Many believe that building self-esteem and increasing self-worth is a long road. A road that potentially requires the aid of a psychotherapist to uncover things in their past that is causing their poor self-esteem and limiting their ability to view themselves in a positive light today.
While there may be some deep-rooted events that need unearthing, I believe that there are a few things that every single one of us can do that will boost our self-esteem almost instantly. And when these things are repeated over time, and done regularly, then they can have a very positive impact on your mood, energy levels, and confidence.
These 4 things can be done today, and I challenge you to do all 4 today and see what impact it has on you.
1. Be Mindful Of Other People
Your physical surroundings and the people you spend your time with have a HUGE impact on how you feel about yourself, and how you view the world as a whole.
Let me ask you; have you ever been in a really great mood, feeling positive, and then someone says something in passing that plants a seed of doubt in your mind? You may brush it off at the time but then later on in the day, you find that seed is starting to sprout some unhelpful thoughts? Or what about the opposite? Have you found yourself not feeling positive but then someone compliments you and it boosts your mood, or they give some comforting or positive words which dissolve the negative feeling?
We all have so much influence on each other; you have the ability to make someone’s day better or worse, and everyone who you come across has the ability to do the same to you. As human beings, in general, are pretty unpredictable, would you not agree that it makes sense to be extra mindful of who you are spending your time with? Controlling the thoughts in your head is so much easier to do when you are monitoring what is influencing them on the outside.
TODAY’S ACTION: However you’re feeling today, reach out to someone who will provide positive feedback to you or provide comfort to either accelertate your positive mood or help overcome your negative one. If you don’t have anyone you can turn to, then please reach out to me on email or social! 🙂
2. Limit Your Time On Social Media
Social media can be a great tool for connecting with others, exploring your ideas, or simply a source of information. On the flip side, is can also isolate you, cause you to negatively compare yourself and your life to others, and can fill your head with false information.
Social media is a marketers playground and it’s full of messages to sway your thinking in order to buy into whatever is being sold. Therefore you will lower your self-esteem and feel some sort of lack in an area of your life simply by being on it and having unsolicted messages being served to you as you scroll.
Social media is designed to be addictive (I wrote a whole chapter on this in my book!) and we’re all susceptible to falling into the many traps that these platforms have created to keep us on them for longer. While removing yourself altogether from social media is an unrealistc ask, I guarantee that less time spent on it will ONLY make you feel better and not worse.
TODAY’S ACTION: Delete all social media apps from your phone, ideally for the rest of the day, but a minimum of 2 hours if you’re a high user. Then with every urge you have to check it, replace checking social media with something else that’s kind to yourself. Some suggestions would be a positive affirmation, making a nice warm cup of tea, going for a walk, reading a page of a book.
3. Do Something Just For You
How many times do you things just for yourself WITH yourself. We often think that we are having me time when we meet friends for dinner or drinks or just generally out and about, but when there are other people around we are distracted from ourselves. Can you imagine 2 people in a relationship who constantly had to be around other people to be OK in that relationship with each other? Or constantly busying themselvs with an activity? You’d think there was something wrong with their relationship. Well, that is exactly the same as the relationship that you have with yourself. Your relationship with yourself is the longest relationship you will ever have and it needs investing in, regularly. You need to know yourself and be comfortable with yourself for you to thrive and feel secure in life.
TODAY’S ACTION: Do something for yourself and with yourself only today for at least 15 minutes. It could be taking a long relaxing soak in the tub, or it could be just sitting quietly listening to your favourite music. Spend intentional time with yourself, with no one else around, and feel your own presence. This may be uncomfortable at first but the more you do it, the easier it will become and the more comfortable it will feel.
4. Challenge Yourself To Prove Capabilities
I’m a big fan of challenges. They’re just great in every way! Now I’m not talking about big crazy ones like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or jumping out of an aeroplane. Even small challenges like the 3 action steps I’ve mentioned previously are little challenges in themselves.
Challenging yourself regularly reminds you of your capabilities and allows you to keep moving forward in life. If you’re not challenging yourself regularly then you will stay stuck, and if you stay stuck for too long then you retreat.
It’s so easy to get stuck in a rut with limited action or behaviour in our personal and work life. If we are not challenging ourselves regularly then we end up just staying in our comfort zone, nodding along to the monotonous beat of life. You might think there is nothing wrong with playing it safe and just getting by, but no living thing has been designed to stay still and not grow. When you don’t challenge yourself you are not building you self-esteem, you are stunting your growth. And if something living isn’t growing, evolving or thriving, it is dying.
TODAY’S ACTION: Set yourself a challenge, no matter how small, and give yourself until the end of the day to do it. It could be exercise based with challenging yourself to a 5k or pushing outside your comfort zone and striking up conversation with someone in the park or on the street. Or perhaps you could challenge yourself to bake a cake or draw your pet! There are no rules, get creative, it can be anything, just push yourself to do something different!
So there you have 4 things you can do right now and I guarantee it’ll boost your self-esteem and confidence levels… and imagine what would happen if you did these things every single day… Just something to think about 😉
