Boosting Self-Esteem: Tips For Building A Better Relationship With Yourself
Low self-esteem means that you regularly underestimate your worth and pay unbalanced attention to your flaws. If you’ve been doing this for a long time, you might not even notice that it’s happening or how it’s affecting you.
We are often our own harshest critics. While having a healthy appreciation of our limits can be helpful, feeling consistently bad about ourselves can impact our mental health and general wellbeing.
Self-esteem refers to how much we value ourselves. Healthy self-esteem is not necessarily thinking you’re wonderful in every way—it’s having a balanced and realistic view of yourself and your abilities, being proud of your strengths and being aware (but not judgemental!) of your weaknesses.
On the other hand, low self-esteem means that you regularly underestimate your worth and pay unbalanced attention to your flaws. If you’ve been doing this for a long time, you might not even notice that it’s happening or how it’s affecting you.
Here are some signs that you might be struggling with self-esteem:
🙈 Assuming that things will turn out badly for you or blaming yourself when things go wrong
🙊 Having trouble standing up for yourself or being easily angered
🙉 Finding it difficult to accept compliments
🤔 Frequently thinking that there is something wrong with you or that you can’t do anything right
😠 Being overly critical of yourself, such as your looks, actions, work, social skills, etc.
😞 Becoming quickly upset when criticised by others and feeling rejected easily
🤷♀️ Brushing off your achievements as being based on luck, circumstance, or other people’s hard work, rather than down to your own abilities
👷♂️ Pushing yourself extra hard at work and feeling guilty when you have time off
💐 Trying hard to keep others happy and often putting the needs of others before your own
💄 Either not bothering to upkeep your appearance or not allowing others to see you unless you look perfect
What causes low self-esteem?
The way we think about ourselves is usually formed during our childhood and can be heavily influenced by the way that others treat us. For instance, children who are consistently loved and treated fairly by those around them are likely to develop a healthy view of themselves.
On the other hand, children who experience abuse, certain parenting styles (authoritarian or uninvolved parenting), bullying or social exclusion, or any other instance of unfair treatment, might end up struggling with self-esteem.
Through our life experiences, we develop beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world around us. Some of these beliefs can be deeply ingrained, and we might not even be consciously aware of them, but they can influence how we think and what we do. These are called core beliefs.
For example, someone who experienced harsh punishment as a child might form the belief that they are a bad person. Similarly, someone who experienced repeated rejection growing up might believe they are not good enough or unlovable. These sorts of beliefs naturally make us feel bad about ourselves.
Negative core beliefs about ourselves can lead to various challenges in our adult lives, often without us fully understanding why.
We often reinforce our core beliefs—without meaning to—by automatically paying attention to situations that confirm the belief, and disregarding situations that go against it. For example, someone who believes they are unlovable might fixate on all the times when a relationship or friendship didn’t work out, and not give enough credit to the ones that did.
We also tend to interpret situations in ways that confirm our core beliefs. For example, when a friend cancels dinner, saying they’re unwell, rather than believing they are genuinely sick, we think that they must be mad or not like us.
For these reasons, negative core beliefs can be difficult to change—but not impossible!
We might try to compensate for our negative core beliefs—for example, by working extra hard to prove our worth or to please others—but these strategies are often unsustainable. Learning strategies to improve self-esteem can be a more helpful way of overcoming negative core beliefs.
How to boost self-esteem
We can’t change the past, but we can change our current perspectives, reactions, and thoughts—breaking the cycle that is maintaining our negative core beliefs.
Focusing on positive qualities…
This isn’t necessarily about only focusing on the positive, but about finding a more balanced view of ourselves. You could think of it like weights on a scale—right now, all the negative thoughts we have about ourselves might be weighing down one side. By recognising our positive qualities, we can put more weight on the opposite side and balance things out.
A helpful place to start is to try and list all of the things you like about yourself or the things that you’re good at, even things that seem small or insignificant. This task can be difficult for those of us who struggle with self-esteem. Asking yourself these questions might help:
- What do you like about yourself (even if it’s something small)?
