Many people experience low self-esteem. Sadly, low self-esteem can have serious negative effects on your physical and emotional health. It can further impact your personal relationships and your job. Fortunately, there are ways that you can increase your self-esteem levels and eliminate these negative effects. Here are 7 steps to increase your self-esteem, giving you the boost you need.
1. Assess Yourself
It is important to figure out what causes your low self-esteem. Once you figure out what the root of the problem is, then you can fix it and move on. For instance, if you look at yourself in the mirror and you usually say, “I’m ugly,” “I’m fat,” or “I’m no good,” that would be the problem. In order to fix it, start telling yourself positive things, such as “I’m good looking,” “I’m healthy,” and “I’m a great person.” The more you express positive feelings about yourself, the more you will believe in them.
2. Don’t Blame Others
In most cases, feelings of low self-esteem are often felt to be caused by someone else. If you are being told regularly that you are no good, you’re ugly, you’re fat, or whatever the case may be, the first instinct is to blame the person saying those things for how you feel about yourself. You need to own up to how you feel about yourself, and don’t let others convince you that you are not worthy. Self-esteem comes from loving yourself first and then allowing others to love you back.
3. Set New Standards
Often, people feel negatively about themselves because what has been told to them, or has happened to them in the past. It is time you put the past behind you and moved on. You need to mentally break yourself free from what you’ve previously thought about yourself due to others and start thinking on a more positive note.
4. Love & Accept You for You
As has been mentioned, loving yourself is essential in significantly boosting your self-esteem. In order to love yourself, you need to accept who you are and embrace the being that is you. Allowing yourself to do this will instantly start increasing your self-esteem.
5. Strive for Growth & Self-Improvement
As you go through your life, you’re going to have many different experiences that could affect the way you feel about yourself. It is important to learn from these experiences, and continue to grow as a person. Doing so will allow your self-esteem to improve dramatically.
6. Set Realistic Goals & Expectations
Nothing damages self-esteem faster than having unrealistic goals and expectations. It is important that you don’t set yourself up for disaster, but instead set smaller goals that are easily attainable. For instance, if you want to lose 50 pounds, start by setting a goal of 5 pounds. Once you achieve the 5 pound weight loss, you will feel good about yourself and want to keep going, just because you’ve accomplished something. The same goes in the work place. If your ultimate goal is to become CEO, start with the goal of achieving a supervisor position, then a general manager position, and so on, patting yourself on the back along the way.
7. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others
One of the worst things people can do is compare who they are to other people. Doing this will drastically damage self-esteem in no time. It is important that you know who you are as a person, what you have, what your abilities are, and how successful you are. The only person you need to make happy when it comes to self-esteem is yourself. The only person you are in competition with—as it relates to self-esteem—is yourself.
Following these simple steps will help to dramatically improve your self-esteem in no time!
