Self-Esteem vs. Self-Compassion: Which is More Important for Mental Well-Being?
Self-Esteem vs. Self-Compassion: Which is More Important for Mental Well-Being?
Self-Esteem may be a good thing, but it is fragile, and self-compassion might be the key to building confidence and overcoming setbacks.
Amongst the long list of things we would like to have in life related to physical, like being healthy, material, like having financial security and psychological, like feeling happy and fulfilled — I would debate that what takes priority over all of these is that feeling of feeling good about oneself.
But this sense of being comfortable within one's skin and confident in one's abilities does not come easy. Building this internal resource of confidence is often tied to developing strategies to boost your self-esteem. Although this is not without its problems, why?
Because self-esteem involves making an internal judgment on one's worthiness and how much an individual value's themselves, Self-esteem is usually defined as a value judgement dependent on the degree to which we evaluate ourselves positively compared to others (Harter, 2015).
Kristin Neff, an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, narrates how while on her journey researching self-esteem and self-compassion, she started to notice,
That the field of psychology was falling out of love with self-esteem as the ultimate marker of positive mental health. Although thousands of articles had been written on the importance of self-esteem, researchers were starting to point out all the traps that people can fall into when they try to get and keep a high level of self-esteem: narcissism, constant comparisons with others, ego-defensive anger, prejudice, and so on. (Germer & Neff, 2019, p. x)
This does not mean that having good levels of self-esteem is bad on the contrary, there is a consensus that a healthy level of self-esteem is needed, and a lack of it can undermine our psychological well-being fostering psychopathologies like anxiety and depression (Leary, 1999; Neff, 2011).
A seminal study by Crocker and Park (2004) pointed out that the problem with self-esteem is not in having high levels of it but in how we get and keep our level of self-esteem.
For example, Heine et al. (1999) point out that in North American culture, self-esteem is tied to standing out and being above average. This can bring with it a sense of constantly pushing yourself to tip the needle in the desired direction to achieve a sense of self-efficacy by, for example, pushing yourself to work harder and excel at work, to be more successful than you are, get stronger, better and develop grit. Because of this, we can find ourselves on a treadmill, constantly running to better ourselves compared to others.
This can be exhausting because, as mentioned before, boosting self-esteem is tied to external validation, like compliments at work or how many likes we get on our Instagram, Facebook or TikTok posts. Because there is this external element to self-esteem, it can be fragile.
Imagine a situation where you are falling behind, not keeping up with the demands of working. You might find yourself feeling frustrated, angry and inadequate with yourself for falling behind. It might seem the logical thing to do in this situation to push yourself and try harder. Initially, this may work, but in the longer term, this approach can hold you back and exhaust your internal resources.
In moments of difficulty, getting down on yourself can cause you to further doubt yourself, making it hard to think outside the box, learn from your mistakes, and grow as an individual. This makes It more likely that we will give up than try again.
And how would you feel if you were in this state and someone evaluated your work, parenting skills, intelligence, or performance as simply average or below average?
Ouch! As feelings of isolation, critical self-judgement and criticism start to creep in.
Kristin Neff (2011) tells us to Remember that difficulties and setbacks aRE part of everyone's life. We all experience these its part of our common humanity, and rather than isolating ourselves, Neff and Christopher (2018) tell us that An alternate way to respond in these situations that might be more helpful is expressing self-compassion, a way of showing kindness to yourself when you are struggling, failing short or just not keeping up with the demands life throws at you.
Why? Because self-compassion is not about measuring up to expectations. On the contrary, it is a way of relating to yourself and the difficulties you experience as a human being. Like everyone else, we all experience difficulties connecting with this and rather than judgement and criticism, expressing care and concern for ourselves during difficult hard times.
In fact, compassion is commonly defined as, "being sensitive to the suffering of self and others with a deep commitment to try to prevent and relive it" (Gilbert & Choden, 2014, p. 1).
Gilbert and Choden (2014) point out that at a closer look, we notice that this definition points to two "psychologies" of compassion:
The first one is, "being open and receptive to suffering, not shutting it out. So we can ask ourselves what special attributes and skills we need in order to move toward suffering" (ibid. p. 1).
The second one is a, "mental ability, or "psychology," is about how we then respond to suffering in ourselves and others" (ibid. p. 1).
Therefore compassion is far from passive as it requires both approaching and making space for difficulties while also urging us to do something to prevent, alleviate or remove suffering by tapping into the ability to express genuine concern, kindness, understanding and motivation to take action to relive it.
And in an article on Women's Health, Kristin Neff also says, "we tend to think of self-compassion as passive, even unproductive ("If I'm easy on myself, I'll become complacent"). But that could not be further from the truth."
Were similarly to Gilbert and Choden (2014), Neff (2021) in her book also point out that there are two elements to self-compassion:
The first is that element that approaches and holds our difficulties and flaws, a tender side that embodies a sense that we all have flaws. It's part of being human, but although we are innately flawed, we are still worthy.
The second is the fierce side of self-compassion, the one that truly cares about yourself, where you accept, embrace yourself and your difficulties but also take action to minimise those behaviours that might be unhelpful towards our well-being, especially harmful ones.
Kristin Neff explains this in the below video, self-compassion involves both embracing the tender and fierce elements of self-compassion, in part of taking better care of ourselves but how fierce self-compassion can move us to stand up and protect ourselves to meet our needs while making active steps to change what behaviours might be unhelpful to motivate change both in ourselves and the world around us.
Bibliography
Crocker, J., & Park, L. (2004). The costly pursuit of self-esteem. Psychological Bulletin, 130(3), 392-414. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.130.3.392
Germer, C., & Neff, K. (2019). Teaching the mindful self-compassion program: A guide for professionals. New York, NY: Guilford Publications.
Gilbert, P., & Choden. (2014). Mindful compassion. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
Harter, S. (2015). The construction of the self: Developmental and sociocultural foundations (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Publications.
Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is there a universal need for positive self-regard? Psychological Review, 106(4), 766-794. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.106.4.766
Leary, M. R. (1999). The social and psychological importance of self-esteem. In R. M. Kowalski, & M. R. Leary (Eds.), The social psychology of emotional and behavioral problems: Interfaces of social and clinical psychology (pp. 197-221). Washington DC: American Psychological Association. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.13/10320-007
Neff, K. (2011). Self-compassion, self-esteem, and well-being. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5(1), 1-12.
Neff, K. (2011). Self-Compassion: The proven power of being kind to yourself. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Neff, K. (2021). Fierce self-compassion: How women can harness kindness to speak up, claim their power, and thrive. London: Penguin Books Ltd.
Neff, K., & Christopher, G. (2018). The self-compassion workbook: A proven way to accept yourself, build inner strength, and thrive. New York, NY: Guilford Publications.