Low self-esteem is a chronic emotional state of inadequacy, insecurity, and anxiety. A person with low self-esteem gets easily distressed with challenges and rejections. He responds to both with a negative mindskript. To explain this let’s take an example of a couple in a romantic relationship for three years. A 26 yrs. old girl and a 28 yrs. old boy are in a romantic relationship. Both come from reasonably well-off families. They both have jobs however because of the layoff, boy loses his job. The girl tries to supportive; they meet in coffee shops and the girl picks up the tab. Three months pass and the boy still doesn’t have a job. The girl takes care not to ask anything about the job from the fear of being misunderstood. The boy starts getting angry for very small things, avoids meeting and withdraws. The girl feels hurt and tries encouraging him to speak his mind. She tries to be emotionally available to him. That gets the worst out of him and sometimes lashes out to her unreasonably telling her he doesn’t need her motivation. As you can see the boy is reacting emotionally and the reason is not the girls behaviour, the reason is his own self-esteem that results in following negative self talk “If I don’t have a job, I am rejected and a total failure and I can never get back what I have lost” I am not good enough and therefore I don’t deserve anything good “
This kind of a negative self talk will only result in inaction and self-defeating behaviours. It could result in hedonistic behaviours like smoking, drinking and substance abuse. It may also result in a breakup from a understanding partner resulting in further frustration, anger and depression.
So, as you can see the self-esteem of a person is an emotional state attached to how he evaluates himself based on his belief about how life should treat him.
People with low self-esteem have high levels of dissatisfaction, distrust, and dependence on their romantic partners and also struggle being without a partner.
So the breakup of relationship could have been prevented if he had adapted a practical mindscript saying “This kind of challenges are a part of life and I need take the jo loss personally. I can think rationally, start applying and give my best shot at getting a job, however I can also invest time at hand on updating some skill that I didn’t get time to do when I was in the job. This is a practical mindscript that increases the action and hence results in a positive outcome.