5 Things You Can Do Today To Increase Your Self-Esteem
Self esteem is the how you feel about yourself, are you satisfied with who you are? Shyness and self esteem can often be linked and like overcoming shyness, building self esteem can take some time (obviously it’s well worth it) but here are 5 ideas you can incoropate into your life starting right now. Some are ideas you can practice now, some you will need to wait for the next opportunity to practice but all will help you build your self- esteem.
1. Do something you love.
If you do something you love something it creates an upward positive spiral. You love it so you learn more/practice more. This leads to increased knowledge and skill, which leads to increased confidence and self esteem.
Doing things that make us happy improve our thoughts and feelings about our life makes so much sense, but often in ‘the real world’ we find ourselves dropping those things we love as other more practical needs get in the way.
So don’t stop doing something you love because it won’t make you enough money. You don’t need to be following your passion into a career, as this isn’t always practical, but continue to follow it. For example, if you enjoy writing songs, then write a night or at the weekends. What is it that you love to do?
2. Take a walk.
I am always amazed at how the simple act of talking a walk makes me feel better. Feeling better about things in general has a nice flow on affect. That is, when you feel in a generally good mood things seem easier and you are more likely to have a positive outcome. Simple steps in looking after your health; including eating well, daily exercise and getting enough sleep also helps with this. If you are in a position to do so, after you finish reading this try going for a short walk and see how the rest of your day goes.
3. Accept all compliments.
Don’t push them aside and just dismiss them and don’t give excuses like “oh no it was easy, it was nothing”. Just say thank you. If you are not use to it, it will be feel strange to start with. Keep saying ‘Thank you’ anyway and soon it won’t feel so strange.
4. Acknowledge your strengths and achievements.
The very fact that you are reading this and actively seeking to improve yourself is a positive. Don’t ignore this strength, you are willing and open to self improvement and development. Acknowledge this strength and then acknowledge another. Even the things that seem small to you, they are only small to you because you do them so well. Other people may strive to acquire those skills or traits, so don’t dismiss anything. Look at yourself and acknowledge all your strengths.
5. Experience a positive outcome.
Nothing boosts your self esteem and confidence like a successful and positive experience. The trick here is to take small steps, each step hopefully will prove to be a positive experience. For example; if you are after the successful experience of asking someone on a date, start by talking to them. You will be amazed at how a few comfortable and successful conversations can help boost your self esteem to the point you feel confident asking them out for coffee. Using positive out comes takes more time to than the other points in this article, but you can still find (and do) the first step today. In the example, you could say hello to that person today, maybe some small talk. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, you can progress towards your goal as fast or slow as you need.
So there you have it if you want to boost your self esteem and confidence here are 5 simple things you can do today to help.
1. Do something you love.
2. Take a walk.
3. Accept compliments.
4. Acknowledge your strengths and achievements.
5. Experience positive outcomes.
Of course there are many other ways to help increase your self esteem and confidence, the topic of future articles, but the idea here is to give you a few simple things you can do start doing today to help boost your self esteem.
January 5th, 2008 at 4:56 am
[...] 5 Things You Can Do Today To Increase Your Self-Esteem [...]
January 5th, 2008 at 5:12 am
You mean ‘take a walk’ or ‘walk your talk’ ?
January 5th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Hi Ottayan,
Thanks for picking that up for me. It was getting late when I pushed the publish button
Cheers
January 6th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Great and interesting post on confidence building. Agree with you fully. However we have our own view on confidence building too. You can find out more at http://www.confidencebuildingcourses.com
January 8th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I agree, great post! I signed up for updates too. Looking forward to the next posts on confidence building.
Cathy
January 10th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
[...] 5 Things You Can Do Today To Increase Your Self-Esteem [...]