How to Boost Your Self-esteem
Self-esteem is your overall opinion of yourself and how you feel about your abilities and limitations. Your self-esteem can affect whether you like and value yourself as a person and are able to make decisions and assert yourself. When you have healthy self-esteem, you feel good about yourself and see yourself as deserving the respect of others. Different factors contribute to influence self-esteem such as genetics, personalities, life experiences, thoughts, age, health, comparing self to others, social circumstances and the reaction of others.
Self-esteem is very crucial in life as it is one of the determinants of success or failure. Having high self-esteem can help you navigate through life with a positive attitude and outlook. On the other hand, having low self-esteem might hold you back from achieving your goals and hinder you from maximizing your potential by always having the perception that you are not good enough or you do not have what it takes to succeed. Self-esteem is also very important for mental health.
There are three types of self-esteem: inflated self-esteem in which people often think of themselves as better than others and is actually a negative trait because it prevents people from forming meaningful and healthy relationships. Low self-esteem causes people to think of themselves as below average and to not believe in themselves. Causes of low self-esteem include ongoing stressful life events, poor treatment from a partner, parent or caregiver or ongoing medical problems. People with high self-esteem tend to love and accept themselves and believe in themselves and their abilities. Some of the benefits of high self-esteem is being able to be yourself without fear of being judged, readiness to accept new challenges and not always searching for approval.
To boost your self-esteem, you need to identify the negative beliefs you have about yourself, then challenge them. Here are some other simple techniques that may help you feel better about yourself.
Recognize what you are good at. We are all good at something and we also tend to enjoy doing the things we are good at.
Build positive relationships. If you find certain people tend to bring you down, try to spend less time with them or tell them how you feel about their words or actions.
Be kind to yourself. Try being gentle to yourself at times when you feel like being self-critical. Think what you would say to a friend in a similar situation.
Learn to be assertive. This means respecting other people's opinions and needs and expecting the same from them.
Start saying "no." People with low self-esteem often feel they have to say yes to other people, even when they do not really want to. The risk is that you become overburdened, resentful, angry and depressed.
Give yourself a challenge. We all feel nervous or afraid to do things at times but people with healthy self-esteem do not let these feelings stop them trying new things or taking on challenges. Achieving your goals will help to increase your self-esteem.
Here are today’s Wellness Wednesday Program reading resources:
“Self-Esteem,” Victoria State Department of Health
“11 Signs of Low Self-Esteem,” by Kendra Cherry, Updated June 22, 2021, Medically reviewed by David Susman, PhD
“Self-esteem: Take steps to feel better about yourself,” by Mayo Clinic Staff
