How do you rate your self-esteem or your opinion of yourself?

Parents raise their children to have good self-esteem (my mom did at least) and help visualize our ideal self.

How do you see the inner you? You have to take into consideration when thinking of your inner-self your personal schemas.

These are your personality, beliefs, feelings and things you’re good at or maybe great at. They are also things you know you’re not good at but would like to be better at. They are also how you act around your friends and family, as well as alone. This all adds up to how you feel about yourself, giving you self-esteem.

As young teens, we were in the stage of our lives where we were beginning to find our personal identities.

We were often trying to fit into certain cliques, gain parental approval and show others we have things in common to make friends. This could affect a person’s self-esteem at a very young age and continue until he or she is an adult.

Trying to find who your inner self is difficult enough.

Unfortunately, issues with your inner self and how you want to see yourself don’t always go away. The experiences in our childhood can affect how we see ourselves as adults as well – causing people to have low self-esteem the majority of their life – and make it even more difficult to accept who they really are and deciding if they like that person.

Self-esteem is not fixed or unchangeable, people just need to try to focus on the good qualities they possess. Personally, I try to put a positive spin on a negative flaw in myself.

For example, I failed my test, but I’ll do better next time, or now I know what I should study harder to get a better grade.

Maintaining good self-esteem or trying to achieve heightened self-esteem is a work in progress. It’s not something that is fixed and never broken again; I would have to say it’s something you have to mentally focus on every day.

Being in college, some students may get down on themselves or push themselves too hard because of their constant need to improve themselves. Maybe if we don’t let our friends, family or teachers get to us all the time we could be easier on ourselves. That is a hard task to complete every day.

Getting and keeping higher self-esteem isn’t easy. You have to believe in yourself and know you are or could be good at anything. Having faith in yourself and believing in yourself is part of the whole scheme of things.

The world is full of people who suffer from low self-esteem. One major cause is America’s obsession with weight control and the pictures that portray it. The media are sources of how we look at our weight.

Through media, we see people who appear to be perfect and flawless. This makes Americans feel more self-conscious and lowers their self-esteem.

How can we ignore the people with the perfect abs, awesome skin or hair and super-thin thighs? You’ve got me. I have self-esteem issues. However, I am trying to change my inner-self by believing and changing the way I see me.

When I pass someone who appears they are pretty much perfect, I tell myself he or she probably has self-esteem issues, too. Maybe that person sees his or her own personal flaws and tries to go from there. Flaws and all, every person is different and sees themselves in different ways.

When people are unhappy with themselves, it can cause more than just low self-esteem. Having low self-esteem can be just the top of the barrel and issues could go much deeper and cause depression, eating disorders, personal isolation from family and friends and even possible suicide or self-induced harm.

It’s very important to accept who you are. Like the Dove commercials say, “Love the skin you’re in.”

Having self-esteem issues can often be like a cold. If you can get rid of it, you can get better.

Be strong and say to yourself, “My flaws give me character and make me … me!”

Good Luck finding the inner you, NIU!

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the Northern Star staff.