How To Build Your Self Esteem

Published: 2021-05-19
Views: 625
Author: Contributor
Published in: Psychology

Self-esteem refers to how highly you regard yourself and your abilities, regardless of how others regard you and your abilities. This is what distinguishes it from other people's esteem.

Let's say you have a very positive opinion of yourself and your competencies, while everyone else has a very negative opinion of you and your abilities.

In this case, you have a high level of self-esteem despite the fact that others have a low opinion of you.

Consider the following scenario: you have low self-esteem and confidence in your abilities, while everyone in the world has high self-esteem and confidence in your abilities.

In this case, you have very low self-esteem, despite the fact that other people think highly of you.

We are still only human: gorgeous, but imperfect beings attempting to do the best we can.

Yet, all too often, we hold ourselves to impossible standards, harshly judging our failures while ignoring our successes.

What is self-esteem?

Self-acceptance entails adopting a more compassionate and loving attitude toward ourselves, as well as accepting all aspects of ourselves: the good, the bad, and even the ugly.

Low self-esteem can have a negative impact on almost every aspect of your life, including your relationships, job, and health. 

How to improve your self-esteem

You can improve your self-esteem by following the advice of different types of mental health counselling.

Take a look at these steps, which are premised on cognitive behavioural therapy.

1. Determine whether or not there are any troubling conditions or situations

Consider the circumstances or situations that seem to lower your self-esteem. The following are examples of common triggers:

• A presentation at work or at school
• A problem at work or at home
• A conflict with a spouse, a loved one, a co-worker, or another person with whom you have regular contact
• A shift in roles or life experiences, such as the loss of a job or the departure of a child

2. Make a list of your skills and work on improving them

Displaying real ability and accomplishment in aspects of life that make a difference to us builds self-esteem. Throw more dinner parties if you consider yourself a good cook.

Sign up for races and train for them if you're a good runner. In other words, identify your core competencies and seek out opportunities and careers that highlight them.

3. Recognize your thoughts and beliefs

Pay attention to your thoughts about troubling situations once you've identified them. This includes the things you tell yourself (self-talk) and how you interpret the situation.

Positive, negative, or neutral thoughts and beliefs are possible. They can be rational, based on facts and logic, or irrational, based on false beliefs.

Check to see if these beliefs are correct. Would you tell a friend these things? Don't say things to yourself that you wouldn't say to someone else.

4. Effectively Manage Your Expectations

When your expectations aren't met, you're setting yourself up for frustration, disappointment, and other negative emotions.

And, unless you have excellent emotion management skills, being constantly bombarded with strong negative emotion makes it easy to fall into self-defeating bad habits like self-judgment, non-aggressive communication, and avoidance or isolation.

On the other hand, better managing your expectations is one of the best and most often overlooked ways to reverse the process above and achieve high self-esteem.

We can simply avoid a lot of painful emotional experiences in the first place, as well as all the self-esteem crushers that come with them, if we have fewer and more realistic expectations.

5. Get rid of self-criticism and replace it with self-compassion

Unfortunately, when our self-esteem is low, we are more likely to damage it by being critical of ourselves.

We must replace self-criticism (which is almost always completely useless, even if it feels compelling) with self-compassion if our goal is to improve our self-esteem.

When your self-critical inner monologue arises, ask yourself what you would say to a close friend in your situation (we are much more compassionate to friends than we are to ourselves) and direct those comments to yourself.

This will help you avoid further damaging your self-esteem with critical thoughts and instead help you build it up.

6. Acknowledge and accept compliments

One of the most difficult parts of improving self-esteem is that we are more resistant to praises when we are dissatisfied with ourselves,— even when we need them the most.

So, even if compliments make you uncomfortable, make it a goal to tolerate them when you receive them (and they will).

Preparing simple set responses and training yourself to use them automatically whenever you receive positive feedback (e.g., "Thank you" or "How kind of you to say") is the best way to avoid reflexive reactions such as rejecting compliments.

The desire to deny or reject compliments will fade over time, which is a good sign that your self-esteem is improving

Even though this may appear to be a simple and straightforward concept, it is critical to understand that self-esteem is determined by how you value yourself rather than how others value you, because this simple understanding will ultimately be the key to quickly and easily achieving high self-esteem.