- What have you achieved?
- What challenges have you overcome?
- What things are you good at?
- What do other people like about you? (if you’re not sure, ask someone!)
- What negative qualities don’t you have?
- What makes you unique?
It can help to keep in mind that your positive qualities don’t have to apply 100% of the time to count. For instance, you might be kind to others most of the time but occasionally get snappy on a bad day—that’s ok, you’re still a kind person!
Once you’ve listed as many positive qualities as you can think of, it may become easier to start noticing these things in your daily life. You could even keep a journal to note the moments when your positive qualities stood out. You can also look back at your list whenever you’re feeling down about yourself.
Changing your standards…
We often build up certain rules or standards for ourselves that are based on our negative core beliefs—for example, “I must work harder than everyone else” or “I must put the needs of others before my own”. It might help to reflect on whether these standards are helping or hindering you.
What would happen if you changed your standards?
Changing the standards we set ourselves can be challenging and uncomfortable. There might even be some downsides to begin with. But it might not be as bad as we think, and we might end up better off in the long run.
It can also be useful to remember that when we struggle with self-esteem, our perceptions and expectations might not always be accurate. Making small changes to our behaviour can be a good way to test out these expectations.
Managing negative self-talk…
When we’re struggling with self-esteem, it’s common to think negatively about ourselves. This self-criticism then further feeds into our low self-esteem, creating a nasty cycle. Addressing negative thinking patterns by reframing our thoughts is often a helpful way to begin to improve how we feel about ourselves.
It might be hard at first, but practicing being kind to yourself can go a long way to improving your mood and self-esteem. Try and think about what you would say to a friend if you heard them saying the same negative things about themselves.
Become “unstuck”…
Sometimes it can be hard to change a negative thought and we might really buy into it. In these situations, it’s likely that we’ve become “stuck” or “fused” with the thought.
Practicing cognitive defusion can help to separate ourselves from our thoughts. This method involves recognising that a thought is not necessarily true and stepping back (mentally) to observe the thought and let it go, rather than dwelling on it. It can take a bit of practice but can be a powerful way of overcoming those persistent, nagging thoughts.
Directly addressing core beliefs…
When we’re ready to go a bit deeper, we can try challenging our core beliefs. One way to do this is to look for evidence that supports them and alongside the evidence that doesn’t. Once we go looking for it, we’re likely to find that there is more evidence against the belief than we realised.
After identifying evidence for and against, we can come up with an alternative view of ourselves that better reflects reality. For example, instead of a blanket belief that you’re unlovable, a more balanced belief might be “not everyone will love me, and that’s ok, because there are people who do”. Your new belief might not stick right away, but it will strengthen if you continue to intentionally pay attention to evidence that supports it.
Reflecting on past experiences that contributed to your core belief can also be helpful. However, recognising and addressing core beliefs can be challenging, particularly when they are linked to painful past experiences. If you want to explore this option more deeply, we strongly recommend that you seek support from a mental health professional.
Moving forward
The road to improving self-esteem can be a long one, often requiring patience and courage. It’s totally normal if you’re feeling sceptical about the possibility of changing how you feel about yourself! Sometimes it can be helpful to fake it till you make it—try thinking more positively about yourself for a while (even if you don’t believe it) and see what happens!
Improving self-esteem can have a positive impact on our lives in many ways.
Even after we’ve shifted our view of ourselves, we’re likely to occasionally encounter situations that challenge our self-esteem. In fact, just about everyone feels down about themselves from time to time.
This is where having a more balanced view of yourself can be useful, as it allows you to accept potential failings and challenges. It can also help to intentionally surround yourself with people who make you feel good, and to continue practicing whatever strategies you find most useful.
At Mind Ease, you can find activities for practicing self-compassion, gratitude, changing negative thoughts, cognitive defusion, and other techniques that can help boost self-esteem!
