How To Develop Self Esteem

How To Develop Self Esteem

Whoa, that seems like a heavy topic right?  How to develop self esteem.  As I am sure you’ve discovered by now I’m no expert.  I’m not a life coach although I’ve thought about doing that.  What I am is a guy who keeps his eyes open.  I keep my eyes open to the many interactions I have with people.  Long ago I discovered how to watch patterns in relationships.  How you can learn if a situation is really going to change based on action, not just because someone says the words.  I also pride myself on my emotional intelligence which is being aware of your own feelings and others as well as the ability to manage those feelings.  Through all of this which is really just being aware of my life experiences I’ve discovered how powerful self esteem is.  With that let’s jump right in.

What Is Self Esteem

Let’s start with a good definition of self esteem.  In psychology self esteem is most often used to describe a person’s overall sense of self worth or personal value.  Put another way, it’s how much you appreciate and like yourself and your abilities.  Self esteem is most often thought of as personality trait.  That means it tends to be relatively stable and enduring.  Self esteem can involve a variety of beliefs about yourself.  It is your own appraisal of your appearance, abilities, beliefs, behaviors, and emotions.

Why Self Esteem Is Important

Self esteem plays a very important role in your motivation and overall success throughout your life.  Low self esteem could definitely have a hand in holding you back at school or at work and in relationships.  This happens because you don’t believe in yourself enough to create success, whatever that is to you.  On the other side of the coin having a healthy sense of self esteem can certainly help you achieve the success that is important to you.  A healthy self esteem helps you navigate life with confidence, and a positive, assertive attitude that will help you achieve your goals.  This relates to all areas of our lives.

Characteristics of People With Good Self Esteem

Here are some of the characteristics of folks with good self esteem.

• Confidence in your abilities
• The ability to say no
• Positive outlook
• Ability to see your own strengths and weaknesses and accept them
• Negative experiences won’t impact your overall perspective on life
• The ability to express your wants and needs
• Typically comfortable with change
• The ability to laugh at yourself
• Enjoy growing as a person
• Having the ability to look deep inside yourself.  What I call looking under the hood
• Accepting of other people for who they are
• They can concentrate on solving problems and challenges in their lives – and find solutions
• Usually want to make a healthy contribution in others lives when possible
• Can trust your own judgement and not second guess yourself
• Consider yourself worthy of others

Signs Your Self Esteem Could Use Some Improvement

You may want to work on your self esteem if these are typical characteristics you exhibit.

• Negative outlook on life
• Lack of confidence
• Hypersensitive to constructive criticism and especially negative feedback
• Inability to express your needs on a regular basis
• Belief that most people are better than you
• Feelings of insignificance
• Difficulty making decisions due to fear of making mistakes
• Constant fear of failure
• Always focusing on your weaknesses
• Inability to accept positive feedback
• Being mired in self pity
• Can be overly self-deprecating and critical of themselves
• Excel at making lots of excuses for many different things
• Inability to let go of bad experiences, can’t leave the past in the past
• A tendency to apologize a lot for various behaviors and situations, even if it’s no big deal

How To Develop Self Esteem

So, is it possible to develop good or positive self esteem?  You bet.  It is certainly possible and we will look at how to develop self esteem.  Of course we are referring to good self esteem.  Something to bear in mind as you read through these.  Low self esteem and high self esteem are considered a personality trait.  Personality traits are ingrained within each and every one of us.  They can be changed but it takes a dedicated focus and ongoing effort to change them.  Read on for how to develop self esteem.

• Be aware or mindful.  The first step in making any change is to become aware of it.  This means you’ll have to be on the alert constantly for negative self talk or feelings of low self worth.  You will have to tell yourself that these are simply your feelings, they aren’t based in reality.  Remember, step one is to become aware.
• Work on changing your story.  We all are the starring roles in the movie that is our own lives.  Start consciously working on changing your story.  Remember, you are the one in control of your story.  Always remember this and act on it.  If you don’t like something in your life you can change it.  You.
• Put some focus on what you’re great at.  This will help you to not only thing about what you don’t do well.  For instance, I am a fantastic communicator and recruiter so that’s what I do for a living.  I absolutely suck at excel so try to do that as little as possible.
• Exercise.  Come on, you knew I was going to say this didn’t you?  Of course exercise is good for you physically.  It’s just as good if not better for you mentally.  It makes you feel good about yourself when you’re are working on getting better.  In better shape in this case.

More Ways on How To Develop Self Esteem

There’s many more ways to develop self esteem than I will put here.  I want to provide an overview of some of the ones I feel are important.  In the next section I’ve put some resources as well for further detail if you are interested.  Here is more on how to develop self esteem.

• Don’t give your circumstances all the power.  Some people are naturally born into easier circumstances than others.  Whether it’s the country you live in or how much cash your family has.  Don’t let your circumstances dictate your life story.  Remember, you have the power to change your circumstances if you want to.
• Invest in yourself.  When you take the time to take care of yourself it shows you think you’re worth it.  Try dressing up more than usual.  Most of us, myself included, feel better about ourselves when we like how we look and are dressed.  Keep yourself healthy.  Spend the money on a massage.  You get the drift.
• Stop the comparisons.  It’s a trap that’s easy to fall into, comparing ourselves with others.  He has more hair.  She is thinner.  They make more money.  His job is better than mine.  All this does it make us feel worse about ourselves.  Every single one of us is unique.  Nobody is better than anyone.  Focus on making your life successful in the way you want it to be.
• Appreciate what you do.  It’s so easy to focus on the negative.  As I say on a regular basis, we are all our own worst critics.  We see our flaws far more than anyone else.  Take time each and everyday to appreciate yourself and what you do.  I can be very hard on myself because I am all go almost all the time.  I feel bad if I don’t get one thing done on my list of 20.  Sometimes I’m smart enough to say “dude, you kicked ass today.  It’s okay to relax for a while today”.

Resources

If you’d like to learn more about self esteem and further research on how to develop self esteem I have some recommendations listed below.

The Self Esteem Workbook for Women: 5 Steps to Gaining Confidence and Inner Strength – by Megan MacCutcheon LPC

The Self Confidence Workbook: A Guide To Overcoming Self-Doubt And Improving Self-Esteem – by Barbara Markway, PhD

The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem: The Definitive Work on Self-Esteem by The Leading Pioneer in The Field – by Nathan Brandon

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k: A Counterintuitive Approach To Living A Good Life – by Mark Manson

Get Out Of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior – by Mark Goulston

Conclusion

Self esteem can have a heavy influence on your quality of live.  Bad self esteem has the power to make your less happy than you’d like.  Conversely having good self esteem can seriously help you make your life all you want it to be.  Since self esteem is considered a personality trait it is not easy to change but it is possible.  It takes a focused effort and the work is worth it.

Take care of yourself,

Mat A.