Putting yourself down or making jokes at your own expense can serve a purpose. Maybe it’s because if you make the joke first, it won’t hurt as much when somebody else does. Maybe it’s about not wanting to appear that you are bragging or showing off, so you put yourself down or minimise yourself, your qualities and your achievements, to make it crystal clear that you aren’t being “too big for your boots.”
Whatever the reason, even if it served a purpose at some point, it can start to get in your way.
If you know that you struggle with your self esteem, the kinds of things you say in your head about yourself are one thing, but what you say out loud has an impact too. If someone you knew said that they struggled with their confidence or their self-esteem, and when you met up with them, they had brought somebody along who was consistently making jokes about them or minimising their achievements, even if it was done in a laughing, joking kind of way, what would you make of that?
Sometimes when it comes to working on self esteem, we can focus on trying to minimise the really harsh, severe, obvious self-criticism, but these small moments are useful to tackle too.
That might mean holding yourself still or holding yourself back. Noticing the temptation to make a joke and just keeping it in and seeing what that is like. When someone says something nice, spotting the rising urge to bat it away and instead just perhaps saying a quiet and sincere “thank you.”
Something to think about
Allowing yourself to accept compliments, or to exist in the world without putting yourself down, doesn’t make you bigheaded (or a “swellhead” which is something I head in Chesterfield once and have never forgotten).
Something to do
A good place to start with this is simply noticing when it happens. Noticing when you have made a joke, minimised something, or pushed a compliment away. If you can get good at spotting it, that gives you the chance to catch yourself and do something different.
Thanks for reading! Until next week,
Ted
P.S. Thank you to everyone who has sent me an email, left a comment or sent a DM to say something nice or appreciative. I'm less squirmy about it now, and it is because some of it has sunk in.
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