Improve Your Self-Esteem

10 Practical Tips for Improving Your Self-Esteem

1. Take Care of Yourself! That is, make your health a primary focus of your life. When you feel good physically, it’s a whole lot easier to feel good emotionally. Start taking care of your body, on a daily basis. That means it a balanced and healthy diet, and regular exercise, including cardiovascular. A healthy body promotes a healthy mind. Your body is your Temple; keeping it clean is an act of reverence.

2. Enjoy yourself! Do things you like doing, whether you’re good at it or not. Do what brings you pleasure. When you are enjoying life you don’t room for self-disdain; you’re having too much fun to complain. Get a hobby; nourish your existing ones. Play (you know what they say about “All Work & No Play”).

3. Educate yourself! Developing and expanding your mind, acquiring new knowledge, and learning new skills, all serve to make a person more confident in themselves. Educate yourself on whatever interests you; read books, take courses, attend workshops and seminars. Broaden your horizons; it’s empowering.

4. Reward yourself! Don’t wait for others to recognize and praise your achievements. Provide that gratification for yourself. Whether it’s a kind word for a job well doned or a fancy meal or a stylish haircut, give yourself that pat on the back you’d been waiting for someone else to give. It feels just as good, if not better. And it’ll encourage you to keep up the good work. Every act of completion, however minor, is another triumph. The sense of purpose, of your life having meaning, also works to boost your sense of self-worth.

5. Treat yourself! Just the same, be sure to treat yourself for no reason at but self-love and appreciation. You don’t always need a reason to be extra-good to yourself; in fact, you don’t ever.

6. Praise yourself! Distinct from both a reward and a treat, praise comes from within. Identify your good qualities, what you like about yourself, your positive traits. Recognize your stregths, your talents and abilities. Honor your accomplishments. Compliment yourself, and likewise, accept the compliments of others. Don’t shrug them off or wave them off or do whatever you do to dismiss and discount them; that only strengthens your mistaken belief that you don’t deserve to be praised.

7. Forgive yourself! You can’t change the past; you can only change how you respond in the present moment: what you think of, and how you feel and act. Refusal to forgive yourself for something you can’t change now keeps you paralyzed from ever moving forward into a better future. Forgiving yourself doesn’t mean forgetting what you did and learning from the experience; it just means that, despite whatever you’ve done in the past, you are a good person who deserves to be happy. Guilt and shame crush one’s self-esteem, and the only way to be free of them is through inward forgiveness. This goes for small things as well as large, because when you’re critical of yourself for anything, it always hurts.

8. Involve yourself! In the lives of others, that is. You’re your attention off yourself for a few minutes and surround yourself with people who have a positive and healty attitude and outlook. The people you have around you reflect and influence your attitudes and behavior; choose to spend time around people who reflect how you’d like to see yourself, how you’d like to feel andd who you’d like to be. Socialize with people who share common interests with you and find a reservoir of support for feeling good about yourself. Professional organization, charities, clubs, groups, team sports, networking organizations, parties: getting involved with the world you live in gives you an irreplaceable sense of belonging. They don’t call it a support network for nothing.

9. Stand up for yourself! Don’t let people decide how you should feel about yourself. Don’t give them that power. You don’t even have to defend yourself outwardly to stand up for yourself inwardly. Simply refuse to let anyone else’s opinion get you down. It’s just their opinion. What’s more, they’re entitled to it. You don’t have to believe it; you just have to believe your own. Standing up for yourself means stating your needs and seeing that they’re met. It means deciding not to put up with behavior you don’t want to put up with anymore. You can’t change another person, but you can express yourself and, if necessary, remove yourself from the situation. And don’t play “the Martyr” either, putting everyone else’s needs before your own. Care for others, yes, but not at the expense of caring for yourself.

10. Give of yourself! There’s no better way to feel good about yourself than to give of your precious time and energy in the service of others. Volunteering is the most inwardly rewarding experience there is. Helping another person with no thoughts of reward or compensation is not only the holiest act, but the most self-esteem boosting.