Tips To Help With Self Esteem
Your self-esteem is how you feel and think about yourself. Self-esteem is mostly developed during our childhood and affected by how we were treated during our successes and failures.
When we suffer from low self-esteem it affects our lives in many ways: we can develop anxiety issues, problems in friendships and relationships, damage our job performance and can lead to serious underachievement because we lack the inner strength to believe in ourselves.
When we suffer from low self-esteem it affects our lives in many ways: we can develop anxiety issues, problems in friendships and relationships, damage our job performance and can lead to serious underachievement because we lack the inner strength to believe in ourselves.
One of the most important ways we can help ourselves to improve our self-esteem is to dispute any and all of our negative thoughts. This can be done either on a per situation basis or, simply when anything negative enters our mind. When you recognize that you're thinking negatively, immediately change the course of the thought to a more positive direction.
For instance, let's say you haven't done as well on some project you've been working on. You find yourself going over it and saying things in the realm of: 'What an idiot, how did I miss that?' or 'Why do I even bother?' or 'Stupid, I must be one of the most stupid people I know for messing that up?" Those are just a few of the thoughts that could be running through your mind at a time like this, but I think you can get a picture.
As soon as you recognize that a thought is self-punishing or negative, stop. Just stop. After you've stopped the thought, now think about the thought itself and what is the opposite of it. Look for the good things that came out of the experience: 'What did I learn?', or 'I'm getting better.' or 'I'm proud of myself for how hard I worked.'
It's okay to analyze how you could have done better on something or in some aspect; however, beating yourself up will only serve to have the same result or no result happen over and over again.
Perhaps the most difficult part is recognizing the negative thought and then reinforcing ourselves with a positive. With time and practice this becomes easier and eventually will become part of our second nature. Just don't give up, keep working at it until it becomes old hat and you'll surely see improvements in your life.
Another way we can go about improving our self-esteem is to ask the help of friends and loved ones. Ask them to tell you how they feel about you or ask them how they think you'll do on a particular project or in a particular subject. In fact, whatever you are feeling negative about, ask them about it.
You'll be surprised how positively people think about you and your abilities.
In addition to that, let your friends and family know how you feel about them as well. Since we're working on building our own self-esteem, we might as well help those we care about too.
You'll be surprised how positively people think about you and your abilities.
In addition to that, let your friends and family know how you feel about them as well. Since we're working on building our own self-esteem, we might as well help those we care about too.
And, a final and an extremely important way we can help our self-esteem, ask for and give plenty of hugs. There is something extremely empowering about a good hug.
Now, get out there and get busy creating a better more Happy Self.
