Overcome Low Self-Esteem and Boost Your Self-Worth

The word “self-esteem” starts with self. So why do so many people give their power to others and let them decide their worth? If you do this, there’s no good reason you should continue, it only leads to low self-esteem and shame. If you want to stop giving away your power, and start living the life you want, you need to disconnect from these old patterns and find your own sense of self-worth.

If you have low self-esteem it means you have a generally negative opinion of yourself. You may think that you’re not good at many things, or can’t do or have the things you want. Having low self-esteem will affect your relationships, your professional life, your general mood, and your sense of well-being. That’s why it’s so important that you work on how you see yourself, and build a more positive image of who you are.

Ask Yourself Why

This is one of the most important steps towards improving your self-esteem. You need to understand why if you’re ever going to get past it. What caused you to have low self-esteem? Did a parent, partner, teacher, or authority figure say: “You’ll never be good enough?” Are you guilty of identifying with your mistakes or shortcomings and minimizing your strengths and achievements?

You can’t replace “insecurity” with “confidence” before you find the roots of your problem. This can be a difficult step, it may put you in touch with a lot of bad memories and negative emotions. Facing your demons is always scary, but it’s an essential part of the growth process and you can’t skip it.

An idea that might help with this is to keep a stream-of-conscious journal. Every morning, write down your thoughts — no matter how positive or negative they are. If you want to speed up the process you can even hire a counselor. Please don’t be ashamed of asking for help. Almost everyone in the world could benefit from some therapy.

Build up Your Wins

Some people live by the mantra: “Fake it until you make it.” That’s okay when you’re so full of doubt that you have no other option. However, I feel there’s a better solution. And it’s an obvious one.

Confidence doesn’t come from nowhere and nothing. Instead it’s the result of wins and achievements. Do you remember the time when you were anxious about a new work responsibility? And then you blew it out of the water? The result of this was no doubt a boost in confidence that led to further wins, or encouraged you to pursue a new challenge. This is the only real way to build confidence. You need to take this real life data and apply it consciously.

Start with a realistic, achievable goal. If you want to become a public speaker you could set a goal such as “Record a practice run of my speech and share it with a friend for honest feedback by…” And after you achieve that goal, follow it up with a harder one. Repeat this process until you’re ready for a real speech.

Use Your Strengths

There’s no good reason to worry about most of your weaknesses. Everyone has different talents and abilities, and they’re all valuable. Some people are naturally great speakers. Others are more eloquent in written form. Whatever your strengths are, you should find a way to use them to improve your life and your business.

Playing to your strengths is usually more efficient than addressing your weaknesses. I’m not saying you should ignore your flaws, but why not use a strength to make the weakness a moot point?

For example, socially anxious people might choose to communicate primarily through email. That’s an easy step to take because everyone has a smartphone. And if that shy person is a strong writer, this is an especially effective strategy. It will help them come across as confident no matter how much they hate talking to people in person.

Change Your Self-Talk

Affirmations are a counter-attack you can deploy against negative, self-sabotaging thoughts. The goal with this technique is to replace old, negative thought patterns with positive, affirming ones. This is important because people who suffer from low self-esteem usually have a constantly running tape in their head of everything that’s wrong with them. No matter what they do, their thoughts tell them they’ll fail, humiliate themselves, or mess everything up. This is an incredibly tiring and depressing way to live, and it needs to be the first thing to change if you want to increase your self-worth.

And this isn’t some “law of attraction” mumbo jumbo. No matter what anyone says, your thoughts can’t create things unless you take action to make them come true. Still, the process of change does begin with your beliefs. Get those right and your actions will follow.

Choose one affirmation that reflects what you want to believe about yourself. It should be in direct conflict with what you currently believe. For instance, if you believe that you’re terrible at your work, make an affirmation that highlights your wins, compliments, or all the hard work and progress you’ve made in your professional life. Make it realistic, not so ridiculous that nobody would take it seriously. And then repeat it whenever you feel nervous or uncertain.

The Number One Thing You Can Take Away From This

You can’t read about how to overcome low self-esteem and expect improvements without putting in the work. It took time for you to develop your low self-worth, so it will take time and effort to change it as well. Make a list of three ways you can apply these tips to your life. Schedule them into your daily routine for the next month. And then share with us any results or changes you notice.