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Improve Your Self Esteem

Low self-esteem can be damaging to your health and can spiral into depression, anxiety and misery. Worse of all, it is a mindset that affects your relationships with other people and this is why it becomes a continuing cycle. Your low self-esteem affects the way you relate to people and how they respond to you often reinforces your ideas about yourself.

Self-esteem is about how much you like yourself. Low self-esteem is a state of mind that is often self-perpetuating. If you think you are a terrible person, you act out in a way that reinforces your original premise, and the cycle is continued.

For example, if you are very shy and tell yourself that no one will speak to you at the party, you are more likely to stand in a corner and give out “stay away signals” with your body language, even if it is subconsciously. Then, when no one does speak to you at the party, you believe the fulfilled prophecy and you reinforce your feelings of low self-esteem. This makes it even harder for you to talk to people at the next social gathering you attend.

However, it does not have to be this way. You can break the cycle of low self-esteem. It is possible and you will notice the health benefits of working through the steps below to increase your self-esteem. It may take some time, but every day you can make a difference and work towards breaking the cycle of low self-esteem.

Everyone Has Some Good Qualities
You may not realize you are doing it, but every pessimistic thought you have about yourself reinforces the idea that you worth less. However, if you stop to think about that phrase, you will start to realize that it is simply false. Is there a single part of you that has some admirable characteristic or something that is lovable about you? Of course there is!

The truth is that every single person has a mixture of admirable, lovable and wonderful qualities and characteristics, as well as some areas for improvement. Instead of focusing your mind on all of your faults, start to look for the good in yourself.

Stand in front of a mirror and take a realistic look at yourself. Looking closely at yourself can often dispel some myths that subconsciously believe and perpetuate. Try to look at yourself as if it is a stranger standing in the doorway, rather than your own reflection in the mirror. What attracts you about that person? Do they have a nice smile, beautiful eyes or straight teeth?

When we look at other people, we usually do not just notice one characteristic about them, we notice their smile, hair, eyes, proportions, clothes, shoes and even smell. Other people will perceive you this way, as a multifaceted person. Often people with low self-esteem will look in a mirror and think, “I’m fat, that’s all anyone would see when they look at me”. However, other people may pay more attention to your shining hair, your even, white teeth, and your smile as it lights up your face.

Guilt can be a very powerful emotion. If you have done anything you are ashamed about, you are more likely to exaggerate the impact all out of proportion when you have a low self-esteem. It is too easy to dwell in the litany of guilt. You need to allow yourself some grace too.

The easiest way to break this cycle of guilt and low self-esteem is to make yourself a list of affirmative or constructive actions you have taken. Write down all your achievements, the friends you have made and kept (which is an achievement in itself), compliments you have received, the times you have gone out of your way to be nice or to do a favor for someone and the times you have given to charity or helped strangers in some way.

This list may not be very long, at least at first, but it should certainly be lengthy enough to convince yourself that you are not all terrible. You have many wonderful, admirable qualities too. This helps to give you a balanced perspective of yourself, which is the first step to raising your self-esteem.

Break The Negative Thought Pattern

People with low self-esteem tend to exaggerate and replay negative, damaging or destructive comments about themselves until this becomes the normal pattern of thought. It is then quite difficult to break this cycle of harmful thinking all at once. Instead of simply trying to think optimistically, which is likely to be difficult to achieve or maintain, make a pact to find at least one positive comment to balance the negative thought out.

If you have been in the habit of making any encouraging comment seem miniscule in comparison to the mountain of depressing exaggerated thoughts, you may need to over balance in the positive direction to counteract your current mindset. Challenge yourself to write a list of three happy thoughts against every sad thought.

Stop dwelling on unconstructive criticism. The pessimistic repetition is very difficult to stop but you have to make a conscious effort to divert your thoughts away from your negative litany. Finding affirmations to repeat instead can be helpful. Go back to your list of affirmative attributes and read over it, whenever you need a pick me up.

Try working on anything that requires all of your concentration instead. This tends to break the pattern of negative thinking by distracting your mind and giving you new thoughts entirely. Exercise also tends to break the mindset and has the added benefit of releasing the body’s natural feel good hormones. When you feel healthy and energised, it is much harder to sustain the spiral into unconstructive thinking and depression.

Set Realistic Targets
Have you ever put high expectations or unattainable standards on something you wanted to achieve? Then when you were unable to meet those standards, you gave yourself the perfect excuse to say you had totally failed. (Note the exaggerated language that perpetuates the cycle of low self-esteem). It may be subconscious, but many people with low self-esteem set themselves up to fail.

Instead, set realistic and smaller targets to meet. Think in terms of baby steps or a day at a time, like the Alcoholics Anonymous program suggests.

Instead of telling yourself to lose a third of your body weight, break it down into small, achievable goals like losing a few pounds by Christmas. Do not tell yourself NEVER to eat chocolate, and then allow guilt to set in when you inevitably consume chocolate. Instead, make a small portion of chocolate a reward for eating healthy the rest of the day.

Giving yourself rewards for meeting your realistic targets for improvement breaks the cycle of self-defeating behavior and can help you to celebrate your achievements too. You will really give your low self-esteem a boost, especially when the rewards keep on coming.

Break down any big task into smaller ‘chunks’ and suddenly it is easier to achieve. Rather than thinking you must clean the WHOLE house, it is easier to give yourself a couple of tasks only, such as cleaning the kitchen and then making the bed. Once the kitchen is sparkling and you have made the bed, you can move onto other tasks, if you want to. Each time you complete a task; give yourself a pat on the back. “I did that well”. Learn to say this to yourself and you will be well on the way to breaking the cycle of low self-esteem.

Break Free and Enjoy Life
There are three steps to breaking the cycle of low self-esteem. The first is to start getting a balanced perspective with encouraging input as well as the negative thoughts that are your usual mindset. The second is to make conscious efforts to stop the repetition of negative thoughts and the third step is to set realistic targets and to start to celebrate your achievements.

By following these simple steps, you CAN learn to break the low self-esteem cycle and start to like yourself. You can achieve great things and become free to enjoy a full life, once you stop holding yourself back! Focus on moving forward to a brilliant future, enjoying the present and forgetting about the past!