Cultivate Your Self-Esteem and Become More Confident
Simple Steps Recommended by Neuroscientists and Psychiatrists that Work for Me.
Self-esteem is like a well-tended garden.
Just as a garden flourishes when nurtured with care, self-esteem thrives when we cultivate it with positive thoughts, self-compassion, and belief in our worth.
And just as a garden may face challenges like weeds and pests, our self-esteem may encounter doubts and criticism, but with consistent care and attention, both can grow resilient and beautiful over time.
So what are the things that can help you nurture your garden with care? What kinds of things support positive self-esteem, make you feel good about yourself, and make you feel empowered?
I’ll tell you a quick story about my low self-esteem.
It was only when I hit rock bottom that I decided to save myself from my destructive thoughts.
I’ve always had low self-esteem much like I believe a lot of women do because of physiological reasons.
I cared so much about what other people thought of me, especially when I started working full-time after college.
It was a combination of perfectionism and seeking appraisal from my coworkers and managers that caused me anxiety and forced me to take a short-term medical leave. I needed to fix myself.
Rock bottom for me was seeing my mom cry over the fact that I gave my entire life to a corporate job by working long hours, taking on more tasks with no additional pay, skipping meals, and other activities that I loved the most, I was so depressed and anxious that I missed my menstruation for 3 months.
Today I am a proud mother of a 19-month-old girl, in a happy marriage, I am in tune with my body, eat healthy, and exercise twice a week, I do the things I love the most like writing and I recently started a business.
During my medical leave, I listened to a lot of positive affirmations but what did the trick for me was understanding the science behind low self-esteem.
The mindset doctor, Steve Peters explains in the Diary of a CEO podcast that the human system is naturally and healthily low self-esteem so the fear that we are not up to it is built in.
It tells us not to put ourselves in a vulnerable place to avoid getting shut down and rather keep our heads down until the “potential danger” goes away.
This mechanism is helpful whenever there’s a true danger however it turns harmful if it is activated too frequently hence why people with very poor self-esteem have depression and anxiety.
Now that we’ve established that it is normal and understand the risk of prolonged low self-esteem, these are the methods I chose to practice because they were recommended by many neuroscientists who study the mind.
1. Only keep the people who value you inside your world and everybody else outside.
To be clear, you don’t need to be loved by everybody so don’t try to please everyone especially not the people who are taking you down.
If you want to please the people you love, do it on your terms with your morals and values!
2. Stop comparing yourself to others.
Your mind is so powerful that if you seek reasons to believe that you are not enough you will find them all around you especially if you compare yourself to people who are excelling.
Social media is the easiest place to do that and probably one of the most harmful to our self-esteem.
Base your expectations of yourself on what you do and your aspirations.
3. Set yourself achievable challenges and focus on daily small victories.
If you haven’t trained to run a marathon, you probably shouldn’t participate in one because the likelihood is that you will not succeed.
I have never run one but my friends who do start training months in advance and it’s the series of daily small victories that prepare them physically and mentally for a successful marathon.
4. Believe that you are already the person you want to be.
You are a fallible human and your past mistakes don’t define you. You need them to make progress.
You are an amateur version of who you want to be, a work in progress who needs to stack up a series of small victories to get to your end goal.
5. Practice gratitude with yourself and others.
This is probably one of the most impactful in my life.
You have to focus on the things that you have rather than the things you don’t.
Once I started gratitude journaling and meditating, I felt like I got out of a hamster spinning wheel.
I wrote about how gratitude can change your life and make you happier.
6. Be aware of your thoughts and stop the negative voice.
Be aware of your gremlin and don’t allow him to feed unreal and negative thoughts to your mind.
I say the following things to myself: I am capable of doing it, I’ve done harder things before, I’ll be proud of myself after overcoming it, I am going to have a good day and won’t let anybody ruin it, etc.
7. Acknowledge that you deserve the compliments that you receive and you are worthy of success.
Stop being hard on yourself and celebrate the smallest achievements in your life.
If someone compliments you, accept it, and don’t try to return or deflect it. Go home, write it down, read it, and smile. Come back to it every time you feel like you aren’t enough.
8. Help someone who needs it.
Going out of your way to do something for someone else could make you think positively about yourself.
For me it starts at home, I’ll do simple things like cooking a great meal or baking for my husband and daughter. It makes me feel so good to see the joy on their faces after eating everything.
In a nutshell,
Low self-esteem is a natural mechanism of the human system that protects us from danger, however it should be regulated.
If you’ve been experiencing low self-esteem for a while, you don’t have to keep feeling the same way. You have the power to change and choose a different path.
You can learn to stabilize your self-esteem over the years by being more self-aware, ditching unsolicited opinions from strangers, valuing the people who love you the most, being grateful for who you are and what you have, knowing your worth, and appreciating what you contribute to society.
If you got through the end of this article, I am deeply grateful to you.
You’re welcome to subscribe to my free email list if you want more.
If you enjoyed this article please leave claps, so I know what you enjoy reading the best.
