10 Practical Ways to Improve Your Low Self-Esteem
Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and thought to yourself that you ain’t good enough? Was there ever a time, in which you doubted yourself and your abilities?
Is there a time whereby, you kept fighting within your inner self about not having a high self-esteem or having a high opinion of yourself?
In which you feel so lost on the inside and all. And all you want to do almost all the time when you need to prove yourself is to cower into your shell and never to be disturbed again?
If you feel this way, you are not alone. A whole lot of folks have one time or another in their lives, battled with the spirit of feeling inadequate and not loving themselves much.
There’s this feeling of having low self-esteem about who they are and what they should be. In life, most of the time, you cannot accurately control how things happen or how they eventually turn out to be.
But you can accurately decide right here and now, how you would react to those certain things you cannot control.
There are a lot of factors that can cause low self-esteem. These factors range, from lack of good parental/guardian care, negative thought pattern, failed relationships, wrong choices/decisions, and a whole; a lot more.
Whatever factor/s that might have influenced yours, and irrespective of what may have happened in times past.
To make you have a low opinion of yourself and doubt your abilities. There’s always a chance to make a change and gradually convert and improve that low self-esteem to high self-esteem.
One of the ways, this can be achieved is by telling yourself and making up your mind that you are important, that you can be who and whatever you want to be; in the good light though.
And not otherwise. You and you alone have the final decision to change yourself by keenly following the simple yet practical ways to improve your low self-esteem.
Read Also: 14 essential ways of loving yourself more
10 Practical Ways to Improve Your Low Self-Esteem
These practical steps are as follows;
1. Avoid Comparing Yourself to Others
The worst thing you can ever do to yourself is to compare yourself to the next person close to you.
In this present age and time, where there is a whole lot of competition ranging from who wore the best clothing. To who has the most expensive car or house in the hood. To someone who has the most social media followers and what have you.
And you, are just in a corner, struggling to make it. Striving to be heard, and the worst part of it is that, no one is noticing or even looking at you.
And this makes you feel terrible. Thinking you ain’t good enough. Then the feeling of low self-esteem creeps in, making you feel insecure, and doubting yourself.
I completely understand how you feel. I have been there a whole lot of times. In which I completely feel exhausted.
And I have nowhere to turn and am completely lost on what next to do. But hey, you know what? I told myself one time, being different. Yeah, they are they, and I am me. We are all gifted differently.
Hence, why do I need to compare myself to anyone in whom, I am not so sure of what their journey is? And what they’ve been through to get to where they are and all?
Therefore, if you are feeling and having a low opinion of yourself, one of the ways to stop feeling low of yourself.
And improve your self-esteem, is to stop comparing yourself to those whom you think are better than you.
You need to do your thing at your own smooth, sometimes rough pace and hope for the very best each day.
2. Don’t Beat Yourself up When Things Do Not Go as You Planned
In life, things do not oftentimes go as planned. And this would make you, lose hope, and doubt yourself.
Which in turn, would lead to a low opinion of yourself, and what you strongly believe in. But what I have come to realize when things don’t go as planned is, what if nature is preventing and protecting you from some certain kind of things?
What if that wasn’t the right thing for you to do or the right path in which you needed to follow? And somehow, your plans were thwarted or halted so that you don’t end up being more hurt than you are supposed to be.?
In addition, when things don’t go as you had planned, endeavor not to beat yourself up about it. Endeavor to go back and re-strategize by figuring out what you didn’t do right the first time.
And come out better and stronger more than you did earlier. This way, you won’t allow the failed situation to control you, but you would make the best out of it.
3. Another Way to Improve Your Self-Esteem Is by Saying Positive Words of Affirmation to Yourself
Words are powerful. They are one of the ways, in which you can change whatever you don’t like to what you like and want. Words of Affirmations are positive words that give and bring life.
When you have low self-esteem, one of the ways to improve your self-esteem is to speak great words of affirmation to yourself.
If you feel weak, you can tell yourself you are strong. When you feel inadequate, you can tell yourself that you are adequate.
When you feel less worthy, you can tell yourself you are important and worthy of love, and loads of care from those around you.
Hence, always remember that you owe yourself to improve your self-esteem by saying positive words of Affirmations to yourself as often as you can first. Before, anyone else can see what you are and applaud you for it.
Read Also: Things to let go, if you want to have a successful life
4. Always Surround Yourself With People Who Truly Love and Care About You
Like earlier mentioned, you need to believe in yourself before others can believe in you. Well, when you always surround yourself with sets of people who love and truly care about you.
Their aura will motivate you and make you see a version of you in which you are not seeing or you are not aware of.
Positive people, help bring out the very best in you. They would tell you reasons why you cannot give up and why you need to stop having a low opinion of yourself.
When you tend to surround yourself with positive people, they will encourage you when you’re down. And also assist you by giving you ideas on things to do to be better.
Therefore, if you are feeling low in yourself, and you need to improve your self-esteem. Then you need to avoid toxic people as you would a plague, get rid of them now!
And if you can’t completely do that, be bold and set boundaries. And only allow, and embrace the positive people who believe in you and what you stand for.
