4 Simple Steps To Raise Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself, or the opinion you have about yourself. Everyone has times when they feel a bit low or find it hard to believe in themselves. However, if this becomes a long-term situation, this can lead to problems, including mental health issues such as depression or anxiety. Some of the symptoms of low self-esteem can also be a sign of these problems.
Self-esteem is often the result of a lifetime of experiences, and particularly what happened to us as children. However, it is possible to improve your self-esteem at any age. This page provides more information about self-esteem, and some actions that you can take to improve it.
You can raise self-esteem with these 4 simple steps…
- Affirmations
Affirmations are simply positive things that you say out loud to yourself every day. This can be very difficult at times because you may not actually believe what you are saying. SO why would you say something to yourself that you don’t believe?
Increased self-esteem has to start with you. So, if you are shy and intimidated by people, start to say something like the following: I am NOT shy and I am NOT intimidated by people. I am VERY confident when I get around people.
Repeat this to yourself out loud at least 10 times before you leave your room. When you say this, don’t just mumble it either, say it as many times as necessary until you say it with passion and conviction.
- Read to grow
Again, increased self-esteem starts with you. Read something every day for at least 30 minutes that will help you increase your self-esteem. This can be an article, a book, or even an audio series. The more you learn the more you will grow. The more you grow, the more your self-esteem will improve.
- Take action everyday
Do something every day, starting with something small, that directly deals with your low self-esteem. For instance, if you can’t talk with people because you feel insecure and inferior, just start off by saying ‘Hi’. As you get more comfortable with this, then start to make small talk. You will begin to feel more confident and more confident until one day, you will find that you have overcome low self-esteem in that area.
- Stop the negative thoughts
Negative thoughts are like landmines. As soon as you step out to face your fear, a negative thought comes and tells you that you can’t do it and BOOM; you believe it and lose that round. Instead, diffuse negative thoughts before they have a chance to do damage.
A great way to do this is with a rubber band! Put a rubber band around your wrist. Every time a thought comes into your head that tells you that you can’t, you will never succeed, you are a loser, or anything negative, SNAP the rubber band on your wrist.
You may be snapping that band until your wrist is red and sore. Before long though, you will stop the negative thoughts because you don’t want to hurt your wrist anymore.
These four steps will help you increase your self-esteem and become the person you really want to be. Just remember this: you are not going to change overnight. It will take time but as long as you are progressing, you are winning the war.
The Importance of Small Steps to Raise Self-esteem
It is very unlikely that you will go from poor to good self-esteem overnight.
Instead, you will probably find you make small improvements over a period of time. The key is to look over the long term, rather than day-to-day, and focus on the big picture, not the detail of how you felt at a particular moment yesterday.
When you feel good, or you do something good, celebrate it—but don’t beat yourself up if you occasionally slip back into negative patterns of thinking. Just pick yourself up again and try to think more positively. Eventually, this will become a habit and you will find that your self-esteem has quietly got better.
