How do I increase my self-esteem?

[Kura Ookami]

I've come here because I want to change my life for the better. The difficulty is that I have low self-esteem. I don't feel like i can do much of anything at all and when i try i always fail. Along with my low self-esteem i have a low level of self-discipline.so I've got plenty to improve upon. If I'm at about a 1 out of 10 in self-esteem and self-discipline where do I begin? Can I even begin to achieve what some of you have managed to accomplish?

[dulaney0330]

Good question! But one that has the potential to contain many answers!

I am sure there will be many posters about this subject so I will not write a whole lot.

Suffering from self-esteem is quite tough, huh? I have battled it myself and I can somewhat understand what you are going through. Individuals with low self-esteem feel inferior and inadquate and most are looking for some kind of validation; whether it be from relationships or careers. We want to feel accomplished, loved, accepted and special. We would like to have a good career and feel like we have some sort of purpose...we do want to make a difference in this world!

But that can get in the way if we suffer from low self-esteem. One of the successful methods that encouraged a healthy self-esteem in my own life was watching what I was saying to myself. I had to challenge my own thoughts and feelings and remember to sort through fact and fiction. I also had to empathize with myself...being my own best friend and cheerleader. Instead of putting myself down, I try to be patient and kind to myself. What is the purpose of dwelling on my faults? It only gives me pain and grief! I must make a conscious effort to avoid doing so.

My input is: challenge your thougths, empathize with yourself, and take small, baby steps toward self-love and acceptance. Empathizing with oneself only encourages forgiveness, love, acceptance and hope!

But I am sure there will be other posters to give awesome advice so I will end here!

Best of luck to you!

[BrettAshlee]

Getting your feelings of low self-esteem out of the way will go a long way in helping you achieve your goals, and it is a good place to start so you do not self-sabotage your efforts along the way. There are a lot of effective tools for clearing negative thoughts and beliefs, but EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) is a great one to start with - it's easy to learn and it's free.

How do you perceive the words "self-discipline"? If you're feeling a bit of dread, you may want to re-frame it into more positive language. Try perceiving the steps you take each day toward your goals as an adventure rather than a chore. And make sure you are working toward things that you have chosen for yourself. Everything can't be a picnic in the park, but you should to some extent enjoy the things you are working toward. If you're goals are something you loathe (meaning they are probably someone else's goals and not your own), you will have difficulty working toward them because they aren't of personal value to you.

Not having specifically defined goals can also get in the way of progress because you don't have a clear target to aim for. When your goals are clear, you can lay out specific action plans to help you get there.

Brett

[jbsmith]

In my experience, there are two fundamental issues that lead to low self-esteem that when changed, can dramatically improve one's self perception and gain momentum in a positive direction.

1. One issue is having no purpose - lacking a vision of where you want to go in your life, how you fit in with society, and what you feel you can contribute to this world

2. The second issue is, after finally gaining a good sense of this purpose, you find yourself unable to execute on this vision due to various obstacles including fear, past programming, anxiety, etc...

Both of these situations will inevitably lead to poor personal self-esteem, but do require different solutions. First question is to ask yourself which one of these you fall into?

To address #1, I've found a combination of introspection through meditation and yoga can be extremely powerful ways to see what is inside of you and gain an understanding of WHY. Once you gain a firm feeling and understanding of your WHY, you will feel an almost unstoppable energy come over you resulting in more energy, more confidence, increased creativity and an amazing ability to attract people and situations toward your purpose.

Addressing #2 (once you've got your purpose) involves tactically addressing the obstacles in your life. For fear, understanding what triggers fear in your life and putting that fear into perspective (rather than letting it irrationally control your every minute) is highly effective.

There is so much you can do to improve your self-esteem - like you, the most important step for me occurred back almost 15-years ago in understanding that self-esteem IS the key, underlying symptom to achieving much higher levels of fulfillment, happiness and achievement in our lives.

Once you've licked this problem, it's like the clouds making way for the sunshine after 5-days of continuous rain.

Jeff

[Peek]

If some one promisses you something and does not follow trough, it does not have to be a big thing. If it happens a lot of times, trust in this relationship is broken.

When you make commitments with your self and you don't keep them, the trust in your self lowers.
That is the basic of low self esteem.

So what to do, make promisses to your self you can keep. At first make easy commitments, follow trought.

Build up the trust with/in yourself.

[Gratitude Magic]

Ookami-san,

You are at 1 on a 1 to 10 scale? Great! You can only get better.

