Greetings, friends!
If you are now thinking about how to increase your self-esteem, then you are the creator of your own life. Having realized the problem, you did not resign yourself to it and put it off “for later”, but are already looking for ways to solve it and are ready to work hard. I am proud of you.
Your attitude, as well as our most effective tips for increasing self-esteem, carefully collected in this article, will help solve this problem once and for all. But I ask you not just to read the article, but to put into practice at least some of the recommendations here, and you will very quickly be able to feel positive changes in terms of self-esteem. Well, are you ready? Then we start in order.
What is self-esteem?
Typically, this term refers to a person’s general perception of his own abilities, capabilities and personal qualities. It does not always exactly coincide with real possibilities, but it often becomes the main factor in life success. Therefore, any person experiencing problems with self-esteem must work to improve it properly.
Self-esteem performs several important functions, the main ones being:
- protection – internal autonomy, the ability to form one’s own opinion and not be influenced by others;
- regulation – the ability to make informed personal choices;
- development – the desire for self-improvement.
It is important to understand that low self-esteem is formed in a person not only because of real shortcomings. She is influenced by the opinions of others (from immediate relatives to colleagues and comrades). If it is underestimated, a person spends an excessive amount of energy on doubts, does not take on ambitious projects, and does not believe in himself. If it is too high, there is a risk of making mistakes, since excessive self-confidence causes a person to lose caution. To understand how to increase self-esteem, you need to understand how it is formed and what factors influence it.
Technique No. 3. Postcard to yourself
You will need ready-made kits for creating postcards. You can use what you have on hand: paper, paints, magazine clippings, ribbons, decor. Find the materials you like.
As children, we often drew or made cards for our loved ones: remember what delight and awe they caused! But even if someone did not appreciate such a gift, now you will have the opportunity to give it to yourself. Enjoy the creative process and write wishes and thanks to yourself, funny phrases or add kind drawings. Let this work serve as an anchor of self-support, love and attention to yourself.
How self-esteem is formed
The ability to adequately assess one’s own strengths and weaknesses is formed in a person from childhood. Excessive demands and strictness of parents or neglectful attitude of friends can have long-lasting consequences. As a result, a person grows up, gets an education, gets a job and starts a family, but the need to constantly prove something to others remains and negatively affects the quality of life.
Friends and loved ones also continuously influence self-esteem - a dear person can instantly raise it or lower it. Criticism addressed to oneself is especially painful, as it inevitably reduces self-confidence (both in the short term and in the long term). In addition, we ourselves often become the source of uncertainty. By focusing on failure, we come to disappointing conclusions and engage in self-criticism, reducing our own initiative.
An equally common source of low self-esteem is negative experiences from childhood or a consequence of psychological problems. Initially, it is formed due to certain characteristics of upbringing and norms of behavior imposed on the child by parents. Further, perceptions of one’s own attractiveness, athletic success and various abilities are added. All events that occur that force a person to rethink his own value affect his self-esteem. And from a certain moment it begins to play a decisive role in life, forcing a person to give up ambitions. To overcome this vicious cycle, you need to actively work on improving your self-esteem. Let's continue.
Control negative thoughts about yourself and counter them with neutral judgments
Self-criticism is useful, but for people with low self-esteem it can turn into self-oppression. This can manifest itself in the form of internal reproaches. For example: “I’m terrible”, “I’m stupid”, “I can’t do anything at all”, “Everyone hates me”. Often there is no real confirmation behind such thoughts, or these may be attitudes instilled in a person by parents, teachers, classmates and partners.
In moments when you once again want to reproach yourself, you should try to track this thought and try to replace it with a neutral statement: “I’m good enough,” “I’m trying to improve the situation,” “I’m doing everything I can.” You may not believe it at first, but challenging a negative thought is an important step, even if it takes time for your subconscious to process the message.
It is important that these statements be neutral. Canadian researchers from the University of Waterloo concluded that positive affirmations can only help people with stable self-esteem in difficult situations. For those people for whom it is underestimated, this method can be harmful, because it will be difficult to believe in these affirmations.
How to determine that self-esteem is low?
