How Low Self-Esteem Skews Your Thinking

Watch Out for These 10 Cognitive Distortions

Your self-esteem isn’t just about how you see yourself; it also colors how you interpret the world around you. When your self-esteem takes a hit, it can seriously distort your views and throw off your perception of reality, leading you to react in ways that don’t always match up with what’s really happening.

These mental missteps, known as cognitive distortions, might be irrational, but they can have a profound impact on how you interact with others and navigate life when your self-esteem is low. The first step in managing their influence is becoming aware of how these distortions filter your thoughts and feelings.

How Self-Esteem Influences Your Thinking

1. All-or-Nothing Thinking

Ever feel like when one thing goes wrong, everything is ruined? That’s binary thinking, and it’s a common trap when your self-esteem is low. A single setback can feel like a total failure, making it tempting to just throw in the towel.

2. Overgeneralizing

Low self-esteem often turns isolated incidents into sweeping judgments about yourself. If something negative happens, it can feel like proof that you’re not worthy of happiness or success, feeding into a cycle of self-doubt.

3. Jumping to Conclusions

When your self-esteem is shaky, you might find yourself expecting the worst, even when the facts don’t back it up. You may jump to negative conclusions about situations or people, assuming the worst-case scenario is inevitable.

4. Predicting Doom

Low self-confidence can make it hard to believe things will ever go your way. This pessimistic outlook, often based on nothing more than fear, can lead you to stop trying to improve your situation because you’re convinced it won’t matter.

5. Fixating on the Negative

When you’re struggling with self-worth, one small negative detail can become all you can think about. This can spiral into more black-and-white thinking, leading you to overlook the positives and focus solely on the bad.

6. Ignoring the Positive

Positive experiences or feedback can be hard to accept when you have low self-esteem. It’s easier to dismiss good things as unimportant or untrue, reinforcing your negative self-view.

7. Exaggerating

Low self-esteem can make small mistakes feel like catastrophes, while your strengths and accomplishments might seem trivial. This distortion magnifies the bad and minimizes the good, keeping you stuck in a negative loop.

8. Projecting Your Feelings onto Others

When you’re feeling down about yourself, it’s easy to assume others feel the same way about you. But often, these assumptions are just that—assumptions—not reality.

9. Taking Everything Personally

If your self-esteem is low, you might find yourself believing that everything is about you or your fault. This can lead to feeling responsible for things that aren’t actually connected to you at all.

10. Blaming Others

Sometimes, when we’re struggling with our self-esteem, it’s easier to blame others for our pain than to face it ourselves. If you find yourself pointing fingers, it might be worth considering how your self-esteem is influencing your perspective.

Final Thoughts

These are just a few examples of how low self-esteem can warp your view of the world. Your self-worth and confidence act like lenses through which you see everything—how others treat you, how you behave, and how you interpret events. Recognizing when your self-esteem is skewing your perceptions is the first step toward breaking free from these cognitive distortions and seeing things more clearly.

Related Article: You’ve Recognized Your Self-Esteem Is Skewing Your Perceptions—Now What?