Increasing Your Self Esteem
Many people go through life unsure about themselves, questioning their competence, value, and worth. It is truly sad to not feel secure, important, and loved. This brief article will help you understand how to raise your sense of self worth.
It is important to understand that we have this particular level of self worth - of lack thereof - because of people with whom we have interacted throughout our lives. Perhaps your parents, or extended family members said things to you that made you feel small…
“You’ll never amount to anything.”
“Why aren’t you smart like your brother?”
“How could you be so stupid?”
“You’re such a failure”
The list of messages we get from our parents and caregivers is ongoing, and can be hurtful and debilitating to our growth and development.
The answer to dealing with this lies in the way we talk to ourselves, and how we ignore or acknowledge the evidence that supports that you are not as these negative messages have informed you. It’s so easy to see the negative and distorted evidence against us, isn’t it? Those messages ring loudly in our mind about how worthless, stupid, and unloveable we allegedly are. That’s because we have rehearsed them thousands of time through our inner dialogue.
I want to encourage you to look for evidence that supports just how wonderful of a person you truly are. Evidence proves a case, just like we see on TV in the courtroom dramas. Evidence of worth and value will quickly expel and reject all those false narratives and distorted message we heard growing up.
What do you inherently know about yourself?
This is a great place to start. Think of all the really good, noble. Kind, and prolific things about you that you cannot ignore - things like…
being kind to others
the ways in which you excelled in school or college
how you have overcome certain obstacles in your life
How you present yourself to others throughout the day
How you dress or what you wear
Your commitment to the pursuit of excellence, decency, sincerity, truthfulness, and other positive traits.
What do others whom you trust say about you?
Think about those compliments you routinely ignore or brush off, as if you don’t deserve them. What if those compliments are true? What if you truly have impressive qualities? Maybe some things people say about you are right!
In the end, this is a matter of being able to distinguish between a lie and a truth. Accept the truth, reject the lies, know yourself well. You deserve to live a life free from fear, and believing the best about yourself, even when you disappoint yourself. Mistakes will happen, and do not define us.
You are worth believing the best about yourself. Be kind to yourself and do this!
