High self-esteem is the foundation for a healthy lifestyle and happy living. When you feel good in your skin, you see the world around you in a positive light, and it helps you improve your overall quality of life. You will not only face the challenges life throws at you but also remain positive despite it all. We all know this but still, find it hard to cultivate healthy self-esteem or engage in the process of confidence-building.
Low self-esteem can emerge from a variety of factors, including your inability to live up to society’s expectations or some unfulfilled goals. Navigating through them and building healthy self-esteem could be a difficult process but in no way an impossible one.
To help you out in this journey, here are a few tips to boost your self-esteem. Follow them through, and with time you will be able to cultivate a positive image of yourself.
1. Be Kind to Yourself
Your self-esteem blows every time you treat yourself with anything but kindness. Being kind to others is seen as a virtue, but not many people talk about being kind to yourself. We are indeed our worst critics, and with each failure, we begin to label ourselves as not “good enough”, “talented enough”, and “successful enough”. But when failure knocks at our friends’ door, we are always there motivating them.
If you are half as kind to yourself in your worst moments, you can easily get out of that situation with your self-esteem intact. So, always be kind to yourself and slowly, your self-esteem will reach a place where you will stand strong against every situation that life throws at you.
2. Pick Individuality Over Perfection
Most people suffer from a lack of self-confidence primarily because they don’t fit into societal standards of perfection. Be it in terms of appearance, career, beliefs, etc. But instead of trying to live up to society’s expectations, one should focus on trying to fulfil their dreams and the goals they have set for themselves. “You do you” instead of walking on a predetermined path, and you are sure to arrive at your definition of happiness and success someday.
Your self-esteem is determined by how well you do in your life. So, rather than chasing society’s irrational standards, you pave your path and find happiness.
3. Be Active
The first step towards confidence-building is believing that you are doing your best. When you remain active throughout the day working on your personal, professional and social self, you go to sleep with a sense of satisfaction. When you lead a satisfactory existence, you will naturally develop healthy self-esteem.
So, make a checklist of activities you are supposed to do in a day and cross it all out one by one. That way, you will feel a sense of accomplishment and will stay motivated throughout.
4. Take Criticism Constructively
Does criticism take a toll on your self-esteem? It’s time to change that narrative and take criticism constructively. First, you need to differentiate constructive criticism from destructive ones. While constructive criticism can help you improve, fierce criticism can bring you down. So never pay heed to the destructive ones.
As for constructive criticism, they should be taken as valuable feedback that can help you improve your skills. So, don’t take them negatively but make them into your ladder to success.
5. Know That It’s Okay to Make Mistakes
As humans, we all make mistakes, and it’s only natural. As the poet Alexander Pope said, “to err is human”.
The key is to learn from those mistakes and never repeat them. We often end up in a downward spiral when things don’t pan out as we expected them to. In a moment, our self-confidence significantly falls. But instead, what you should do is analyse your mistakes, find where you went wrong and then rectify those mistakes. Never consider failures or mistakes as the end but regard them as the prologue to success.
6. Invest Your Time and Energy in Things You Love
You always give your hundred per cent to the things you love and therefore, more the chances are of you succeeding at it. For instance, if you are a gifted singer and try hard to become a doctor while ignoring that talent, what awaits you at the end of the road could be failure and disappointment. So, try to figure out where your passion lies and dedicate your time and energy to it.
Moreover, the sense of accomplishment that you feel when you invest your time and energy in things you love can do wonders for your self-esteem. So, rather than doing something you are told to do, engage with things you love, and slowly and steadily, you will succeed and emerge as a confident individual.
7. Celebrate Your Small Wins
We always rebuke ourselves for our failures, no matter how small they are but often forget to celebrate our small wins. An important lesson in confidence-building is celebrating your wins, no matter how small they seem. Whether baking that perfect cake, getting good marks on a test or clearing an interview, you should celebrate it if it makes you happy.
The moment you start celebrating such wins, life will become more meaningful, and you will develop confidence in your abilities.
Time to Build Your Self-esteem
If you follow all these tips regularly, you will be able to build a healthy level of self-esteem for yourself. But in case you need external help to reach there, you can join our self-esteem course at Celestial Living.
Get in touch with us today, enroll for our course and have an expert assist you in your transformational journey.
