Boosting your self belief: Creating a Self-Esteem Tool Box

Have you noticed how often we focus on the negative instead of the positive – specially when it comes to ourselves? Most of us continually walk around with a “must do better” message playing in our heads! Must do better financially!  Must do better with eating habits! Must do better with exercising! Must do better… Must do better… Must do better…!  

---

When you focus on the negative in yourself you get a really imbalanced idea of who you are and your own self worth and this in turn leads to self doubt, low sense of worth – and low self esteem.

Self esteem is simply how you feel about yourself. And how you feel about yourself comes from your beliefs about yourself. If you have more negative beliefs (criticisms) about yourself then your self esteem will be low. 

Remember this:  Negative thoughts lead to negative feelings about yourself and life

Negative feelings about yourself tend to lead to self - sabotaging behaviours (even if they feel like helpful behaviours!)

If you tend to think negatively a lot, your mind gets into the habit of thinking negative sorts of thoughts

However… negative thoughts are ONLY THOUGHTS

• You can CHOOSE TO CHANGE your thoughts once you have become aware of them
  
• Changing negative thoughts into positive ones will lead to improved feelings about yourself and life
  

So… by understanding that negative thoughts are JUST thoughts, and that THOUGHTS CAN BE CHANGED, you suddenly have control of your life and the ability to choose to feel better about yourself.

Belief Boosters

1. Accept who you are and where you are RIGHT NOW. Don’t wait till you have lost the weight, found the right job, got the perfect relationship. You are fabulous just the way you are! Any time you catch yourself criticising yourself – say to yourself “I am fabulous, just the way I am!”
   


2. Give up the need for approval from everyone. Be dependant on yourself, not others for feeling good about you. If you want to be noticed or praised -  go ahead and compliment yourself!
   


3. DO NOT AT ANY COST compare yourself to other people. When you start to make comparisons your start judging both yourself and the other person instead of accepting yourself (and them) wherever you or they are at.   
   


4. Remember that WHAT YOU DO is not WHO YOU ARE. We all make mistakes, or do things we are not proud of.  What you do is a result of what you believe about yourself, and as your self belief increases what you do will change!
   


5. Stop shoulding on yourself! Imagine you have an audio recorder which can record both what you say and what you think. Record your words and thoughts for a day then play it back to yourself. How many times in the day did you say or think “I should…”?  Every time we say or think “I should…” we are communicating to ourself that we ought to be better than we are. “ Should” leads to us feeling guilty and blaming ourselves.  Stop the “Shoulds” and replace them with “Coulds” and see what happens!
   


6. Stop scaring yourself!  If you always focus on what might go wrong, you create unhealthy stress and anxiety in your body and mind and become very risk averse.  Be kind to your mind and tell yourself that you are always safe, and that even if things don’t turn out the way you wanted, it doesn’t mean that things will never turn out well.
   


7. Take responsibility for your life. Yes, shit happened, but do you want to powerlessly let it keep you stuck? Once you recognise that you want to change, do whatever it takes to acknowledge your negative beliefs, retire them, and choose new ones that support the precious person that you ARE.
   


8. Give yourself a break and telling yourself “I’m always doing the best that I can”. There is nothing truer than this.  At every moment, you ARE always doing the best you can with the skills, understanding and awareness that you have. Use this anytime you notice a self- criticism creeping up on you.
   


9. Learn and practice new skills like positive self talk (mentally encouraging yourself, reminding yourself that you will be doing your best) , affirmations (positive statements you say to yourself) and visualisation (like top sportspeople do before a big game or event). 
   


10. Get to know your inner wise-self! Also known as your ‘gut feeling’ or intuition, everyone has within themself their own answers. Often its hard to tune in to the quiet voice of your wise self, because of the loud commentary that is going on in your mind. But usually it only takes a little quiet, an intention to tune in, and asking yourself the question that you want the answer to and the response will be there.
    

Based on material by Patricia J. Crane
Heart Inspired Presentations 2007