Self‑Esteem for Men

Self-esteem and confidence are often spoken about as though they are the same thing. I don't think they are.

A man can be extremely confident in particular areas of his life while privately having a difficult relationship with himself. He may be respected at work, competent in a crisis and perfectly comfortable making decisions, yet find criticism disproportionately painful. He might need other people's approval more than he admits, struggle to express what he needs in relationships or feel that his value depends upon continuing to perform at a particular level.

Confidence often relates to what we believe we can do. Self-esteem reaches further into how we experience ourselves while doing it.

That distinction became particularly important to me through the work of Nathaniel Branden.

Nathaniel Branden and the Six Pillars

Branden's The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem sets out six practices that he regarded as fundamental to self-esteem: living consciously, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living purposefully and personal integrity.

What I value about his approach is that self-esteem isn't reduced to thinking positively about yourself. It is connected with how you actually live.

Living consciously means being willing to look at what is happening rather than continually operating on automatic pilot. That includes becoming aware of our behaviour and reactions, but also recognising the assumptions underneath them.

Self-acceptance does not require us to approve of everything about ourselves. It asks something more difficult: that we acknowledge what is actually there. There is little possibility of understanding anger, fear, vulnerability or shame if our first response is to condemn ourselves for experiencing them.

Self-responsibility becomes important once that awareness develops. Understanding how our history has shaped us is not the same as allowing our history to determine what happens next. We may not have chosen many of the things that influenced us, but adulthood eventually places responsibility for what we do with them in our own hands.

Self-assertiveness means allowing our needs, values and perspectives to have a legitimate place in our relationships with other people. Assertiveness is not aggression, nor does it require becoming louder. Sometimes it is simply the ability to say what is true for you without immediately retreating because somebody else dislikes hearing it.

Living purposefully brings direction into the picture. A life governed entirely by reaction can gradually become disconnected from what actually matters to us. Purpose doesn't have to mean discovering some enormous calling. It can begin with knowing what you value and making choices that move your life towards it.

Finally, personal integrity concerns the relationship between what we say matters and the way we actually live. When those two things repeatedly contradict each other, our relationship with ourselves suffers. When they come increasingly into alignment, there is a different kind of confidence available: the confidence that comes from being able to trust yourself.

Taken together, I find these ideas much more useful than being told simply to believe in yourself.

Self-esteem and the Emotional Blueprint

Branden's ideas also sit naturally alongside what I describe at Wolf Path as the Emotional Blueprint.

As children we learn a great deal about ourselves through our relationships and the environments around us. We discover what brings approval, what creates tension, whether our needs are welcome and which parts of ourselves appear easier for other people to accept. Over time, some of these experiences can contribute to assumptions about our worth and how we need to behave in order to belong.

For one boy, achievement may become closely connected with approval, and decades later failure still feels strangely personal. Another may learn that expressing a need creates difficulty, so independence becomes not merely a strength but something he depends upon. Someone else may become particularly sensitive to criticism because making mistakes once carried an emotional cost that went well beyond the mistake itself.

This doesn't mean childhood permanently determines self-esteem. Nor does it mean every difficulty with self-worth can be explained by parenting.

It does mean that the relationship we have with ourselves has a history.

Understanding some of that history can help explain why particular beliefs about ourselves feel so convincing, even when the adult evidence no longer seems to support them.

Low self-esteem doesn't always look like insecurity

One reason self-esteem can be difficult to recognise is that low self-esteem doesn't necessarily produce a quiet, visibly insecure man.

Sometimes the compensation is impressive.

A man may work relentlessly because achievement temporarily settles the question of whether he is good enough. He might avoid situations where failure is possible, become perfectionistic, find criticism almost intolerable or stay in relationships where very little is being asked on his behalf.

For somebody else, the pattern may involve continually helping and fixing other people while finding it almost impossible to receive the same care himself. Anger, withdrawal, control and excessive self-reliance can also obscure a much less certain relationship with the self underneath.

None of those behaviours proves that somebody has low self-esteem. The interesting question is what the behaviour is doing for that particular man.

A strong work ethic is not a psychological problem simply because somebody works hard. But if slowing down makes you feel worthless, work may be carrying more psychological weight than the job itself requires.

That's where curiosity becomes useful.

Self-esteem in midlife

Midlife can expose some uncomfortable questions about self-esteem because many of the things we have used to establish identity are changing.

A career may no longer provide the same sense of purpose. Children become more independent. Relationships change. Our bodies change. Achievements that once seemed enormously important may already have been achieved without producing quite the feeling we expected.

For a man whose self-worth has become closely tied to usefulness, achievement, status or being needed by others, these changes can be unsettling.

The question slowly changes from “Am I succeeding?” to something more personal: “What do I think of myself when I have nothing to prove?”

I think Branden's emphasis on conscious living, responsibility, purpose and integrity becomes particularly interesting here. Self-esteem begins to look less like an opinion we hold about ourselves and more like something reflected in the way we live.

Rebuilding the relationship with yourself

I don't think self-esteem can be installed through affirmations, nor do I think another person can simply give it to us through sufficient praise.

Therapy can instead help us understand the conditions we've attached to our own worth. Perhaps you feel acceptable while you're useful but uncomfortable when you need something. Maybe achievement allows you to feel secure until the possibility of failure appears. You may discover that you've spent years looking to other people for permission to feel good about yourself while simultaneously resenting your dependence upon their approval.

Understanding those contradictions is part of the work.

The Emotional Blueprint can help us consider where some of these assumptions may have developed. Branden's framework then takes us somewhere equally important by asking how we are living now.

Are you willing to see yourself honestly? Can you accept what you find without immediately turning against yourself? Can you take responsibility for what is yours without taking responsibility for everything? Can you express what matters, choose direction rather than constantly react, and increasingly live according to values you actually respect?

Those aren't questions with quick answers, and I don't think they should be.

Self-esteem develops through the relationship we repeatedly have with ourselves. History influences that relationship, but history does not have to have the final word.

At Wolf Path, that is where I think the real work begins.