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Hey there, fabulous readers! You must be here because you’re seeking a boost in your self esteem? Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place. Are you ready to turn your mindset around, and start rocking your confidence game?! We’re going to be diving into the thick of it in this post. It’ll be discussing life obstacles that you might be coming up against and that are causing your lack in self confidence. You’ll walk away from reading this post with some key advice in tackling those obstacles which will help you in your journey of building self esteem!
Your self esteem is the way you view and value yourself. It all boils down to respecting and believing in yourself! How you look at yourself can heavily influence your confidence as well as motivation in aspects of your life. Let’s get started in building your self esteem, so it is better than ever before.
Here Are 17 Pieces of Advice for Improving Your Self-Esteem
Practice some self-compassion
The first piece of advice for you to start improving your self esteem is practicing self-compassion. You grow up learning the importance of being kind to others, and the truth is, it’s just as important to be kind to yourself! Treat yourself the same way you would a great friend. Understand that you aren’t perfect, yet that is no reason to be self-destructive or unkind to yourself. Making mistakes is normal, so it’s important to be forgiving and kind with yourself during difficult times. Head to Dr. Kristin Neff’s site, Self-Compassion to learn the ways you can become “more self-compassionate”.
Read and recite positive affirmations
Repeating positive affirmations daily can be a great method to improving your self esteem. Positive affirmations are statements that you revisit often which oppose your negative self-talk. When you find that you are putting yourself down again and again, take time to look at yourself in the mirror in a positive light. Ask yourself what you like and appreciate about your life, and who you are are. Write a list of these positive, uplifting thoughts, and they can serve as your positive affirmations. Focus on your strengths and achievements in life. Maybe even look into the future and think of what you’re most looking forward to.
Surround yourself with positive people
To improve your self esteem, spend time with supportive and positive people who uplift and encourage you! By seeking relationships with kind and compassionate friends and distancing yourself from negativity, you are giving yourself the best opportunity to improve your self esteem. Life can be extremely tough at times, right? During those times it’s quite common to be harsh on yourself and dwell on the negatives, and that is why you need to prioritise surrounding yourself with people who have your back and bring a positive vibe to the table.
Create positive environments to work in and to live in
The environment you work in and live in can have a massive impact on your mental well-being. Ensuring that you seek and create environments that are enjoyable will be beneficial for your self esteem. By being away from cluttered, messy areas, you can avoid unnecessary stress. Otherwise, when your environment is stressful, it can lead to you talking negatively about your productivity or yourself in general. Surround yourself with things that make you happy! Decorate your spaces with items that bring you joy and inspiration.
Take care of your physical well-being
Having low self esteem can commonly stem from poor physical well-being. Your physical well-being will have 2 key areas to focus on improving; how fit you feel and what you think of your physical appearance (there are more areas of physical well-being that may need attention too). Feeling unfit in everyday life has big consequences on your well-being and self esteem. When looking at what exercise you need to implement into your schedule, consider your job, lifestyle and current fitness level – it might be a daily walk around the block, or it might be joining the local gym – making a start is what matters! Get confident in your own skin, and look for what you love about yourself. Exercise regularly, eat a balanced diet, and get enough sleep. Physical well-being will have a significant impact your mental well-being and self esteem.
Recognise and learn from mistakes
Improve your self esteem by also learning from mistakes. Change your view of the mistakes you make! Mistakes are really some of the best opportunities for growth. This applies to all aspects of your life; school, hobbies, your job, and your relationships. If you ever make a poor decision, or muck up in any way, it’s important that you recognise and learn from what went wrong, so that in the future you are better equipped to deal with those certain situations. Instead of dwelling on failures, focus on what you can learn from them, and that’ll lead to you boosting your self esteem and your confidence!
Invest in developing a diverse skillset
Another way to improve your self esteem is to identify some skills that you would like to improve on and take some action! Developing a wider skillset will do wonders for your self esteem. Once you start seeing some results, it will lead to a sense of accomplishment and you’ll have better confidence in your ability. Start off by thinking of some hobbies you’d like to pursue. Would you like to learn an instrument? Or maybe learn computer programming? There are millions of possibilities! The more skills you acquire, the more certain you’ll be of yourself, and you’ll be building up your self esteem tremendously.
Set realistic goals
Hang on, don’t get us wrong, you should always dream big and shoot for the stars, it’s just that you need to break those big goals down into smaller goals. Breaking down your larger goals into smaller, more achievable tasks will help you feel better accomplished along the way. Not only that, it encourages you to continue reaching for that long term, more significant goal. Celebrate those small accomplishments, too! A light reward system will serve as a great motivator! When setting realistic goals, consider how long each of them will take, your potential obstacles, and what micro habits you’ll have to implement in your daily routine to achieve them.
