Building Confidence and Self-Esteem
Low self-esteem is a big problem for many people but how do we build confidence and improve self-esteem?
Our self-esteem comes from an inherent belief system made up by what we are told, what we see and what we have modelled ourselves on. Some people don’t filter in the good things about themselves but the bad things, which means they have low self-esteem. This can become quite dysfunctional and it is a struggle to get over and above it.
The key is to not damage your self-esteem in the first place, so here are three top tips to increase your self-esteem:
Start to pay attention on a daily basis to anything good, however small, that happens to you and keep a diary note of it. After a few weeks you will start to pay attention to the good things about you, your own thinking and what happened to you that day. This will begin to shift your filter so that it highlights different things.
Write down some of your strengths. Ask a couple of friends who you are close to, what they think your strengths are as well. You may end up with six or so strengths, which you can build on each time that you achieve something. Achievement is difficult if you have low self-esteem because you don’t see anything as an achievement. You have to look hard and when you do something well, filter that event and work out what you did well. Over a few months you will end up with positive events to look at and positive events and statements about yourself.
How you talk about yourself is the next step. If you are asked in an interview ‘what are your strengths?’, you need to talk about yourself positively. Someone with low self-esteem will often soften the statement beginning with ’well I think I am’ or ‘other people tell me’ or ‘well I try to be’. These statements sound half hearted. Language is very important and adjusting this over time will change the way you think, which then starts to change what you say.
Increasing self-esteem is all about taking small steps to create the foundations of success and confidence!