroverted friend as a resource. Go see a therapist. All I'm going to say is that life is not defined by a time period that makes up only 10-20% of your total lifespan. 29 years old is plenty young to make changes to your life if you want to, but nothing will happen with your current attitude.
@@SadFace201 I generally vent in the comments when I start watching the video, because my brain start with all of this and then I can't concentrate until that is out.
I did therapy three different times now, I've watched videos and looked for information. But nothing works. I can't change my behavior.
I need a better job yet I can't sit and study.
I feel bored as fvck every day yet I can't look for hobbies.
I can't keep conversations going yet I can't even read news, or look for things to talk about.
I am lonely yet I can't even approach women to talk, let alone flirt.
I can't control myself, discipline myself. No matter how much I know I should and how important I know it is, I just can't control myself. I can't.
I just lack the sheer force of will necessary to through life. How can a person lack life itself from the core of its being?
I've been years, maybe even decades stuck like this. And yet I can't get out. I just can't.
So I vent in comments. I try to put my thoughts out of my head although it accomplished nothing.
Maybe one day I will have the strength necessary to actually kill myself. I'm sorry for my mother, but I can't keep living only for not making other people sad.
"All I'm going to say is that life is not defined by a time period that makes up only 10-20% of your total lifespan" but that's adolescence, it's precisely the part in which a human develops their own personality. It's precisely what defines who you're going to be after. All the way you build yourself until you become an adult. How can losing all that and STILL have a life worth living?
@@SadFace201 I wanted to read your reply. But it seems to be gone.
I have a really difficult time with this as I'm unable to see how confidence and intrinsic self-worth isn't make-believe. If I am worse than somebody else, they are better. How is that not more valuable? If you had to picked a trained surgeon or an untrained one, which would you prefer to work on you? The same applies across all areas. Same with IQ, depressing as it is. Higher the IQ, the better they will be in most areas of life. (until you reach genuis, where savantism kicks in) They'll learn faster, so they'll be better eventually. You can't compare a rotten apple to an apple pie and expect them to be of the same value. And I am a rotten apple.
I really dislike the emphasis of "look into the guide to find it" especially since often when I go into the guide it ends up being a vague video which covers the topic in an extremely summarized way rather than an in depth way as is implied here. I also wish there was a higher emphasis on how to do this on your own rather than relying on positive people around you. I feel like its really easy to develop a toxic dependence on people if you rely on them for how you feel about yourself.
@@Dimitris_Half I mean clearly the commenter doesn't want to rely on others?
Now I'd like to internalize this, maybe I could journal . but I have adhd and it's hard.
thank you dr. K
Can anyone further simplify and explain how do we not internalize external expectations? In short how do we work on ourselves?
Unfortunately, I put myself and others up to the same standards, and I'm now truly starting to realise that I'm worthless. very contradictory to the video, but I might be one of the rare cases where my low self esteem truly reflects reality.