5. Forgive Those Who May Have Wronged You Badly
Most of the time, life ain’t fair. Perhaps in times past, people whom you had so much believed may have let you down.
They may have disappointed you, and made you feel less worthy; hence making you have a low opinion of yourself. You can’t accurately decide who will hurt you and who will not hurt you. In life, you can’t completely decide on how your parents would accept, and treat you.
Neither can you predict how your partner would sincerely or fakely accept and love you?
And perhaps, for whatever reason is best known to them, they might have treated you in ways in which you retrenched into having a very low opinion and self-esteem of yourself.
I need you to have it in mind that, their poor treatment of you was based on how bad and toxic of an individual they were. And you had no fault in that or need to be blamed for it.
But for you to free yourself from the circle of mistreatments and negative thinking they had made you go through as a young lad. You would need to completely forgive them. That way, your self-esteem will gradually be improved as time goes on.
Read Also: 8 Practical ways, on how to step out of your Comfort zone
6. You Can Also Improve Your Self-Esteem When You Forgive Yourself
Have you ever made a wrong choice or decision that turned sour in either the short or long run?
And you can’t help but beat yourself about it by always allowing negative thoughts and feelings of what IF?
In which you start thinking if you had done it this way or what if you had done this and done that?
Maybe, just maybe, you won’t be regretting your actions now? In which, every now and then, all you do is just hate yourself for doing what you did.
And in turn, you feel stupid, and lost in the whole process. Well, remember what has been done, has been done. And you cannot go to the past, and undo the wrong that may have been done.
But you can actually change the present by forgiving yourself and doing the best you can to improve your self-esteem and become the best version of yourself.
7. You Can Also Improve Your Self-Esteem When You Don’t Force Yourself to Fit in Where You Do Not Belong
Due to the pressure from family, your peers, and what have you, you might oftentimes relegate yourself, into thinking and feeling you need to be, a certain type and kind of person so that you can be accepted wholly.
You tend to oftentimes, force yourself into a space you don’t belong. Because you want some certain type of people who don’t really value you to love and accept you.
This has to stop! And it has to stop now! You are only smearing your self-esteem and making yourself feel less worthy.
By making a certain set of people who don’t really value you makes you conform to their rules and a particular pattern in which they need you to follow through. This is so wrong, and you’re only hurting yourself by doing this.
Hence, you need to stop doing this to yourself today. Be yourself, and the right sets of people will definitely love and accept you for being real, and not being otherwise.
8. A Great Way You Can Improve Your Self-Esteem Is by Working on Your Strengths
Most of the time, you tend to have a very low opinion of yourself, and you think and feel that you can never be good at anything.
You tend to tell yourself you are clumsy, and not good enough. And a whole lot more. But have you ever sat down, to ask yourself, what are your strengths?
Let me break it down a bit. OK, so where were we? Yeah, I remember, have you ever asked yourself, what are the things you are at least very good at?
In which you can do it anywhere and at any time, with little or not much supervision? Well, if you haven’t.
Then, it’s one of the reasons why you oftentimes compare yourself to others thinking they are so fantastic and you have absolutely nothing to give back or to be applauded for.
If you happen to be in this circle, then it’s time to stop thinking the way you are thinking. Take a sheet of paper, write out those things you can do effortlessly well.
These things might be singing, drawing, writing, baking, cooking, whatever it might be.
And gradually build and work on them (strengths). And in no time, you‘d see that you will feel better about yourself, hence improving your self-esteem.
Read Also: 17 practical ways to improve yourself
9. Another Way to Improve on Your Self-Esteem Is When You Also Work on Your Weaknesses
One cannot talk about strengths without talking about weaknesses, yeah? Having some sort of weakness is what almost everyone battles with every now and then.
To completely improve your low self-esteem, you need to also identify your weaknesses and work on them.
It’s very important you work on your weaknesses so that they would not stand in the way of preventing you from being the best version of yourself when you eventually identify what your strengths are as mentioned earlier.
In addition, your weaknesses might be procrastination, laziness, lack of zeal/motivation, poor time management, lack of discipline, etc.
If you tend to have all these, or any other which are not identified here, you need to work on them.
So that they don’t hinder you, from being the best version of you when, you eventually identify your strengths and you want to work and build on it/them.
Therefore, to improve on your low self-esteem, you need to tackle the weaknesses you might have.
Starting from the major ones, and improving on them. And in turn, with determination, and you’re being focused, you can curb and overcome feeling low of yourself. And in turn, improve your low self-esteem
10. Be Grateful for What You Have Now
You might be wondering what does being grateful has to do with your having low self-esteem of yourself?
Well, you need to be at least grateful that you are bold enough and open-minded to want a change.
That at least, you want a new and better version of yourself, that’s a thing to be grateful for.
Because a lot of times, most people go through life, without knowing they have a problem and the need for a positive change.
So if you are able to feel that you need a change by improving on your low self-esteem and becoming a better you. Then, it’s a great thing to be so grateful for yeah?
Read Also: 5 habits to imbibe on, to be a more disciplined person
Final Thought
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