How can I improve my Self-Esteem?

Self-esteem, or the way how you feel about yourself, is an important feature of mental fitness. It plays a key role in living peaceful, successful and positive life. Self-esteem has been a hot topic in psychology for decades, going about as far back as psychology itself. Even Sigmund Freud, who is considered the Father of Modern Psychology, had worked a lot on this and given many theories about self-esteem. Abraham Maslow also gave a place to self-esteem in his human motivation theory “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs”

What is self esteem ?

Your self-esteem is how you value and perceive yourself. High self-esteem means that you adore and acknowledge yourself for the way you are, and by and large feel fulfilled for the majority of the time. Low self-esteem means that you are not in high spirits with the way you are. Low self-esteem reduces the quality of a person’s life in many different ways. It not taken care of at right time, self esteem issues results in many mental health problems such as lack of confidence, anxiety, fear of unknown, depression and  in few rare cases suicide.

How to build self esteem ?

If you feel your self-esteem is having a negative impact on quality of your life, following are the tips for building self esteem

Adopt healthy life style

Your life style plays a major role in boosting your self-esteem. If you feel symptoms of low self-esteem, adopt a healthy life style. Healthy life style changes includes  following self esteem activities

• Improve your hygiene
• Exercise daily and increase your physical activity
• Eat healthy and nutritious food
• Sleep well, follow your biological clock
• Practice meditation and yoga
• Quit using tobacco and alcohol

Surround with positive people

The people with whom you associate influence your self-esteem. Negative people keep their spotlight on the negative parts of the life. They keep generating negative vibration which affects your thoughts. Thoughts influence your actions and your energy. If you think negatively, you’re going to feel negative. Always try to ensure that positive people surround you. When positive and supportive people surround you, you feel better about yourself. They give your feedback in positive manner and highlight your positive qualities, which boosts your self esteem.

Help someone

Helping others improves your self-esteem and makes you feel good. Research has shown that people who volunteer tend to feel happier and have higher self-esteem. It may seem inconsistent that to raise your self-esteem you should help someone else, but the science says that by volunteering or helping others, your brain secret hormones which make you feel more positive about yourself.

There are endless opportunities to help others in the society.  Donate money for the school fee of students having poor financial background. You may visit and volunteer at an old-age home or a homeless shelter. Donate your time and service to a hospital nearby you. Take care of and clean up a local park in your locality. Donate winter cloths and blankets to needy people.

Positive self-talk or Affirmations

Positive affirmations or self-talk is actually the thought patterns you focus on – some are positive while others are highly negative and can do the most damage to your self-esteem. Affirmations or positive self-talk is a very important technique to deal with low self-esteem. Self-talk affects the subconscious mind. Focus on your self-talk, get rid of negative thoughts and start doing positive self-talk. Examples of positive self-talk are

• I’m making progress.
• I’ve competencies and knowledge to complete any task.
• I can handle this.
• I’ll never give up.
• I’m born to win.
• I’ve dealt these situations before and have overcome always.
• I know every problem has solution.
• I forgive and forget others mistake

Positive self-talk is helpful to increase self esteem and improve confidence.

Do things you enjoy

Set aside some time out of your daily busy schedule to do something that makes you happy, that means blogging, playing sports, cooking, writing, reading, listening music, exercising, gardening, or spending an hour just talking with your parents, spouse and kids. Don’t feel that you are wasting time and you can use this time for some other important pending tasks, this activity to set aside time to enjoy is most important for your mental fitness; you deserve it.

Experiment with new activities; you may start singing, painting, poetry, and dance. You might learn about talents or skills you didn’t know you possessed. Maybe you take up running track and discover that you are really good at long-distance running, something you’d never thought of before.

List your accomplishments

Focusing on what you have completed or achieved is a great way to boost your self-esteem. Every day take out some time to list your accomplishments. Think about all the things you have accomplished and write down them in your daily diary . Make the list of smallest things you’ve done which makes you feel proud of. Whenever you feel down and have low self-esteem, review your list and remind yourself, your own ability to get things done and to do them well.

Read something inspirational

A great way to regain your self-esteem is to read something inspirational (like you are doing right now) that lifts you up and makes you feel positive about yourself..

This is all from my side in this article.  Thanks for reading this. I am sure these tips will definitely boost your self-esteem. It will change the quality of your life and you will feel more fulfilled, happy and positive in life.