Building Self Esteem.
What does it mean?
Building self esteem starts with the understanding of what self esteem really is and where it comes from before you can begin to improve it.
As mentioned in other pages, self esteem is defined as the general opinion you have of yourself, your core beliefs that you hold on to, and how you view yourself.
There are many signs that you may or may not have that show you whether you have low or high self esteem, some of them are here, the rest of them you will find on low self esteem signs. At one time or another most people encounter low self esteem signs, be it going for an interview or doing a job at work that takes you out of our comfort zone, but by working on getting out of your comfort zone you will be learning about building self esteem. Some people, however, have low self esteem more acutely than others, and they could be described as having major depression which obviously needs medical help.
Building self esteem covers many self improvement topics such as facing your fears, and working on your self confidence. All of these topics can be learned and worked upon to increase and help in building self esteem.
ACTIONS TO BUILD SELF ESTEEM
Overcome predictions and find alternatives
One of the recognised low self esteem signs is predicting what’s going to happen at any given event or occasion (you may or may not realise you do this) and then taking precautions so that your belief doesn't happen. So in order to overcome this and build your self esteem you need to look more deeply at the reasons for this course of thinking and the outcomes that prevail from it.
Example of low self esteem predictions
Example No 1. You have an invitation to a wedding and you’re feeling worried and lacking confidence and think that you just might not go. You feel this because you are predicting that you are going to find it difficult to talk to anyone and may not know anyone.
Being aware of your low self esteem
What you need to do in this situation is to stop predicting. You need to be aware that this is only your thought process which has become a habit and you must start to change it. You need to start challenging your core belief that says you are no good in this type of situation and you need to find an alternative. The alternative here would be that you go along with the challenge to meet at least 2 new people. That way you are focusing on something completely different and not predicting what might happen.
Questioning the evidence of your low self esteem
Ask yourself what evidence you had for thinking this way? Are you exaggerating the predicted situation? This sort of thinking, without a doubt, lowers your self esteem and to build it up you need to believe in yourself more which in turn means challenging yourself and your beliefs.
Example of low self esteem self criticism
Example No 2. Self criticism is the other most common problem with low self esteem You find yourself constantly putting yourself down, never taking any credit for the good things you achieve, never believing you are good enough and being hard on yourself. You will never achieve a high self esteem if you continue to criticise yourself. It just makes you feel bad and down.
Being aware of self criticism
As mentioned above, you need to become aware of when you are criticising yourself. If you aren’t aware of this, or you find it tricky to spot, then you can guarantee that it has become habit. The best way to become aware, and therefore build self esteem, is to write down when you do it. Learning more about what is self esteem will really help paint a clearer picture.
As in everything you do, writing down these moments helps later on when you begin to work out how to improve yourself. Write down what impact your criticism had on you and how you felt. If you don’t write it down, then it’s extremely easy to say it didn’t happen.
Questioning the evidence for your self criticism
Again, you need to question the evidence. Why did you do this, and was it really necessary. Could you have just accepted the compliment you were given, or could you accept that someone actually wants to be around you? All your old beliefs, commonly known as core beliefs, need changing, and by writing them down you can then begin to grasp the situation and do something about it.
Alternatives for building self esteem
Finding alternatives for your thoughts and actions will help improve your self esteem.
You need to begin to act differently in these situations. Realise that your past thoughts were holding you back and that in order to change, you need to realign your thinking. Positive attitude becomes a vital part of building self esteem and if you suffer from low self esteem then I would highly recommend you begin to read some positive thinking books . You mental attitude needs to change, and you can learn more about that in powers of the mind. In short, building self esteem will take some action from you to change your thoughts and attitude, but it can be done with some perseverance and mental toughness.
