3 Practical Self-Esteem Boosters
February is International Boost Self-Esteem Month. Here are 3 easy to follow tips for you to celebrate accordingly.
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The path to a healthy self esteem starts with acceptance, which starts with knowing ourselves. For that, we need reflection and a dose of realism. A healthy self-esteem is loving ourselves no matter what, doing the best we can with what we have, and recognizing we can’t do any more than that. And it’s ok.
A healthy self-esteem will have a positive impact in the prosperity of our physical, psychological, and spiritual being.
Here are 3 tips to that end:
1. Actively act against negative self-talk.
The way our subconscious mind works is by taking everything literally(2). Consider also that our perception of time is flawed, in the sense that it doesn’t separate what we remember from what we’re living now(2, 3). This is apparent after an episode of bullying, trauma and repeated disappointments, which causes the effects to be etched into our mind and become pervasive agents of negative self talk.
Now that you know this, relax, because we can consciously reverse the negative flow. How? By using deliberative positive Self-Talk. My friend Melanie says three positive things every morning and three things she accomplished during the day at night. What kind of accomplishments can we count on? “I made a great dinner”, “I folded and put the laundry away”, “I enjoyed reading for 10 minutes without distraction”. This simple act of three gratitudes a day has a proven effective to increase positivity.
This technique is also supported by latest research to be beneficial in this great TedTalk on positive psychology.
For the big picture, Saron, creator of CodeNewbie, came up with a WinWall. In her interview with Laura Gaetano -who runs Rails Girls of Summer Code, in which we will participate during 2017- she explained how it works. Every month, you start writing your achievements on a post-it and paste it on the wall. During moments when you feel like you have done nothing with your life lately, you look up at that wall to counteract the negative thoughts. It also doubles as feedback, because if it’s the 27th and there are only three post-its up, one may want to reflect on my performance objectively.
2. Be mindful of your physicality and be present
According to research, “exercise can be beneficial both physically and psychologically.” So, this is a virtuous cycle for your mind, body and spirit. Any sort of physical activity you practice on a daily basis, will help you stay healthy in mind and body.
In regards to physicality, we mean body language. Amy Cuddy’s wildly popular TedTalk “Your body language shapes who you are” is a great intro to power posing, which is the idea that “adopting expansive postures causes people to feel more powerful”. The author is also a big proponent of the concept of “presence”, what does it mean? It’s being authentic, true to yourself, it’s staying the coolest version of you even in the most difficult times. Learn more about being really present (an antidote to freudian neuroses) here.
How does that relate to self-esteem? Leave it to Oprah…
3. Try Some New Apps
There’s research correlating the use of Social Media and depression. But tech can also be an ally. For example, there are tons of apps for relaxation and meditation, in fact, here are 6 of them.
There are also apps to retrain our mind processes. For example Happify is a comprehensive source of tools and programs with which you get a better control of your feelings and thoughts. How? They’re based on Positive psychology, which focuses on practices to be optimistic, resilient, and really present.
There will be a limitless number of selection of positive psychology applications, but the underlying methodology should be grounded in peer reviewed studies. If you want us to help curate a list of apps, please leave a comment for us in!
As an aside, If you have concerns over sharing personal information or how far it can travel, you can always count on us, if-me. Our app is open source, and you can always host a local version, we welcome any feature requests or contributions. For the public version, we will never share your information with third parties, and you control the audience of every single thing you share, from Moments -significant events- to Strategies -how you cope-.
In short: say nice things to yourself, be present, and don’t hesitate to get creative with the tools you’ll use for that aim, including tech.
