Due to high stress, overworking and constant bombardment with perfect people on social media, many of us today suffer from low self-esteem. Having a bad image of yourself can affect every aspect of your life, from your career to your relationships and even your health. However, your self-esteem is something that comes from the inside, so it can be changed by going through some steps that will affect your point of view and make you realize that you’re worthy of every night thing in this world. Here’s how to boost your self-esteem:
Practice words of kindness
Do you know that little voice at the back of your head? Well, it’s louder than you might think, so make sure to use it for good. Consciously try to tell kind things to yourself, and if a negative thought slips through the cracks, don’t hesitate to challenge it. Let your inner voice be as polite as your outer voice when you talk to your friends or family—you love them so you wouldn’t call them horrible names even when they mess up, right?
Accept compliments
When your self-esteem is low, it’s hard to see any good things that people see in us. If you usually shrug off any compliment or try to deflect them, it’s your low self-esteem telling you they are lies. Here’s a little challenge for you: next time someone compliments you, simply say “thank you so much” or “this means a lot”. After some time, you won’t cringe when complimented anymore and it will be a great sign of your self-esteem getting better.
Develop your talents
One of the best ways to build up your self-esteem is to demonstrate ability and skill in areas that are meaningful to you. For instance, if you love it when people say good things about your cooking, you can host more dinner parties. If you love your sports abilities, sign up for extra classes and become even better. As you improve, you’ll not only get more compliments to boost your self-esteem but also become sure in your abilities enough to not get intrusive thoughts anymore.
Be good to your body
Make sure to do something for your body and mind every day. For instance, you can take time to exercise or meditate, read a book, have a spa afternoon, see a dentist or optometrist, etc. Taking good care of your body is not vanity—it’s self-care and self-love that can do wonders for your self-esteem. Small plastic surgeries are becoming more and more popular simply because people choose to love their bodies and want to improve them in a way that makes them happy. Australia is a country where people love their bodies in a healthy and caring way, so it’s easy to find a cosmetic surgeon in Melbourne to fix some of your ‘flaws’. As long as you perform cosmetic surgery and facial enhancement for the right reasons, they can do wonders for your self-esteem.
Additionally, you can also simply enhance the appearance of your smile. Don’t have a dentist yet? No problem. You can always do a quick internet search for a term like “dentist near me Valencia”. Doing so will provide you with a list of professionals that you can reach out to.
Give yourself a break
Being positive and perfect all the time is not possible for anyone. Your self-esteem might vary from day to day, even hour to hour. For instance, some people are comfortable in a group setting but feel a bit low when alone, and some are the opposite. The key thing to take out from this is that everyone feels blue sometimes, and you should not criticize yourself for it. The best thing you can do for your self-esteem is to get through the hard days and praise yourself for your acceptance of the things you can’t change.
Forgive yourself
Mistakes are an integral part of life—no one is flawless—but they are not who you are as a person. Mistakes are unique and isolated incidents that don’t have to stay with you forever. Next time you mess up, tell yourself “I made a mistake, but that’s okay. My mistakes don’t define me”. Everything that you do badly has its good sides as well. Even if you didn’t excel in your presentation, someone still might have picked something up from it. And if you didn’t finish your workout, you still did some work which is better than none. Forgive yourself, forget about mistakes and move forward.
Boosting your self-esteem is a task that requires work, development on a deep level and maintenance of healthy habits. However, if you practice these habits above, your investment will have a great return on self-esteem.
