How to raise your self-esteem

A healthy person walks without stumbling, and if he accidentally stumbled, he quickly recovered. A mentally healthy person lives with high self-esteem, and if suddenly his self-esteem has fallen — this is an accident, he can quickly correct it. Someone was taught this by their parents, and I taught many at the University of Practical Psychology.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​For some people, self-esteem is always at the level, articles on how to raise self-esteem are not relevant for them. What are these people? They are distinguished from all the rest by only two circumstances: real life success and a bodily corset of success.

First: real life success. You live successfully, you live with dignity, you are valued at work, your friends respect you. Create and strengthen your life base (a cozy apartment, your favorite dacha and a car are very conducive to this), improve your skills, become a respected professional, live like a decent person, create a strong and happy family, make friends with worthy people … In general, it is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick, and freedom is better than lack of freedom.

Second: corset of success. The military and athletes rarely suffer from the problem of low self-esteem — why? Because they were given good posture, because they were taught to walk confidently, keep their heads straight and look forward, not in themselves. If you want to take care of yourself, master this skill, it is worth a lot.

However, there is another category of people whose self-esteem falls more often than all others, who can fall into self-abasement even against the background of real life success and a completely athletic body.

She is told that she is doing a great job. She is told that she has a magnificent figure. But for some reason she doesn’t trust anyone. Is the situation familiar? And how! And probably observed on some friends and relatives … or even in the mirror. And sometimes one hears “well, who will love me like this?”, “Well, why did I take on this business, I’ll fill up the first project” … Low self-esteem, self-discipline and self-digging are a typical female feature. And the funny thing is that most often it has no serious reason.

Do you have an idea what distinguishes those with low self-esteem from everyone else? Answer: the habit of acting helpless and falling into the state of the Victim. Sometimes this is a game that comes from childhood: when I portray to my mother that nothing works out for me, and I am so upset, my mother will always pity me — so sweet! The child pretends to be helpless, his mother pities him — they got an adult who is prone to suddenly fall into a syndrome of low self-esteem: «Everything is bad with me, I’m nobody, I can’t do anything.» The female gender standard also encourages this: men like (allegedly) helpless women, they like to feel superior, and women adopt this behavior: “Oh, I can’t do without you …” She gets the interested attention of men, but at the same time problematic appendage — the habit of feeling helpless.

A very difficult case — if the position of the Victim is superimposed precisely on low self-esteem, then the person begins to suffer seriously and already creates problems for others.

What to do here, seriously? Except in cases of obvious depression, psychotherapy is inappropriate here: there is nothing to treat here, here you need to put your brains in their place.

• If you are going to do it yourself, see how to remove the position of the Victim and master the position of the Author. Read the Victim’s Dictionary carefully and don’t say that again. Remove excuses and master the exercise «Mistake!».
  
• Start rebuilding yourself in a positive way: speak well of others, learn to compliment and start saying them. This is really curious: when you speak well not about yourself, but about other people, about those around you, your self-esteem will rise! Next — master the exercise «Good», it will change your whole life for your whole life.
  
• Start to monitor your speech, do not talk badly about yourself even in jest. Say «Mistake, I’m good!» — fun, and «Oh, what a fool I am!» — just bad. Jokes are jokes, but if you constantly call yourself a piglet, sooner or later you will grunt!
• If relevant, work with your insecurities, pump up your sense of confidence — this can be very helpful. Again, it is useful to work with the speech, remove the phrases “What if it doesn’t work out?”, “Well, it definitely won’t work out …” and other markers of future failure. By the way, working on your own is good, going to a good confidence training is even better. This tool is almost error-free and helps for a long time.

If you do this, within a month your general condition will begin to improve clearly. It’s really not difficult, and the results really come to everyone. Set such a task — you will get the result.

However, be prepared: with the right inner attitude, sometimes people have situational failures. Almost any person from time to time, albeit not for long, gives up, creates a feeling of “nothing works out”, and this state hits self-esteem. This is situational, everything will get better soon, but how to fix it faster? What to do? If your colleague or loved one got into such a state, it is enough to distract him sometime, support him sometime, and even better, if possible, involve him in a new business or other situation where success is quite possible.

And if this happens to you, can you help yourself? Oh sure. Opportunities such as the use of signs of superiority and humiliation of others (boasting, ridiculing, accusations, criticism) we will not recommend: at least in the long run, this will only bring you additional problems. In fact, there are many simple, reasonable and quite worthy ways to increase your self-esteem, we list only those that lie on the surface.

• Maybe for you it is to do what you are great at: for example, quickly make a delicious breakfast, set the table beautifully, eat with pleasure, clear the table and wash the dishes and praise yourself. Everyone, wow!
  
• The opportunity to do a good deed almost unmistakably changes the mood: call your parents, they will be pleased!
  
• It is always a pleasure to talk with those who know and love you, who sincerely fulfill the role of the Golden Mirror, following the mood, self-esteem will increase.
• The traditional way is to remind yourself of your successes, and the Success Notebook helps a lot. Have you got her already? If not, sit down and start writing. If you have already started it, open it and start reading it. After 5 minutes, your mood will magically change into a bright and contented side. You’ll like it!
  
• Write down your strengths, your strengths, what characterizes you from the best side. You can start with “I’m great at …” (list ten points), then continue with your good character traits (five points are enough. If you write your bad traits, write them and immediately cross them out with pleasure!) And finish with your choice of good moments of your appearance ( nice figure? pleasant manners?).
• Further. At the beginning of the 20th century, almost half of Europe repeated, like magic mantras, self-hypnosis formulas from the French pharmacist Emile Coué: “My affairs are getting better and better every day in every way!” — Great for boosting self-esteem! If you are too lazy to speak so long, say briefly: “I am good!”, This is also suitable for a start. Now do everything right: stand in front of the mirror, straighten your shoulders, smile and say the full formula out loud to yourself! Once again! And two more times! Then — continue to mutter these formulas already in a whisper or to yourself, doing any other things — but with the same contented and cheerful intonation. Check if these formulas still help centuries later!
• And now, if you already feel the strength, use the most powerful tool: start behaving cheerfully and confidently. Do it the way actors or actresses play their part, turn on the cheerfulness and keep it for at least five minutes to start. Most likely, you will enjoy it and continue this game with joy throughout the day.

If you do at least three of these seven points, you will surely improve your mood. If you do and help — write about it below, in the comments! If not — write too, then we’ll figure it out.

In fact, the ways to raise your self-esteem — the sea, there would be a desire. If you want to practice something else, still look for what will best help you, two whole articles will help you: “Mood Enhancers” and “7 Easy Ways: How to Quickly Raise Self-Esteem”.

Or enter the University of Practical Psychology, where you can be guaranteed to work out several dozen of the most effective exercises.

Good luck to you! Joy!