Seven simple ways to boost your self-esteem

 The word "self-esteem" gets used in a lot of different contexts; it's a stand-in for everything from confidence to self-worth, but the real definition of self-esteem is pretty simple. Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself. That's it. It's all the positive and negative feelings that affect your view of who you are and what you can do. But it isn't always easy to figure out who you are. When you don't know how you feel about yourself, you naturally lean toward self-criticism because, in your head, someone who values themselves would know the reason why, but the truth is you have hundreds, if not thousands, of reasons to appreciate yourself and feel good about who you are, but like most people, you take that positivity for granted. You let it slip into the back of your mind or fade away from your personality. Instead, you focus on the one or two negative feelings that keep swirling around in your brain. So what can you do to bring that positivity back to the surface? What's the best way to reflect on all the reasons why you deserve respect? Recording your life story is a fun and therapeutic strategy that countless people have used. Not only does it help you remember what you love about yourself, but telling your story also motivates you to maintain that positivity in the future. But it's not just about reflection. The fact that you're writing down your story plays an important role. When you write something down, you have to be clear, you have to be concrete. You're forcing yourself to be specific about who you are. So if you're feeling confused, your story can give you the clarity that you're looking for.

Instead of looking back in time, you can also boost your self-esteem by setting goals for the future. Okay, just imagine you're an aspiring author but you've never actually written a book before. You've written plenty of short stories, but you've always been too scared to try something bigger. Maybe you're worried you're going to fail, or you're just feeling overwhelmed and you don't have enough faith in yourself to take on the challenge. How can you build the self-esteem you need to accomplish your dreams? Try setting something called a "point of pride." A point of pride is one specific goal that you accomplish to prove something to yourself, going back to our previous example. If you can write one chapter, that means you can write another and another until you've finished your entire book. By creating and achieving your point of pride, you're giving yourself a consistent source of motivation and, more importantly, a source of self-esteem. By taking this small step, you'll discover that you have genuine confidence in yourself. Your ultimate goals will finally feel like something you can realistically accomplish. All you have to do is pick one manageable but challenging point of pride and concentrate all your attention on that single goal. If you can do that, your self-esteem will start to skyrocket.

 You can also boost your self-esteem by changing basic things like the way you speak. For example, you might be using self-critical language to undercut your success, belittle your accomplishments, and overrate the value of the people around you. The problem is that you probably don't even realize that you're doing it. It's become almost automatic for you. So how do you change something that you don't even think about? Try studying the way you speak every time you undermine your achievements. That way, you can focus your attention on your harmful language and gradually change it for the better. You may not notice a difference at first, but over time, this simple strategy will have a huge impact on your self-esteem.

 One of the hardest things about building self-esteem is learning how to forgive your own mistakes. So whenever that doesn't happen, you either pretend that nothing happened or you become your own worst enemy. You criticize yourself and you hold a grudge. But both of these approaches have the same fundamental problem. They're focused on preserving the good. You're trying to maintain this fragile image of yourself. You expect to be that perfect, successful person, so you react negatively every time that doesn't happen. You either ignore your mistakes or you tear yourself down. Slowly but surely, you chip away at your self-esteem. So what should you do instead? The real secret behind your self-esteem has nothing to do with preserving the good. It's about forgiving the bad. You'll spend the rest of your life making mistakes. We all do. There's just no way around it. So before you can believe in yourself, you have to learn to live with those failures. Little by little, you can boost your self-esteem by actively forgiving yourself each time you say something stupid or make a careless error. Just take a minute to acknowledge what you did wrong and then, no matter what, cut yourself some slack.

 

 Have you always struggled with low self-esteem, or can you recall a time in your life when self-esteem was the last thing on your mind? Many people experience highs and lows throughout their lives, beginning with accomplishing their goals in developing healthy habits, which makes them feel positive and confident until some kind of failure knocks them down a peg. If you're stuck in one of those valleys, you can use this easy trick to climb your way back out. Think back to the happiest time in your life. When were you most motivated? When did you love yourself the most? It doesn't matter if it was last week, last year, or even decades ago. Reflect on that point in your life and ask yourself this important question. How did you climb to the top of that mountain? What about that period of your life stands out the most? Maybe you were excelling at work, or you might have had an amazing group of friends. Oftentimes, by reflecting on our past, we learn new things about what makes us happy. For example, many people like to say they're career-oriented. They focus all their time and energy on work, but their job consistently makes them feel inadequate or insecure. So they think back to their happiest moments and they realize something that changes their life. They feel the best about themselves when they're helping others, not when they're concentrating on their career. My point here is that if you're struggling with self-esteem, revisiting your past is a simple and rewarding way to turn your mentality around, and you might just discover something new about yourself in the process.

 People want to fit in, whether you're 15 years old or 50. You might think about your social standing more than you'd like to admit. It crosses your mind when you're getting dressed in the morning, when you're walking through the grocery store, or when you're sitting down at your desk, but the more you think about your social standing, the harder it is to build self-esteem. It doesn't matter if you're popular, unpopular, or somewhere in the middle, because it's not about whether you fit in. The best thing you can do for your self-esteem is to stop caring altogether. That's right, do at least one thing every day that separates you from the rest of the herd. It could be a change in your style or some obscure new hobby. It doesn't matter as long as you're carving your path. When you're focused on making yourself happy, you'll discover all kinds of new reasons to cherish your individuality.

 For most people, it's not that hard of a question. It only takes a few seconds to prove your values to me, but how long has it been since you've proved your values to yourself? Even though you know what your values are, they might have faded into the background. Maybe they've gotten lost in your habits and routines. You might forget to make time for your family or you may have lost touch with your passions. By reclaiming your values, you can remind yourself who you are. You can remember what makes your life worthwhile because that's ultimately where most of your self-esteem comes from. When you know yourself and the kind of person that you are, you can learn to like yourself. So set aside some time every week, or every day if you can, to reclaim your values. Each time you make these choices, you prove who you are.