Typically, the following character traits indicate the need to work on improving self-esteem:
- excessive self-criticism when making harmless mistakes;
- fear of mistakes and constant worry over little things;
- increased sensitivity to other people's opinions about oneself;
- unreasonable jealousy due to lack of self-confidence;
- envy of successful people;
- constant search for excuses;
- pessimism and negative perception of events.
Even one of the listed character traits indicates a noticeable lack of self-confidence. If you find several items from this list, you urgently need to increase your self-esteem in all available ways.
Why does self-esteem decrease?
Before we start working on increasing self-esteem, let's understand the main reasons that provoke its decline. As they say, forewarned is forearmed. What are these factors?
One of the main reasons for the decline in self-esteem in modern life is the tendency to “self-examination.” A person constantly analyzes his failures, compares himself with other people. He chooses smart, successful and attractive people as role models. And comparing himself with them, he begins to consider himself a failure. Of course, the habit of comparing yourself with more successful peers can help some people and increase their productivity. But for most, it turns out to be a strong blow to self-esteem.
For girls and women, the most important factor that can lower or increase self-esteem is appearance. The situation has become especially worse in our time. If yesterday beautiful, almost perfect faces looked at us only from glossy pages, today they are on every social network profile. This has a negative effect on many girls. And even the opportunity to publish your own photo, “photoshopped” to perfection, does not correct this situation.
There is another factor that almost everyone has been exposed to. This is the experience of defeat. When faced with a strong failure, a person becomes fixated on the situation. He replays the unpleasant event over and over again in his thoughts, figuring out what he should have done to avoid failure. Do you know this feeling? Literally stuck in the past, a person loses control over the present and future.
There are other factors as well. For example, communicating with people seeking to increase their own self-esteem at the expense of others. Perfectionism, which inevitably increases the fear of failure, is also a bad help. We have listed the most noticeable reasons, in fact there are many more, but let’s not waste time. Let's move on to the main part of our article.
Simple ways to increase self-esteem
As mentioned earlier, self-esteem can and should be influenced. Of course, you will have to work hard, but believe me, the result is worth it. Harmonious self-esteem makes a person more confident, positive and, most importantly, happy. Well, are you ready to work on your self-esteem? Then let's get started. Here's our plan:
Find the root of the problem
Low self-esteem is not genetically embedded in us - it develops under the influence of external factors. To understand how to increase it, you need to figure out what caused the problem. For example, if problems with self-perception are associated with excess weight, you need to remember when the disturbing thoughts associated with this first arose. Perhaps one of your friends joked about this topic, and it was unpleasant for you? In any case, all further work will be much more effective when you clearly understand the reason for low self-esteem and the moment when you lost self-confidence.
Get rid of self-criticism
All people make mistakes, and it is not at all necessary to reproach yourself for every failure. Getting rid of self-criticism will give you several benefits in life:
- Energy that was previously spent on self-flagellation will be released;
- You will learn to accept yourself and be able to focus on achieving your goals;
- The strengths of your personality will emerge and come to the fore.
By learning to deal with failures creatively and without self-blame, you can benefit from them. This will be a valuable experience, and in some cases you can even turn the mistake to your advantage.
What is needed for this? First, no matter how bad the situation gets, remember that it could have been much worse. And everything turned out not in the worst way only thanks to your efforts and experience. Also, think about how many people in your position would not be able to learn a valuable lesson from the current situation because they do not have the strength of character, but you can. Do this and gain a sense of self-respect for yourself, because failures will no longer break you, but will only make you stronger.
In addition to self-criticism, it is important to be able to firmly respond to criticism from others. We have already discussed this important topic in detail a little earlier, so we move on.
Learn to see failure as an important learning experience.
As we have already said, failures can take a big toll on self-esteem. But let's agree once and for all: every painful mistake is a valuable life lesson. Analyze it. Be sure to think about what to do to avoid similar mistakes in the future, how you can use the experience gained, and what advantages you can derive.
Try to look at yourself from the outside, as you would look at a dear person who finds himself in a similar situation. You wouldn't blame him, would you? This means you shouldn’t blame yourself.
