TIPS TO BUILD A HEALTHY AND DURABLE SELF-ESTEEM
TO LOVE YOURSELF A LITTLE MORE
The choices you make,
the decisions you take,
the relations you share,
how well you express your needs and opinions-
all depends upon your self-esteem.
Self-esteem is based upon our thoughts, about how we feel and think about ourselves, how we respect ourselves and how we value ourselves. It is an overall opinion about our own self. It is about our feelings about our limitations and abilities. It’s our own subjective measure which is based on our past and present experiences and relationships with family and peers.
Having a healthy and positive self-esteem, makes one feel good about oneself and also makes one feel capable of respect of others. Alternatively, having a low self esteem makes you put little or no value to your own opinions and ideas. It’s a constant feeling of inadequacy and incapability. Also, low self-esteem leads to lack of confidence which can further affect our relationships, academic, personal and professional success.
Self-esteem begins to form in early childhood. Many self beliefs which we have, depend on the interactions and relationship we share with our parents, siblings, teachers and peers. Mostly, how we feel about ourselves comes from how we are taught to feel about ourselves while growing up. We cannot go back and start a new beginning, but definitely we can start today and make a new ending. A positive self-esteem not only makes us feel better about ourselves, it makes us more resilient.
So let’s start our new journey of building a healthy and durable self esteem by these simple 5 steps:
1. Stop being a perfectionist:
Acknowledging your accomplishments as well as mistakes is more positive than struggling to be a perfectionist. True self esteem by no means is not feeling like you lack nothing, rather being comfortable with what you lack and accepting yourself as you are. It’s acceptable not to be splendid in everything. Just accept it and move on. You were born to be real, not perfect. Inf act, isn’t being unique better than being perfect. So just be yourself- unadulterated- while not forgetting to learn and grow from your mistakes. Improve what you can change and accept what you can’t.
2. Strengthen your strengths and weaken your weaknesses:
Figure out your core strengths and strengthen them. Find opportunities and careers that accentuate them. Whatever you are good at, keep enhancing and improving yourself. For e.g. If you are a good runner, sign up for races; if you are a good cook, throw more parties or share your recipes on blogs.
Every time you think of a positive thought about vourself, turn up the volume, literally speak it aloud. Every time you have a negative thought about yourself, just lower the volume, delete it and let it disappear. Self esteem is based upon our thoughts about ourselves, if we change our thoughts about ourselves, we make a difference.
3. Eliminate self-criticism and introduce self-compassion :
The major damage we do to our self esteem is by being self critical. Whenever you start with your self critical monologue, take a step back and ask yourself had it been a friend or some child who had failed what would be your response. Would you still say something like, ‘you are good for nothing’ or ‘you just can’t do it’. Try to understand and ask yourself if its really all that bad. This will make you realize there are things that are beyond our control.
Accept it, you have been criticizing yourself since long and it has done no good to you, try approving yourself and see what happens.
4.Cultivate the habit of giving and receiving compliments:
This is one of the trickiest aspect of improving self-esteem. When we do not feel good about ourselves, we tend to be resistant to compliments, which we might be craving in the back of our mind. Do not deny or rebuff a compliment- accept it gracefully.
Do not downplay by saying, ‘I could have done better, I just messed up!!’ or ‘Are you sure, was it really good?’ Instead, train yourself to use a set of responses automatically when you receive a compliment like ‘thankyou’ or ‘how kind of you’. Eventually, the impulse to deny or rebuff a compliment shall fade away.
Additionally, learn to compliment others often, it jumpstarts their positive thinking as well and makes you feel good as well.
5. Find your movement: Exercise or any kind of sport can actually help you feel better about yourself with the release of endorphins, the feel-good chemicals which trigger a positive feeling in the body. It could be a short walk, an intense run, yoga, aerobics or any outdoor sports. It doesn’t matter exactly what you do, just that you get in touch with your body and improve your health and self-esteem.
Always remember, there would be always someone prettier than you, someone smarter than you, someone more intelligent, but they will not be you, so no comparisons. Just love yourself enough to set your boundaries, valuing your time and energy. You are valuable and you teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will accept and what you shall not accept. The way you love and respect yourself, you teach others to love you and respect you.
KEEP LOVING YOURSELF.