Six habits to nurture your Self-Esteem and change your life

Nowadays everyone talks about self-esteem across the geographies. Self-esteem is important and crucial in handling life’s challenges and difficulties. It is also vital for the development of a good mental health. Self-esteem makes a significant impact on the quality of your life. There are tons of books and articles in the market, on quick fixes to elevate your self-esteem. You must have read headlines like “11 Tips to appear more confident” or “How to boost your Self-Esteem” everywhere, but if I ask you to really explain what self-esteem is, would you be able do it? Before we move to discuss the six activities of self-esteem, let’s first try to define it.

Self-Esteem Definition

Self-esteem is the immune system of your consciousness; and just like your body’s immune system, it is innate. It is a person’s source of resistance, strength, and ability to regenerate. No, you won’t die due of lack of self-esteem, but certainly you can not live a proper and fulfilled life without it.

Have you ever noticed that you continuously create certain expectations about your capabilities, based on the beliefs you have. However, these expectations are not just imaginary; these shape your behaviors in a way that makes your actions align with them and turn themselves into reality. So, the beliefs you have about yourself become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If your beliefs are positive, you will have quality life else with negative one you will be stuck in a loop of disappointment.

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world.” ~ Buddha

Self-esteem components

Self-esteem has two main components:

• Self-efficacy: It’s confidence in your ability to cope with life’s problems and challenges.
• Self-respect: It’s belief that you deserve happiness, achievement and love.

So, if you have high self-esteem; you are confident in your abilities, and feel that you deserve happiness.

Self-esteem cannot be worked on directly, as it’s the end result of many smaller habits and things. So, let’s come back to six habits or things to work on; which work as basic foundations to develop a high self-esteem to live a fulfilled life.

First Habit: Mindfulness

The first habit of building self-esteem is the practice of mindfulness and living consciously, i.e. practice of living in the present and being aware of each moment. It’s being conscious of what’s going on inside you as well as around you. It’s about being reality-focused, being open to facts, stop ignoring the information (that you don’t like), and pay attention to your emotions. People who are living consciously are able to focus on what is happening now, and to stop thinking about the past and the future. Living consciously is thinking critically about yourself and life. You need to be non judgmental, which is one of the basics of practicing mindfulness.

Second Habit: Self-Acceptance

The second habit of self-esteem is self-acceptance, which actually is accepting the things as they are. Self-acceptance does not mean that you start liking and accepting your negative behaviors and actions. It also doesn’t mean being complacent and not improving. Self-acceptance means simply accepting that this is who you are (right now), how you feel (right now), and where you’re at (yep… right now). You accept your actions, reactions and behaviors as it is even if they are negative. What actually happens; through habit of mindfulness as soon as you notice them, if they are negative you start giving justification to yourself. Once you accept them as it is (negative form), you will be able to think and investigate their root cause.

Third Habit: Self-responsibility

Self-responsibility is taking responsibility for 100% of the things that happen in your life. It means acknowledging that you are in charge of your own feelings, choices and actions, and that no one else can make them, change them, or fix them for you. You don’t blame others for your own feelings and choices, and don’t expect others to make you happy. It’s always easier to point the finger and blame someone else or some other event for your situations in life, but it’s not always accurate. You usually have more ownership in your life than you realize, and learning to understand what choices, reactions, and behavior you’ve contributed to your situation is the key to learning where you can make positive changes going forward.

Fourth Habit: Self-Assertiveness

The next habit which works as foundation of self-esteem is self-assertiveness, which means that you show the world and yourself your true nature. The essence of self-assertiveness is to be real and to speak and act from your innermost convictions and feelings. This is about feeling that your opinions and feelings are important, and expressing yourself and standing up for your basic self is something you deserve. It’s about respecting your needs and interests and about expressing them in appropriate way at appropriate place.

Fifth Habit: Living Purposefully

Living purposefully is all about your goals. Goals give you motivation and direction in life, which creates meaning. If you are living purposefully, you set goals, and make plans that allow you to reach them. Most of you may feel like you have a sense of what your life’s purpose is, or at least a rough idea of it. Living with purpose means to try and keep clarifying that purpose as you go along, while simultaneously taking actions that’ll move you closer in that direction.

Sixth Habit: Personal Integrity

Integrity is the integration of ideals, convictions, standards, beliefs and behavior. When your behavior is in congruence with your acknowledged values, when ideas and practice match up, you have integrity. When you “walk your talk”, it shows your personal integrity. You live in line with your own beliefs, ethics and values. When you do things that are in line with your personal code, you feel good about yourself which boost your self-esteem.

Which Self-Esteem Activities do you practice ?

Over to you now, we would like to hear from you which self-esteem activities or habits you have adopted , which have made a significant change in your life. Please share your experiences with all other readers in the comment section below,

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