5 Ways To Boost Your Self-Esteem

In simple words, self-esteem means having confidence in one’s own abilities.

Self-esteem can be an important part of success. Too little self-esteem can leave people feeling defeated or depressed. It can also lead people to make bad decisions, fall into destructive relationships, or fail to live up to their full potential.

So how to come out of low self-esteem?

Today, renowned psychologist, marriage counselor, and relationship expert Shivani Misri Sadhoo reveals 5 ways to boost your self-esteem. Here they are:

Avoid Generic Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations are like vacant calories. You can tell yourself you are great but if you do not really believe it yourself, your mind will reject the affirmation and make you feel worse as a result. Affirmations only work when they fall within the range of believability, and for people with low self-esteem, they usually do not happen.

Recognize Areas Of Authentic Strength Or Competency

To start building your self-esteem, you have to recognize what you are good at, what you do best, or what you do that other person appreciate about you. It can be something minor, a single small step in the right way, but it has to be something. For example, if you were a champion chess player, that could have done the trick. But you aren’t that dedicated. As a result, the hours you spent playing did not provide you self-esteem any emotional nourishment.

Show Ability

Once you have identified an area of your strength, look for ways to show it. If you are a good dancer, join a dancing league. If you are a good writer, post something to a blog. If you are a good orator, try to speak at a public gathering. Engage in the things you feel you are good at.

Self-Affirm

Once you have shown your ability, allow yourself to feel good about it, proud, content, or pleased with yourself. Self-affirmations are specifically crafted positive messages you can give yourselves based on your true strengths. For example, say to yourself that I am a good writer. Realize it is not arrogant to feel proud of the things you are actually good at, whatever they are, as when your self-esteem is low, every amount of emotional nourishment helps.

Learn to Accept Positive Feedback

When your self-esteem is low you become resistant to compliments. Work on accepting compliments graciously (a kind Thank you is sufficient). Hard as it might feel to do so, especially at first, being able to receive compliments is very important for those seeking to nourish their self-esteem.