Tips for improving your self-esteem

Each and every one of us have self-esteem. Self-esteem is made up of the thoughts we have about ourselves and plays a role in almost everything we do. Having healthy self-esteem is really important as it helps you make positive choices in your everyday life, gives you the courage to be your own person, have good relationships and helps you deal with difficult situations.

Low self-esteem can have harmful effects on your mental health, your decisions about your appearance and ultimately, your future. It’s not easy to like every part of the way you look, but getting stuck on negatives can really bring down your self-esteem.

Other effects of low self-esteem include:

• You avoid difficult situations
• Sensitive to criticism
•  Anxiety
• Withdrawal from social situations
• You are reluctant to trust yourself

It’s important to believe, deep down that you can change. Change doesn’t necessarily happen easily or quickly, but it can happen.

If self-image is a problem for you, if you don’t believe you can succeed, please take to heart the following ten suggestions.

Guard your self-talk

Whether you know it or not, you have a running conversation with yourself all the tim. What is the nature of yours? Do you encourage yourself? Or do you criticize yourself? If you are positive, then you help to create a positive self-image. If you’re negative, you undermine your self-image.
If we want to change our lives, we have to change the way we think of ourselves. If we want to change the way we talk to ourselves. And the older we are, the more responsible we are for how we think, talk, and believe. Don’t you have enough problem in life already? Why add to them by discouraging yourself every day with negative self-talk?
Become your own encourager, your own cheerleader. Every time you do a good job, don’t just let it pass; give yourself a compliment. Every time you choose discipline over indulgence, don’t tell yourself that you should have anyway; recognize how much you are helping yourself. Every time you make a mistake, don’t tell yourself that you should have anyway; recognize how much you are helping yourself. Every time you make a mistake, don’t bring up everything that is wrong with yourself; tell yourself that you are paying the price for growth and that you will learn to do better next time. Every positive thing you can say to yourself will help

Stop comparing yourself to others

Comparing yourself to others is really just a needless distraction. The only one you should compare yourself to is you. Your mission is to become better today than you were yesterday. You do that by focusing on what you can do today to improve and grow. Do that enough, and if you look back and compare the you of weeks, months, or years ago to the you of today, you should be greatly encouraged by your progress.

Move beyond your limiting beliefs

Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t believe that they can accomplish great things. But the greatest limitations people experience in their lives are usually the ones they impose on themselves. For example, let’s say you would like to learn a foreign language to improve your career or better enjoy a vacation, but you don’t think you can do it. Once you’ve identified that belief, define how not learning that language is limiting you. Then describe what it will be like when you learn that language. How will it make you feel? What will it enable you to do? What might it do for your career? Then write an empowering statement that affirms your ability to learn the language, outlines the realistic process you will use to learn it, and describes how you will be impacted by this growth. Remember, in the end, it isn’t what you are that holds you back; it’s what you think you are not.

Add value to others

Because people with low self-esteem often see themselves as inadequate or feel like victims (which often starts because they actually have been victimized in their past), they focus inordinately on themselves. They can become self-protective and selfish because they have to be to survive.
If that is true of you, then you can combat those feelings by serving others and working to add value to them. Making a difference-even q small one-in the lives of other people lifts one’s self-esteem. It’s hard to feel bad about yourself when yo are doing something good for someone else. In addition to that, adding value to others makes them value you more. It creates a cycle of positive feeling from one person to another.