How to Develop Self Esteem

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Our self esteem is instilled in us during our youth. Being constantly criticized by family, friends, and society tends to slowly strip us of our feelings of self worth. Our low self esteem strips us of our self confidence to make even the smallest of decisions. Improving your self esteem increases your confidence and is a first step towards finding happiness and a better life. Read on to find out how!

Steps

Work on Improving Yourself

Dress nicely. No one is more conscious of your physical appearance than you are. When you don't look good, it changes the way you carry yourself and interact with other people. This doesn't mean you need to spend a lot on clothes. One great rule to follow is “spend twice as much, buy half as much”. Rather than buying a bunch of cheap clothes, buy half as many select, high quality items. Expensive clothes wear out less easily and stay in style longer than cheap clothes. Find things that you like and in return, you will like the way you look.
Have good hygiene. Take care of your personal appearance. In most cases, significant improvements can be made by bathing and shaving frequently, wearing clean clothes and brushing your teeth twice a day.
Practice good posture. People with slumped shoulders and lethargic movements display a lack of self confidence. They often are unenthusiastic and don't consider themselves important. By practicing good posture, you’ll automatically feel more confident. Stand up straight, keep your head up, and make eye contact. You'll make a positive impression on others and instantly feel more alert and empowered.
Work out regularly. Physical fitness has a huge effect on self confidence. If you’re out of shape, you’ll feel insecure and unattractive. By working out, you improve your physical appearance and do something constructive with your time. If you work out in the morning, it also creates positive momentum that you can build on the rest of the day.
Give back to others. Volunteer someplace in your community. If you stop thinking about yourself and concentrate on the contribution you’re making to the rest of the world, you won’t worry as much about you own flaws. This will increase your self esteem.

Make Yourself Stand Out

Compliment other people. Break the cycle of negativity by getting in the habit of praising other people. In the process, you’ll become well liked and build self confidence. By looking for the best in others, you indirectly bring out the best in yourself.
Sit in the front row. Most people prefer the back of a classroom or office because they’re afraid of being noticed. This reflects a lack of self confidence. By deciding to sit in the front row, you can get over this irrational fear and build your self confidence. You’ll also be more visible to the important people talking from the front of the room.
Speak up. Many people never speak up because they’re afraid that people will judge them or think of them negatively. The simple fact is that these are fears everyone experiences. By making an effort to speak up at least once in every group discussion, you’ll become a better public speaker, more confident in your own thoughts and recognized as a leader by your peers.
Walk faster. You don't have to power walk at all times, but people with confidence walk quickly. They have places to go and things to do. Even if you aren’t in a hurry, you can increase your self confidence by doing this because you will look and feel more important.

Remove Your Negative Self-Esteem

Start from within. Ignore any and all destructive criticism or insults, including any from your past. Your opinion of yourself is the most important opinion of all, because you know yourself better than anyone else. Many of us have been hurt by others at some time. It is crucial not to internalize that abuse and let them continue to hurt us, because that means the other person wins. If we let go of the past, ignore hurtful negativity and make ourselves happy, then we win.
Create daily affirmations. Tell yourself that you are a wonderful person who deserves to be happy. Make a list of all the things you like about yourself. If you've made mistakes that prevent you from believing that you deserve to be happy, take measures to relieve that guilt. Apologize to people you may have hurt (if possible), learn from those mistakes and forgive yourself.
Start with small steps to gain confidence. Take small steps and make small choices to gain confidence in your ability to make a decision. As you become secure in your ability to make good choices, you will gain confidence in yourself, and be more secure about your abilities in general.
- For example, if purchasing jeans makes you anxious because of the plethora of brands, colors, and styles, then just go with your instincts. Trust yourself and go with whatever feels right to you. And if you really feel you made a wrong decision in retrospect, the situation can be easily rectified by exchanging the jeans.
Don't always try to please others. It is great to be considerate of others, but think before sacrificing your own needs to please them. Bending over backwards for strangers, mere acquaintances or people you don't trust may leave you with the short end of the stick. In short, don't allow yourself to be used.
Be your own person. Don't try to copy anyone else. You will be at your best when you are being yourself because of your uniqueness. Strive to be your best and do not criticize yourself if you fall short of your expectations.
Avoid negative people. People who have a negative attitude which may rub off on you are not good for you. If you're timid, loud and aggressive people are probably not good for you, and vice versa. Whatever you do, do not compare yourself to others. Just be the best that you can be.
Face your fears and learn from your failures. We only fail when we do not make the best out of adversity. When something doesn't go the way we would like it to, there is something to be learned from that, which can be applied next time you are in a similar situation. Get up and try again.
Stop the negative thoughts. Try positive thinking on for size. The term “self-fulfilling prophecy” in relation to self-esteem basically states that whatever you believe about yourself, whether it be perfect or totally off base, becomes true. If you constantly tell yourself you are stupid or that you will never achieve success, you will in turn act as such. When negative thoughts come into your mind, speak to them. Say "Stop" or "No," and instantly replace that negative thought with a positive one. Using this method will help you to break the habit of repeatedly giving yourself negative messages. Instead, make a habit out of saying positive things about yourself and to yourself, and use the self-fulfilling prophecy to your advantage.
Don't worry about being "perfect." Aiming for perfection in life is a lost cause because the term means different things to different people. Nobody is perfect in the eyes of everyone else. Instead, seek to achieve goals.
Learn to appreciate yourself. Everyone has strengths, weaknesses, habits, and principles that define who you are and can make you distinctive. Spend more time focusing on the qualities about yourself that you like and less on the ones that you dislike. You can better accomplish this by taking up hobbies and projects that you can do which will make use of your strengths. Additionally, by starting on some projects that emphasize your good traits, it will keep you busy so you will end up spending less time thinking about your weaknesses.
Reward yourself when you succeed. Treat yourself to something nice Bask in the glow of your successes. Believe in yourself completely and others will also believe and trust in you.