Keep a success diary
A success journal is a must-have tool for anyone looking to improve their self-esteem. Having lost confidence in himself, a person automatically begins to attach maximum importance to his own mistakes, ignoring successes and praise. It's time to reverse this trend. Start writing down your own achievements, praise from others, and things you yourself are satisfied with. Read more about how to keep a success diary here.
Praise yourself more often
Self-criticism and self-examination are bad habits. So why not supplant them with a useful habit - the ability to praise yourself for small victories? Just notice each of your successes and analyze which character trait helped you achieve it. This method will help not only increase self-esteem, but also develop useful abilities that make you more successful.
But we are not talking about banal praise, in the spirit of “you did great.” For this to have an effect, you need to try to regularly analyze the actions you perform. For example, let's say you set a goal to start getting up a little earlier every day. And so, the next day you did it. Think about the fact that thousands of people on this planet cannot train themselves to get up earlier for years, but you were able to do it in one day. Yes, you are a hero, you can safely be proud of yourself! Make it a habit to analyze your achievements regularly in this way - think about how strong in spirit you really are and how much you can do.
Learn to say “NO!”
Low self-esteem and submissive reliability are linked by a mutual cause-and-effect relationship. Learn to refuse people who put their interests above yours. Becoming firm and answering “No!” to unwanted offers, you will automatically increase your own self-esteem. You will begin to respect yourself more, realize that you know how to defend your boundaries, and this is the foundation of a harmonious personality.
Create a positive environment for yourself
Avoiding negative people is recommended for a reason. They notice every unpleasant little thing and remind you of it. Try to surround yourself with positive people who choose to notice the good. Of course, it is not always possible to follow this advice, since a close relative may turn out to be “negative.” In this case, regularly remind him that you do not want negativity to be present in communication. Let him learn to control himself. Don’t be afraid to tell people what they may not like to hear, be afraid to hush up such things.
Play some sports
You don't have to exhaust yourself with workouts in the gym. A daily 20-minute jog or an hour-long walk will significantly improve your tone and improve your mood. Don't be afraid to spend time on sports. Any person who gets carried away by regular jogging or other exercise quickly notices that they have even more free time. The secret is that sport gives a powerful boost of energy, helping you do everything faster.
Get out of your comfort zone
Under the weight of problems, a person becomes dependent on his own weaknesses, which give him a feeling of comfort. Sweets, baked goods, TV series, games, alcohol and other methods of self-comfort help to briefly escape from problems into a cozy inner world. But problems at this time are not solved, but only accumulate. Subconsciously, a person realizes that he is hiding from reality, so his self-esteem inevitably decreases. And there is only one way to quickly and effectively increase it - to leave the “comfort zone” and begin to actively solve accumulated problems.
Start Using Affirmations
Positive affirmations are a technique from psychology that can increase self-esteem even for a person who considers himself the ultimate loser. These are small statements containing positive attitudes in the style of “I am strong enough to achieve everything I want!” You can find them in text form or in audio recording. Read them out loud, memorize them, listen to them while jogging. These settings are remembered, and gradually you will begin to remember them in any life situation when it is needed.
Technique No. 4. Letter to myself
You will need: a piece of paper and a pen.
Text practices are also part of art therapy. If you're not ready to draw and create a card or want to complement other techniques, write yourself a letter. Just as if you were writing to a friend. Share what you want, say something important, ask for advice or support. This practice allows you to get rid of tension and pent-up feelings, understand your thoughts, as well as establish and strengthen contact with yourself, and learn self-support.
What will work on self-esteem give?
Well, my friends, I hope you have already begun to put into practice the knowledge you have acquired, or you will definitely try to do this in the near future. In order for you to definitely succeed in increasing your self-esteem, let’s consolidate your motivation and consider what qualities a person with positive self-esteem has:
- confident in one's own abilities;
- knows his strengths and uses them;
- knows his weaknesses and accepts them;
- does not look for excuses for his actions;
- does not need the approval of others;
- immune to criticism;
- does not judge people by appearance;
- does not experience unnecessary anxiety or stress because he is confident in himself.
This is only a partial list of what qualities a person has who has worked on improving self-esteem. In my opinion, it’s worth it to grow and develop in this direction, don’t you agree?