Celebrate your achievements
Acknowledge and celebrate your accomplishments, no matter how small! Following on from the previous piece of advice, we want to stress the importance of recognising your own achievements. A great way to record your smallest, day-to-day wins, is keeping a journal of your successes. It’ll serve as a primary reminder of your capabilities. This will in-turn improve your self esteem massively. By writing down these achievements you are forced to think positively about yourself and your abilities!
Practice mindfulness
Definitely do not skip this piece of advice to improve your self esteem! Practicing mindfulness helps you in staying present and reducing negative thought patterns. To fully immerse yourself and enjoy the present moment isn’t always easy, and that is why mindfulness is great to practice. Learning ways to not get caught up in your future or your past and to replace negative thoughts with positive ones can be life changing. Meditation is a great method of helping calm your mind and improving your self-awareness. Visit Synctuation to delve further into how mindfulness can help you “[achieve] high self-esteem”.
Combat self-criticism
Challenging and reframing negative self-talk will be a tough task at first, but it does get easier. When negative, self-critical thoughts pop into your mind, let’s replace them with more positive and optimistic ones! Start by becoming aware of your negative thoughts and consciously challenging them. If there’s a horrible thought that comes to mind, let that begin a chain – negative thought → why has that thought come to mind → what I’m going to do to move on from that thought. Replace those self-critical statements with affirmations that emphasise your strengths and achievements. This will encourage you to constantly reflect on positive aspects of your life and recognise what you like about yourself. Consistent effort in redirecting thoughts towards optimism will reshape your inner dialogue, fostering a healthier and more constructive self-perception.
Try volunteering
Helping others is a great way to boost your self-esteem. Volunteering locally or for a large charity organisation allows you to contribute positively to your community and you will feel a sense of purpose. A sense of purpose is vital when it comes to improving self esteem. This is because when none of your actions and tasks feel purposeful, it’s difficult to stay positive and motivated. You might feel that your purpose is fulfilled by your career or your sport, and that is awesome! But, if you’re feeling like you’re lacking purpose in the greater picture, volunteering can very much help with that. You could make contact with a local charity, or if you feel like doing something on a larger scale, why not take a look at International Volunteer HQ has to offer?!
Say “no” when you want to
This piece of advice for improving your self esteem may surprise you a little. Setting boundaries and learning to say no when necessary is going to be your way of prioritising yourself and what you want. There are so many times you’ll be asked to attend events when you’ve already got a full schedule, or times when you’ll be asked for a favour and feel obliged to say yes – sometimes you just need to say no. If you are saying yes at the expense of lots of stress and your mental well-being, then you’re not helping yourself! Be firm with boundaries you set, and don’t feel like you can’t say no. Respecting your own limits is crucial for taking care of yourself and maintaining a healthy self-esteem.
Express gratitude
It’s essential that you regularly reflect on the things you are grateful for. This can shift your focus from what’s lacking to what you have in your life. To improve your self esteem, that is super important. A shift in focus from negative to positive thoughts is a brilliant first step in your journey of building self esteem. How you express your gratitude can be tailored to you and your busy life. Whether it’s writing in a journal, talking to friends and family, or recapping your day with yourself, any way in which you express gratitude will initiate positive thinking. Those positive thoughts will fuel your boost in self esteem.
Seek some professional help if you ever need
This piece of advice may be relevant to your unique journey of improving self esteem. Professional help may not necessarily be a counsellor or therapist. If your lack of self esteem stems from disliking your body image, it might a PT (personal trainer), or a nutritionist (and for other specific issues, other professional advisors). If other self-esteem issues persist, it is definitely worth considering a therapist or counsellor. Experts in both of these career paths can give you the right insight and tools to getting on track to improve your self-image and self-esteem. The point in seeking professional help is that you recognise where you need the most support in your journey. Never be ashamed – everyone needs guidance and support.
Embrace your uniqueness
It’s not only about accepting your individuality, it’s about celebrating it! Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and that’s what makes us human. Who you are is not just determined by your success, it’s determined by your mistakes, your quirks, your resilience, your determination and your attitude. Through embracing your unique qualities and who you are as a person, you’ll be well on your way to improving your self esteem!
Dr. Asha Prasad further explains how embracing who you are helps build self esteem in his blog post, 8 Steps for Embracing Your Uniqueness.
Focus on the journey to improve your self esteem, not the ‘destination’
The final piece of advice we have for you to improve your self esteem is this: Focus on and enjoy the journey! You’ll be delightfully surprised in finding out how much you’ll enjoy the process of personal growth. Despite the obstacles and the hardships, the journey of improving your self esteem is exciting and eye-opening! Yes, this sort of improvement takes time, so it may be a while until you feel 100% confident in yourself. So, for the meantime, it is important that you take pleasure in each step forward – treat each step as a victory in itself.
You might not improve your self esteem overnight, but it’ll happen. With time, effort and determination, you’ll see how amazing you truly are. During your journey of self-love, refer back to this post and revisit the advice that has helped you move forward from today!That’s our 17 pieces of advice for improving self esteem! Which piece of advice resonates with you the most? We’d love to here your feedback down below.
