Gathering information and even opinions is often sensible preparation for making a decision, but using the opinions of others as a basis for decision making is not the way to go for a few reasons.  Trust your own judgement, make your own decisions, decide for yourself, and you’ll come out better off.  Self determination is worth having.  

I know, it’s not easy, especially when you lack confidence and you’re really not sure.  But have you noticed that a lot of the time the more opinions you seek, the more you get the feeling that the people you are talking it over with don’t have the answers either, and in fact seeking too many opinions can just confuse the matter and distort your judgement?

Ok, so you may not be too confident about some things, but in order to be more confident you must form your own, original opinions about things and trust your own judgement.  If you’re not capable of forming your own conclusions, that’s a sign that your self esteem is way messed up. 

Read more: Making Your Own Decisions

Self esteem is such an issue for so many people, me included.  If we can get it to a healthy happy place, our life is so much better.

But it’s affected by so many things, different things for different people, and different things for each of us as we change and grow throughout our lives, or succumb to the bombardment of influences and information we’re presented with in this modern world.

Some of my main self esteem affecting factors are:-

 - My appearance.  Yes, I’m a vain woman obsessed with ageing, my weight, my hair, my wrinkles and general attractiveness.  There’s a lot of it about.

- How my children are behaving.  Are they all healthy, happy, doing well in school and kinder, having fun, have nice friends, safe, enjoying their lives?  Are they getting on with each other, with me, being polite, doing their chores, minding their manners?

- How my house looks.  Is it clean, tidy, well organized, do I know where everything is and is the clutter under control?

Read more: What Affects Our Self Esteem

If you're anything like me, your self esteem at times can be up and down all over the place.  It's no fun, is it.

What is self esteem anyway?  I've marked it as a category topic for this blog, because it's something I know matters a lot and I want to explore it.  Is it just our mood?  Is it habits of thought?  Is it our underlying beliefs about ourselves?

Yes, it's all these things and more, I think.

Mood must be involved, because it changes with our mood.  I know when I'm feeling positive generally I have much more confidence.  Feeling emotionally low seems to bring out all our negative assumptions and judgements about ourselves. 

It can also bring out our negative assumptions and judgements about other people, but even if our negativity is directed at others and not ourselves directly, it's still an indication of low self esteem. 

Read more: The Importance of Self Esteem