Improving your self esteem can greatly improve your lifestyle. Parkview Employee Assistance has steps that will help you build self esteem.
- Remember that you are in control of your mind. You decide what you think about yourself. What do you choose to believe, and who do you listen to?
- Look at your positives. If you dwell on the negatives, you will become depressed and lower your self esteem. Every one of us has as many good qualities.
- Keep in mind that practice makes perfect. You are a work in progress, no one expects you to be perfect. Strive to do your best and learn from mistakes.
- Erase negative forms of “self-talk.” Garbage in results in garbage out.
- Expect respect from others, by loving and respecting yourself.
- Look for affirming relationships. Do not subject yourself to people who put you down or make you feel bad about yourself. If you can’t avoid them, be assertive. Tell them, “It’s difficult to be around you when…” or “It hurts me when…” Don’t settle for relationships that diminish your sense of self worth.
- Take small steps.
- Give hugs. Care for others. Make a contribution.
- Be Yourself. Appreciate your unique traits, abilities, heritage and talents.
- Do not compare yourself to others. Accept your imperfections. No one and nothing is perfect. No one knows everything.
- Develop and hold on to your own value system; know what you believe in and stick with it. Respect the right of others to be different from you.
- Fight against the tendency to be judgmental; respect individual diversity.
- Forgive yourself and others. See the good in others, and you will see the good in yourself.
- Be kind to yourself. Give yourself credit for what you accomplish every day. Life is made up of millions of “small” things.
- Take action. Start now. If there are things you don’t like about yourself, work on changing them. Get help. Take a class in money management, take an assertiveness class, work out at the gym, and go to Alcoholics Anonymous. Set realistic goals and go for them.
- Take a few risks. Try a new hobby, a craft, recreation that suits you. Ask yourself what you’ve been putting off, and go for it. Enlist the support and encouragement of your friends and family.
- Turn set-backs into victories. Instead of dwelling on the negative, think of every adversity as an opportunity to learn something new. Keep going.
- Believe in yourself. There is no one else in the world exactly like you. Be your own best friend and say supportive, forgiving, nice things to yourself.