20 Steps To Building Self-esteem

By Simona Rich+ in All Articles

Building self-esteem takes time, but it is an exciting process to go through.
Time will come when you look back and see to what extent you’ve changed.
Then you will happily realise that the time it took to change yourself was really worth it.
Before looking at the 20 steps, you should understand why you may have low self-esteem.
It is very likely that something happened to you in childhood that caused you to have a poor opinion about yourself.
Maybe someone said something negative about how you look. You were upset to hear that. This deep feeling left and imprint in your mind.
You started to dwell on that thought. This caused you to think about yourself in a negative way and see yourself in a completely different light.
This dropped your confidence level and consequently your whole mindset shifted. Your judgement changed. You started to see the world through different eyes.
As you went on to live with your low self-esteem, you strengthened this new mindset. The more limiting beliefs you introduced to your mind, the lower your self-esteem fell.
Finally you formed such a strong filter in your mind, that it started to prevent almost all positive things, events or circumstances reaching you.
You trained this filter to accept only negative things in your life. Things that confirmed your status quo.
Now whenever a circumstance or event does not resonate with your low self-esteem, you cannot notice it. This causes you to miss out on good things in life. You feel that you are unlucky, while everyone else is enjoying life.
You will never experience truly exciting life unless you reprogram your old filter.
The steps below will help you achieve exactly that. They will let you understand what is involved in building self-esteem.
Include all of them in your day and you will start noticing results almost immediately.

• Use positive affirmations. Although this is the most effective way of building self-confidence, it is the least used one.
By using positive affirmations you make your mind believe that you are a completely different person.

• Take responsibility. You have to understand that you are 100% responsible for your life. Nobody else is. You should not blame your parents, job or friends. You should realise that you have made all the decisions yourself.
Maybe your decisions were not smartest ones, but that’s okay. You will consciously change them following these steps in building self-esteem.

• Control your thinking. Most people do not control their thoughts. Their thoughts have control over them.
If you introduce a thought in your mind and hold it for long enough, it will expand.
You started with one thought about low self-esteem. You dwelled on it for a while. That negative thought kept expanding, invited thoughts alike and formed your entire mindset.
But as you now are aware of that, you can start to consciously control what you are thinking about.
Try to focus on good things instead of bad ones. Give your attention only to things that make you feel great.
The more you focus on positive things, the less space you will leave for negative thoughts that maintain your low self-esteem.

• Get rid of useless people. Wrong choice of people you socialise with can really drag you down. You should completely eliminate all negative people from your life.
Even if you are surrounded only by negative people, you should not socialise with any of them. You are much better off being alone for a little while.
You should not be around negative people until you become positive. As soon as your confidence level goes up you will attract good people to your life, and therefore negative friends or family will not have such a big impact on you.

• Be a copycat. Choose some person that seems very confident to you. It could be a celebrity, someone you see on a regular basis or even someone you know. Observe everything that person does and copy him/her.
This will give you many clues as to how confident people act. You will understand how to behave in a way that will make you succeed in building self-confidence.

• Change your actions. Instead of your usual routine, replace some (or most, if you can) of your actions with their opposites.
Lets say that as soon as you come home, you start thinking about how miserable you are. Instead of doing that, as soon as you come home, put your favourite music on. This will break the chain of your daily routine, introducing a completely different action.
When you gradually replace most of your actions with their opposites, your mindset will change to a positive one.

• Fake it. Even if you are not confident, start acting like one. This will greatly assist you in building self-esteem.
You will fool your mind into thinking that you are already confident, so your mind will try its best to keep up with this change.
The more you fake it, the quicker you will succeed in building self-esteem:)

• Look good. No matter what your reasoning might be, looking horrible negatively impacts your mood. It does not matter if you are alone at home and not intending to go out. Looking good still counts.
If you take care of your body it will take care of you. You should take time to care for your body. If you do that, your confidence level will jump to a degree you have never expected.
These small steps you take will eventually add up to the process of building self-esteem.

• Change your posture. Take a close look at how you hold yourself. Do you stand straight, with shoulders moved back? Do you hold your head up? Do you maintain eye contact? Do you respond to people with smile?
Probably not. If you did, you would not be reading this article. These are all tell-tale signs of a confident person.

• Smile.When you smile it shows that you are happy, successful and confident.
The act of smiling relaxes you and makes you see more positive aspects of life. This immensely helps in building self-esteem.

• Think outside-the-box. Instead of thinking “I am such a failure” think “How can I become more successful?”. This lets your mind stop maintaining your current lifestyle and start thinking how to improve it.
Whenever you catch yourself thinking how miserable you are, replace this statement to a “how” question. This will help you in building self-esteem.

• Set goals. Start planning your life in advance. Take a diary, select a date that suits you and write down the goal to be achieved by that date. Then divide that goal into smaller steps and enter each step into the appropriate diary page.
Once you achieve the goal you will prove to yourself that you’ve gained more confidence. You will realise that the process of building self-esteem is in progress.

• Get organised. Instead of living in chaos, organise your day. Plan your day in advance. This will re-organise your mind to think in a more efficient way. It will also leave no space for a negative self-talk.
• Live in tidiness. This is a very important step. Tidiness at home equals tidiness in mind. The more tidy you become, the more peace and happiness you will invite into your life.
• Do something unusual. At least once a week do something you have never done. Go to a confidence boosting seminar, book a holiday only for yourself, book a piano lesson… options are indeed countless.
This activity pushes you out of your comfort zone and lets you experience how it feels to be a different person.

• Change one habit. E.g., change the habit of coming home from work and watching TV till late. Instead of that, you should do something that can build your confidence instead.
You may read an inspiring book or learn some new skill that would let you brag about to your friends:)
You may even consider becoming an expert at something. This will surely help you in building self-esteem.

• Do absolutely nothing. You should find some time to break away from all the activity. Try to find a quiet spot to reflect on your inner self.
Do you notice some changes in your life? Do you feel more confident?
If the answer is yes, keep doing whatever you do. If the answer is negative, then you should ask yourself what is stopping you from building self-esteem.
You should ask this question persistently until you recognise the block in your life. Once you find it, try to come up with ways to overcome it.

• Socialise. Try to join associations, clubs and groups of like-minded people. Socialise with people that are positive and can support you or at least understand you.
This way the road to change will be a bit easier. You will feel that there is someone that can listen to you and understand you.

• Exercise. A daily workout will de-stress your body and mind and will make you feel great. You will definitely become more confident because you will feel that you are getting more fit and energetic.
• Visualise. Every morning or evening (or both!) visualise yourself being very confident. How would you behave? How would you look? How would you feel? Try to visualise every detail of a confident you.
This way you will unconsciously set a goal for yourself to become a confident person.
You should keep visualising yourself being confident and things around you will inevitably change. New opportunities and people will come into your life to support you.

Conclusion
Building self-esteem can be hard, but you can make it fun too.
Just think of all the steps I have given as exciting challenges.
You should try to follow all the advice enthusiastically and make this a game rather than a chore. This way the time will pass quicker and your confidence level will start growing immensely.
I wish you all the best in the process of building self-esteem!



Source:http://www.personal-development-coach.ne