I do not mean to demean you. I do mean the first step is to embrace where you are and who you are, right now, as you are.

Self-esteem is often a misleading concept. The "esteem" part make us think we must be something worthy, do some goods, or have some goods. No. You are a wonderful being as you are right now. So I prefer to use the word "Self -Love"

The worst thing you can do now is to beat yourself up. Sit still and know that love surrounds you.

From this place, you are free to "improve" yourself in any way you like. I would start by finding what you are doing right and deepening that to find your strengths.

I hope this helps.

Blessings,

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Kura Ookami

If I'm at about a 1 out of 10 in self-esteem and self-discipline where do I begin? Can I even begin to achieve what some of you have managed to accomplish?

I used to be there so I know how it is. You're doing the first step correct - you're asking the right questions. From where you are, here is something I did that helped me get started to help me elevate my self discipline and self esteem from a 1 to much higher.

I started by making and keeping promises to myself. I bought a little notepad, and the game I played was this: I had to make one simple little promise every 24 hours to myself. Then, that promise had to be completed within 24 hours. I would write the promise down, the date and time I made the promise in my little notebook that I carried around. Then I would write down when the promise was accomplished. As soon as one promise was accomplished, I would write down the next promise, and once again, have 24 hours to accomplish it. The goal would be to finish 100 promises in a row without fail. If I failed in not doing the promise within 24 hours, I would start back on promise 1. When I would accomplish 100 promises in a row that I would celebrate with a gift.

The promise would be something simple like "I will do my laundry", or "I will buy grocery", or "I will call so-and-so", or "I will walk for 5 minutes", or "I will clean my car", etc. Simple things like that that I would normally have procrastinated forever. These may seem simple to do, but when we have very little self-discipline, these things can be quite hard, and near impossible to do in a timely manner. However, with this game, it became fun to do. On some of my days off, it'd be fun to see if I could make 5-6 promises and accomplish them! I'd get such a great feeling of being satisfied and my self-esteem started going up. I began to build my proactive muscles and it helped tremendously in getting me out of the huge hole I had gotten myself into as I started being able to take proactive steps.

Of course, it's not the one and ultimate solution to get yourself from a 1 to a 10 in self discipline and self esteem. However it's the first step for someone at your level. I know it sure helped me get started.

[robertanthony]

Physically - do things that make you feel good - excercise/sports/dancing/mountain climbing - anything that gets your heart pumping and the endorphins flowing. If discipline is an issue go for the easy options - just do lots of them.

Socially - consider social activities such as voluntary work , social groups, holidays , visiting people, training courses.

Antony Robbins book Awaken The Giant within would be a great book for you to read - it will give you a brilliant kick start.

The Health of Your Self-Esteem // Current



Amazon.co.uk: The Edge: the Power to Change Your Life Now [2cd + DVD]: Anthony Robbins: Music

[dave marshall]

Hi,

having suffered with this I can suggest that you find ways to alter your beliefs about yourself. I found NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming, great to do this.

Why not have a look on the web at some of the techniques then try them out on yourself?

dave

[maxdof]

Try Neil Strauss

[Kura Ookami]

Thanks for all the great advice.
Someone else has probably already said this, but if you don't challenge yourself you can never discover what your limits are. I've achieved a lot in this past week. I've also failed in some areas too. I've made progress and that's the important thing. I set myself a variety of goals and succeeded on many of them. They were just small things like doing the laundry or taking a short walk. I failed in my biggest goal, to write a complete short story in one week, but on the plus side I did manage to get up and write five days out of seven. Could I write a complete short story in two weeks?

[jbsmith]

That's awesome progress! Keep up the action orientation for another week and you will begin to gain that all-important momentum.

Once you get things rolling, you can then begin to prioritize your goals so that you ensure you get 1 or 2 main things done during the week. For instance, prioritize your writing over many other goals so that a few other things may be delayed, but your writing gets done.

Jeff

[maxdof]

Sounds like you make progress!

The Power of Commitment:
"The commitments we make to ourselves and to others, and our integrity to those commitments, is the essence and clearest manifestation of our proactivity. "
"The power to make and keep commitments to ourselves is the essence of developing the basic habits of effectiveness. "
Stephen Covey - The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

You seem to be on the good way of developping the first habit, Be Proactive. Get the book it is good. You will gain confidence, and more.

"Self-awareness enables us to stand apart and examine even the way we "see" ourselves -- our paradigm, the most fundamental paradigm of effectiveness. "
Stephen Covey - The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People