By Usman Salame
Ways to Boost Your Self Esteem. Self-esteem is the judgment or the opinion we have of ourselves, in other words, the way we see ourselves, not just the way will personal sees ourselves but also treat ourselves, accept oneself
Self-esteem affects the way we carry ourselves and judges ourselves before anyone else does. Our brain tends to function according to what we feed it with.
How we see and accept our self, also affects our decisions; as we tend to make decisions based on the perceptions we have of ourselves.
At the mention of self-esteem, people tend to think that it is only associated with having a poor judgment of oneself; it goes both ways
It could be the direct opposite, but in this article the ‘Ways to Boost Your Self Esteem’ however, we’ll focus on low self-esteem and how to boost it.
Below we’ll first discuss the various causes of low self-esteem, starting with ”Bullying”
1: Bullying:
During your childhood, chances are that one time or the other, you have been bullied, but the way you react to this unfair act is quite important as it has a way of getting into your way if not properly handled.
But since you were a child, you would most likely handle it poorly, hence you tend to feel inadequate in certain situations.
As a child, especially when you have parents who do not pay attention to everything that concerns or happens to you, you tend to keep these things to yourself and it thus, goes a long way in hurting you over and over and, you end up feeling terrible about yourself
And that process, then your brain begins to accept that they are right, and then a poor judgment ensues, and sometimes, it follows you into adulthood.
2: Stigma:
If you have a dark past which you would rather not talk about, it could be a chief reason to keep you in a sober mood all the time.
You wish you could erase this past but it’s not, so you live the rest of your life in regret and sadness and your subconscious begin to send a message to you that is a worthless person, sooner or later you would begin to act like one if you do not handle it properly.
These stigmas could be rape, false accusations, past embarrassment, and so on.
Some people resort to consuming drugs or other substances which gives them temporary relief but they would still have to come back and deal with their stigma when they become sober once more because the thing about stigma is it’s always there to torment you if you have not devised a way to subdue it.
Some people commit suicide because they feel that if they ceased to exist, the pain goes away. Well, while this may be technically true, it doesn’t change the fact that they have just created a bigger problem and they did not really solve any problem.
3: Being Unemployed:
This reason is quite self-explanatory as staying out of job has a negative effect on our mental health, especially over a long period of time.
Depression tends to set in which makes you feel that you are a failure because society has placed more value on people who have a job that requires them to leave their homes in the morning and return later, and you do not belong to this category, it is only a matter of time before you start to feel out of place.
This is what low self-esteem does to you; it doesn’t give you a chance to think of the way you can stand out, it makes you believe that you probably will never even stand out so what is the essence of trying?
4: Worry About How You Look:
You have a way of hiding away from the crowd if you are not confident about your look and appearance. Some persons feel that they are ugly, or so people made them believe
So they live the rest of their lives wallowing in low self-esteem.
Now, the problem here is not that they are ugly—as a matter of fact, nobody is ugly—the problem is that they have come to condition their minds to accept these assertions from people who equally have some parts of their lives to fix.
Because of being overly conscious of how you appear in public, you tend to become socially anxious and end up locking yourself up in a room where no one passes a judgment on you. This is not a good way of dealing with low self-esteem.
5: Money Problems:
We live in a world where we feel good about ourselves when we fulfill or live up to the expectations or satisfaction of people, not paying attention to what we really want.
Some people’s self-esteem tends to be boosted only when they have money to spend, this is a risky behavior as you become a dejected person as soon as you become insolvent.
Ordinarily, if you lived your life on your own terms, and not exactly to impress or make people have an impeccable impression of you, whether you have money or not, you tend to be at peace and your self-esteem is intact
But the reverse becomes the case when you begin to care about how people see you when you don’t meet up their expectations financially
6: Inability To Fit In:
Some people become sad when they can’t be where their peers are, or can’t do things other people would easily do. For instance
A young man who can’t have a conversation with a lady whereas his friends would do that even in their sleep would definitely feel out of place for not being able to do the same.
This could be made worse if his friends make jest of him all the time. Sooner than later, his brain would be conditioned to think that something is wrong with him because he can’t hold a conversation with a lady, and then, there you have it; low self-esteem will step in
Low self-esteem could be boosted by various creative ways we’re going to be discussing below:
>> Focus on Your Strength:
Discover your strength and focus on it, for everyone has a bright side where they perform really well, all you have to do is search within you, and there, you’d find it.
Rather than live a sorry and dejected life wishing you could be others or do things like them, you should rather focus on what you can do better, but if you spend your life looking at others, you might never have the time to focus and work on your strength.
The beautiful feeling that comes with knowing that you can do something easily gives you a breath of fresh air.
>>> Don’t Be Hard On Yourself:
Sometimes it could just be you overthinking the whole thing; you should cut yourself some slack. No one is ever perfect, you can’t be everything and it’s okay.
You could take vacations or go out and give yourself a good treat. There’s a wonderful feeling that comes with accepting yourself, that way you tend to perform better because the judgment is less and you don’t feel the usual pressure of wanting to fit in, hence you tend to perform better.
>>> Believe in Yourself:
You need to start believing that you are the best of your kind, believe that you’re the best man for the job even if you are not; before you know it, with this mindset, you’ll start to actually be the best man among your peers.
>>> Try New Things:
Become someone who doesn’t mind trying new things, learn new things, it expands your brain and stimulates it. You feel good when you try new things and you feel better when you get it right which will be a huge self-esteem booster
>>> Love Yourself:
Accepting that you can’t possess all the qualities you wish will in a way, make you love yourself for the qualities you possess. The world cannot be against you and you be against yourself too.
Self-acceptance and self-love make you care less about what people think of you and that makes you feel better.
In whatever you do, put yourself first and look out for yourself first.
You matter too and if you don’t start loving yourself first, surprisingly, no one would, I mean no one in the world will love you just the way you love and care for yourself. So love and place yourself first above every other thing
If you put the above ‘Ways to Boost Your Self Esteem’ into practice, is only a matter of time before you become a person of value whom everyone will love to associate with
Hope you enjoyed reading the Ways to Boost Your Self Esteem, now make your own contribution by dropping a comment using the comment box.
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Usman
I'm a prolific content and creative writer with over 10 years experience. My books and articles have been published in many self publishing platforms including Okadabooks and Draft2digital. I'm impeccable too, when it comes to proofreading and editing contents. In conclusion, I have a natural flare for words!
