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"I am the greatest!" - Muhammed Ali, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1970...2001, 2002, 2003...
Though there are no real “symptoms” of having low self-esteem, it is important to realize what having low self-esteem can potentially mean. If you find that your self-esteem is low every day and nothing seems to make you feel good about yourself, you may want to talk to someone about it. It could be that you are developing a mild depression, which is a disease that can and should be treated.
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How do I increase my Self-Esteem?
If you’re feeling low one day, here are some tips to pick up your mood:
Don’t let failure get in the way. Say you gave billiards a shot for the first time and couldn’t get one ball in a pocket. Instead of thinking to yourself, “How could I be so awful?? Everybody’s better than me, so I should just quit right now, climb into a hole, and never show my face again,” think to yourself, “It’s OK. So I didn’t do so well on my first try, better luck next time.” If you can’t even convince yourself that you are good at something, how are you going to convince others? Hardly anybody’s perfect on their first try – remember how long it took to learn how to ride a bike or tie a shoe? Instead of seeing a temporary failure as a dead end, see it as a detour. You can still get where you want to go, you just have to find another route.
Think about what you’re good at. All of us are human. There are areas where some of us excel while others don’t. If you find that you are faced with something you don’t think you can do, don’t linger on it. There may be one task that you can never quite master, but there are thousands of things that you can do with flying colors. Getting hung up on the one little thing that you’re not perfect at is silly.
Don’t always try to please others. We all want to fit in. That’s a given. But sometimes we feel worse about ourselves if we try too hard to make others happy. If one of your friends is trying to get you to do something that makes you uncomfortable, then DO NOT DO IT. The satisfaction you get from sticking up for your own values will last much longer than the temporary satisfaction you may get from following somebody else’s orders.
Do something that makes you feel good. You’ve had a hard day and nothing seems to be going right. Instead of crawling into bed and eating ice cream directly from the carton, do something that will make you feel good and remind you how awesome of a person you are. Go for a run, or hang out with friends, or do some yard work for a neighbor – whatever makes you feel better about yourself.
Know yourself. Don’t let somebody else tell you who you are. It sounds cheesy, but it’s true. You aren’t defined by your weight, age, or your social class, so don’t let anybody else define you like that. Be who you are and who you want to be, not who somebody else thinks you should be.
Here are some more confidence-building tips
(from www.more-selfesteem.com):
Look for a model (someone who is confident) and learn from them. What is it they do that makes them confident, how do they act?
Focus on your achievements and even if you failed try to work out what you did right and how you could succeed next time.
Act as if you were confident!
Prepare thoroughly for any task so that you can be sure you are ready
Work on any skills you need to do what you want, you can never be over-trained or over-skilled for any challenge in life.
Learn relaxation skills.
Always smile.
Set reachable goals for yourself.
Reward yourself when you succeed.
Ignore Negative Outside Influences
Everybody suffers from low self-esteem now and then. Generally, teenagers have the worst perception of themselves – that is, teenagers tend to find lots of little faults with who they are. From the ages of about 12 to about 20, people are trying to figure out who they are and come to terms with their own identity. This can be a difficult task if somebody is always telling you who to be. Don’t let your life be dictated by anyone else, and become the person that you want to be.
Oftentimes, teenage girls think that they are too fat, or too short, or wear the wrong thing. Image-obsessed media culture has led girls to believe that they will only find success if they look a certain way. THIS IS NOT TRUE. You should never let an airbrushed picture in a magazine convince you of what kind of a person you are – no matter if you are male or female, tall or short, fat or skinny.
Professional Advice:
Here are some additional tips to raising self-esteem:
make a list of the good qualities that you have
ask friends what qualities they like in you
write your negative feelings on a piece of paper and then throw that paper away
remember good things that have happened recently
be satisfied with who you are! You are an original – there’s nobody in the world like you, so be the best “you” you can be.
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