Video

This video shows you how to build your self-esteem.

Tips

Don't feel like you are not good enough because you haven't been treated the way that you should be. Overcoming that is a strength in itself and something to admire.
Not all decisions may turn out to be right ones. Just keep in mind that right or wrong, you are the one who makes the decisions in your life. Because you are responsible for your choices, you have the power to change your situation. Do not let your confidence disappear because you made one wrong choice.
Your inner strength will enable you to reach your goals in life. If you fall down, pick yourself up and try again.
Smile at yourself in the mirror every day and at least TRY to smile at others.
Everyone goes through the phases of feeling low or high, i.e. low or high self esteem. This happens especially if you judge yourself by your successes or failures. If you learn to estimate yourself by the nature of actions (e.g. their benefit to the society or to yourself), then you are likely to develop high self esteem without any disrespect or bitterness about others.
The opposite feeling of self-esteem is anxiety. Feeling anxious is not a good nor a bad feeling. It's just a mechanism of yourself telling you that there's something wrong and you need to act upon it. Anxiety is the fuel to responding to what is wrong and thus developing self esteem.
Don't let magazine ads and other media outlets try to take away your self confidence for marketing purposes. Don't let people who don't know you tell you how to feel or what to strive for. Choose your own path.
Be careful not to act as though you are better than others. Even if you are, true self confidence leads you down the path of modesty and respect for others. Your self-esteem is something that fills you up and helps light your way through life. Pomp, conceit, inability to compromise and disrespect for the self-esteem of others are merely masks for inner insecurity and weakness. People who try to hide behind these aren't fooling anyone.
As your self confidence builds, you will feel better about yourself, and your self esteem will grow from the inside out.
Once you convince your subconscious the way you want to be, you will find that you will start to become far more confident and life will be the way you want it.
Tell yourself you are confident and outgoing even if you don't feel that way. Your feelings and beliefs all come from the thoughts you think so if you believe you are confident and outgoing you will be. Think as though you don't even know what it's like to have low self-esteem.
A good trick to starting to build self-confidence is to pick something about yourself that you do like (EVERYONE has as least one aspect about them that they like) and create a phrase: "I'm (aspect) and I'm awesome!" Then pick something that you want to improve: "I'm going to ________ and life will rock even more because ______!" Pick a time to repeat this mantra, like every time you brush your teeth or rub your eyes. Examples: "I'm a good artist! I'm going to be less shy and life will rock even more because more people will see my art!" "I'm clever! I am going to think things out more to solve minor problems around me. Life is in my control!"
Make sure your self talk is positive at all times. Tell yourself how great you are or how good you look today. Make being positive your natural state of being.
Look at yourself in the mirror every day. Try to find something to admire about yourself in your looks, accomplishments and achievements.
Listen to a song that suits your mood. There is a song for almost everything. When you jam to a favorite tune that you can relate to, it gives you confidence.
The most important thing of all is that you have to believe in yourself. If you believe you can, then you will be able to.
Be assertive. Boosting your self-esteem is all about getting what you need/want. Do things for your own sake. Remember, you must help yourself first before you can help others.
Visualize yourself being surrounded by people who are patting you on the back or shaking your hand, or standing and clapping for you. Visualization is a very powerful tool to use.
Always smile even if you aren't in the mood to.
Don't pay attention to people who think that they're better than you.
When you get anxious about the future, it is better not to think about it. The more you think about it the more anxious you'll get. Of course its important to think about what lies ahead, too, but if you only look at what's down the road, you'll get tangled by the "laundry" by your feet and fall, wont you?You see, its also important to think about what you can do now. What you can do today, and if you keep washing things one at a time, you'll be done before you know it. Sometimes the anxiety will start to well up, but when it does... take a little break. Read a book, watch TV,spend time with friends.
Just be yourself. Go at your own pace. You'll fit in just fine.
"No one really starts out kind. All we know how to do at first is want. We want food, we want attention...it's just natural survival instinct, I guess...but kindness is something that we all have to learn as we go. It's something that grows and develops slowly over time...the same way our bodies do.
True kindness isn't something we're born with. It's something we have to work at. Not everyone has it. But I think everyone has the potential. Sometimes you just have to look really close before you can tell it's there.
Maybe the reason you don't see it is that it's stuck to your back. What I mean is, a person's admiral qualities - they're just like, say, a pickled plum on a rice ball. In other words the person's the rice ball and the plum's stuck to their back. So, all over the world you can have rice balls made with all sorts of wonderful ingredients, all different flavors and shapes and colors, but since they'd be stuck in the middle of everyone's back, someone could have a plum and not even know it. They'd look at themselves and think "I'm so plain, nothing but white rice," even though it isn't true because, turn them around and, sure enough, there it is. There's the plum. So if someone is jealous of somebody else, well, then, it's probably because it's easier to see the plum on someone else's back than it is on your own. Yup. I can see it. I can see it very clearly,you don't know it but you have a great big plum on your back.
Don't give up!

Warnings

Consistently low self esteem could be a sign of depression. Talk with your doctor and review all available options if you think this might be the case.

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