Self esteem is found to be linked with relationships, school, work, mental health, physical health, and antisocial behaviour. Overall, research has found that positive self esteem is beneficial in all these. Thus, it is important for ourselves to work on our self esteem and practice habits which increase it rather than decrease. Here are some tips to help your self esteem. I hope they help!
- When you are saying yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself, you do not have to please everyone all the time, especially not at loss of yourself.
- Focus on your strengths and stop aiming for perfection. It can help by challenging yourself to write down your strengths each day. Set a time you do this whether it is morning or night. It might help to do five at first and then as you get more comfortable you can increase this to ten. If you are not used to praising yourself this can be difficult but try push through there is nothing not worth noting, whether it is ‘I have a nice smile’ or ‘I care for others’. It can be physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, whatever you feel!
- Surround yourself with people that are encouraging and accepting of you. Connect with people that make you feel good and disconnect with those that don’t. Relationships are self esteem are closely connected, so make sure the relationships you surround yourself are supporting your self esteem and not deflating it.
- Prioritize your own feelings and speak up for yourself. It is important to recognize your own thoughts and feelings. If you feel other people are not aware of them, try address them with them without inserting blame on anyone.
- Stop comparing yourself to others. Whether it is on television, online or people you see day to day. Peoples lives are a lot different to how they may appear and everyone’s journey looks different. It can help to step away from social media particularly, life is not all it appears online.
- Try trust yourself and your decisions. If you find yourself constantly doubting yourself, try give yourself five-ten seconds after making a decision to practice deep breathing and some positive affirmations such as ‘it will be okay’.
- Step away from apologizing as much. Not everything is within your control and thus your fault, you do not need to say sorry. Focus on what you can control. With that being said, we all make mistakes. Often people forgive us easier than we forgive ourselves, try show yourself some self-compassion we are only human.
- Focus on the present moments not past mistakes or what’s to come. What can you do now? You might need to sit with the present feelings and thoughts. Perhaps share them at the ‘thought catcher’ at Turn2me or at a support group. Sharing can help you feel relief from what might be on your mind.
- Celebrate your daily wins, no matter how big or small. Look at your journey and progress. It might help to keep a journal of your goals for days, or the week that can be anything from going for a walk to making someone else smile. Then when this is done you can feel a sense of achievement by ticking this off.
- Do things that make you feel good or try something different you might enjoy or be good at. It can help to think back to what made you happy as a child, if this brought you joy and fun than why not embrace your inner child. Life can be fast paced and demanding, but you deserve time for enjoyment.