Your self esteem is a combination of your physical self image, accomplishments, capabilities and perceived success. In short, it’s your opinion of yourself. Some of us are blessed to have an environment that fosters high self esteem. Others are not so fortunate. But despite unfortunate circumstances or events, you can cultivate high self esteem.
Hopefully these few tips can help you believe in yourself again.
1. Stop comparing yourself to others
Humans have a fundamental need to evaluate themselves and it’s only easier to do this in reference to someone else. We do this even when the comparisons aren’t meaningful. Even when they make us unhappy. Even when they don’t actually make us better, smarter, or more productive because it’s the only way to reduce uncertainty in areas we’re insecure about. Comparing your success with others can sidetrack you and make you lose your motivation. You think about all the steps and effort that you have to exert to reach your goals while others seem to have achieved it with lesser effort. This can foster feelings of discontent and resentment. Eventually you end up focusing on these emotions and lose sight of what truly matters. Treating someone as your mentor because they’ve succeeded in reaching a goal that you would like to reach is very helpful as long as you don’t lose track of yourself and your own ambitions. After all, all of your attention should be focused on building your own success.
2. Overcome perfectionism
Everyone is just trying to do their best and work hard to achieve their goals. However, sometimes we push ourselves into overdrive. How can we know if we’ve crossed the line? – Experiencing signs of procrastination, restlessness, being motivated by fear rather than impending success and low self esteem are sure signs of a perfectionist. Creating a system for yourself where you exist in a constant state of perfectionism can lead to maladaptive rumination and deterioration of mental health. Instead of achieving more, you may undergo more setbacks than you’d hoped for. Your pursuit of perfection can make you not want to do anything at all because expecting the first attempt to be perfect and falling short can be demotivating. Rather, start with all the mishaps and improve on it until it reaches a point where you are satisfied with it. This will surely move you closer to your goal. Take conscious steps to overcome perfectionism through tendency awareness like reflection, allowing room for mistakes, focusing on progress over perfection, and setting reasonable goals for ourselves.
3. Figure out what you’re good at and develop it
Your abilities and self esteem go hand in hand primarily because it increases your sense of purpose.Your self esteem grows when you demonstrate to yourself your ability and competencies. When you gain deeper fulfilment and inspire others around you, you can improve your self esteem. So how do you identify your abilities? Try listing down what you love doing and your previous accomplishments. It can be daily blogging, singing, cooking, or even tutoring. Diving into activities that allow you to show off or discover your talents is a start to figuring out your strengths, which bring you confidence and purpose in life.
4. Focus on what you can change and the things that are in your control
Dwelling on your worries can be a potent poison that whittles down your resolve. It can trap you in an illusion that makes you believe that progress or anything remotely positive is impossible. Instead of focusing on these negative thoughts, try focusing on what you can change. One way to overcome this is to label your thoughts as productive worry and unproductive worry to see things from a clearer perspective. When you know the difference between productive and unproductive worrying you can start to draw the line between the thoughts which you should nurture. Eventually this helps you feel more confident in yourself, your choices and your abilities. So what’s the difference you may ask? Well to keep it simple, unproductive worry imagines all sorts of unlikely outcomes and focuses on the what ifs and worst case scenarios without any clear solutions, while productive worry helps you solve a problem, reach a resolve with situations and explores appropriate ways of finding solutions to problems.
Remember, baby steps are the way to go. It may seem scary to start but just remember to be kind to yourself and let yourself make mistakes along the way. Self esteem is necessary to move forward in life. The moment you stop believing in yourself you abandon hope of success. So please, do not give up on yourself. If you struggle with your self esteem, I encourage you to seek professional help. It’s a big deal, and you deserve to believe in yourself.
If you found this blog post helpful please like and share it with friends that might find insight in it. Also, feel free to leave a comment down below with your thoughts, experiences or suggestions. Love you so much if you made it all the way here🤗, all the best with the week ahead!❤️