The Art of Building Up Your Low Self-Esteem In 7 Steps

1. Be Yourself, Because Everybody Else is Taken!

Let’s face it, we are pretty much all on our own when it comes to taking care of our own lives. There is absolutely no system, school, family or friend that has been assigned the task of helping us with our major or minor issues, low self-esteem being one of them. What we have learnt, thus far, is our welfare basically depends on what sort of family we were born in, do we have healthy genes and are we endowed with the ability to cope and learn new self-improvement skills along the way. In that sense, self help means the efforts we make to improve ourselves in all aspects of our lives. What is Low Self-Esteem?
If you want to build up low self-esteem, you must first know what self-esteem really is. Self-esteem means the ability in which we value or evaluate ourselves. In terms of meaning, it slightly differs from that of self-confidence which means the ability of doing something successfully. In a nutshell, self-esteem is the overall opinion one has about oneself. These opinions have the power to trap us into believing we can do or can’t do a particular task. Having negative thoughts keeps us from reaching our goals and living up to our true potential. This is the reason why we should keep negative thoughts about ourselves and all those things that cause us to doubt ourselves at bay.
So we agree to the fact that negative thoughts about one’s self can have a major and long lasting impact on the way a person lives and behaves and more importantly on their life in general. The following lines are going to be all about how all those who suffer from low self-esteem can break away from this bad habit.

2. Recognizing Low Self-Esteem:

It is quite easy to recognize low self-esteem in an individual; this is mostly through the negative statements that they make about themselves. The first step to improving low self-esteem issues is by keeping an open mind when it comes to these statements from yourselves and others as just a matter of opinion and nothing more. When one does that they have actually taken the very first steps to self-improvement, by recognizing that those are only opinions and not conclusions which are open for questioning and debate.
Motivation:
When it comes to motivation, it is extremely easy to read all about it and make plans, but considering the change often leads people to merely think about it and stay at home. This is where you need to ask yourself these questions. How important is this change to you? And what’s at risk if you do not change?

3. Challenge Yourself Everyday:

“How you feel is how you think.” Contemplate on this line for a moment. The truth is, there is a constant stream of thoughts which are running through our minds and which we are not aware of. It is only when the content of

those thoughts make us feel “sad” or “low” by popping up in our brain that we get a sense of how uncontrollable they are. Learning how to tune in to the right thoughts and question their validity instead of accepting them requires practice. Being aware of what you felt when a certain thought popped up in your brain is a good way to start challenging yourself.
Get Rid of the Critic Inside You:
Isn’t it enough that we have people constantly telling us what we can and cannot or should not do. Having critics for friends doesn’t help and all, especially if you have low self-esteem to begin with. Getting rid of those individuals who constantly put you down is going to be an essential part of improving your self-esteem, That is, until you are psychologically strong enough to cope with the criticism. Apart from staying away from the wet blankets in your life, there is another critic that is even worse, and that is your thoughts or perception of yourself. As we all know that a person’s self-esteem is nothing more than a perception, which should only be viewed as an opinion and not as a fact or statement.

4. Change Your Behavior:

There are certain times when a person will feel low or depressed. Of course, a person will not feel like being over the moon, if they just got fired from their job or are in some sort of relationship crisis, but ignoring any positive information while exaggerating the negative can be bad. Reflecting on a time when one felt better can help them ease through these sorts of temporary dents in a person’s life.

5. The Affects of Negative Thought:

“I’m just not good enough.” People who hold on to this belief do so for two reasons, either they are trying to avoid failure or are afraid of rejection. Harboring this belief for any one of these reasons can be harmful for a person in the long run.
Sometimes people are unaware of the vicious cycle this sort of negative thinking creates in their life. Which is why it is so important to get rid of negative thoughts by being constructive and learning to move out of your comfort zone. Start approaching different situations differently and start to consider what might happen if you succeed or fail. This will help you check how accurate your prediction was. If you succeed, good on you, if not, keep being positive and try a different approach. What you will notice is, by starting to deliberately challenge yourself you will break away from the negative thoughts that otherwise tie you down.

6. Focus On Different Areas of Your Life:

When people have low self-esteem it’s easy for them to think that change is not possible. Self-esteem is not something which stays in its original state throughout a person’s life. It is constantly fluctuating in various stages and situations of our life. By focusing on these separate areas and stages of your life, you can start to recognize which are the areas which could use some improvement.

7. Learn to Love Yourself:

Helping others is a great feeling, but one also needs to take some time out for themselves. People who suffer from low self-esteem are always harsh on themselves and overly critical when it comes to failure. Learning how to develop certain skills, such as, tolerance and compassion for oneself is the key for an emotional well being. Bat off the critic inside your head by thinking of a time when your self-esteem felt better, or of someone in your life who gave you positive encouragement. Ignoring your needs for too long while taking care of other obligations can lead to frustration, anger, a general low mood and even suicidal thoughts. Not to mention the other health implications that come along with stress and depression.

Conclusion:

The bottom line is, if you have been suffering with low self-esteem, then you probably have been criticizing yourself your whole life, so where has that gotten you? Exactly, so why not start to be more approving of yourself for a change, besides if you’re trying to prove yourself to people, then forget it, because, chances are they are just as messed up as you are.
There comes a time when you will realize that “other people” just aren’t worth it. So, who’s next (or first) on the list? God? Good luck with that buddy!, cause trying to impress God is a waste of time. Simply because He can’t be impressed or surprised for that matter. You can’t sneak up on Him, you know! So just relax and be cool.