Do you accept yourself for who you are?
Do you accept that you're unique?
Do you act the same no matter who you are talking to or situation you are in.
Is your behaviour in line with your personality?
Accepting our flaws, knowing we're not perfect and acknowledging our quirks and foibles is one of the most important parts of accepting ourselves as a whole. Sometime we call it as being our authentic selves. Does this apply to you?
But what happens if you doubt yourself or you lack confidence in who you are? We call it lack of self-esteem, often seen by being overly confident, or following the crowd and not be true to themselves,
Afraid to make mistakes, afraid of looking foolish in front of family and friends, have negative thoughts often are defensive and easily hurt by what others say and feel sorry for themselves.
The biggest thoughts they have is I'm not good enough and everything flows from this one thought.
So what does this look like?
You'll find people with low self-esteem profusely apologising for the smallest thing often believing that it's their fault. At the same time they will avoid conflict as they're not confident enough to believe in their own viewpoint.
They don't like compliments because they don't believe that they're true and spend way too much time comparing themselves, often unfavourable to others. They can't see themselves as unique and valuable and feel their value is only if they are carbon copies of someone often who they see as more popular.
They can't make a decision and if they do, often change their minds. They don't believe what they think is right or good enough and want to go with what everyone else says. They often are the people pleasers, they can't say no to their peers.
They constantly fear making a mistake, and never see this as a learning opportunity
Likewise, they can't accept criticism, actually no one can, but honest feedback is what everyone needs.
How to build Self Esteem
Firstly, if the phrase "I'm not good enough" resonates with you, then likelihood is that you suffer from low- self esteem
What to do?
Note your negative thoughts and how that phrase resonates through your life, maybe "I'm too stupid", "nobody cares about me", instead of listening to these thoughts replace them with positive thoughts "I'm a great friend" "I'm someone you can trust".
What else can you do?
Be nice to yourself, talk kindly to you. Find that compassionate voice that you use for others and let if have free reign over you. What would you say to your best friend? You wouldn't be nasty to them, so why to yourself?
Recognise what you're good at and keep telling yourself I'm really good at this, whether it's cooking, singing, knitting, being a friend.
Start doing some exercise, whether it's dancing, zumba, or walking. Do it with friends so you can laugh with them and release those feel good feelings.
Accept that you're not perfect and you can make mistakes and that's okay. If those around you are critical of your mistakes, then they're not your friends, so spend less time with them and don't heed their words. Making mistakes is part of life and it's how you learn and grow. See them as growing pains.
Find things that make you happy and then do them a lot! I might be baking, reading, chatting to friends, whatever it is, do it. When you've accomplished something, it might be that cake, that call, then celebrate with yourself for your accomplishment. Remember the voice "I'm really good at that".
I mentioned this earlier, but being kind to others will boost your mood and also people want to hang out with kind people. Surround yourself with kind people and dump those that are critical and negative.
As you start changing the way you see yourself and the way you think the big change to make is to say "No".
You don't have to say "yes" to everything. If you don't want to do it, don't fancy it, can't be bothered, then say "No". Find the right, kind way to say no, but know that it's okay to say it.
In The Space Hoppers with Liz http://bit.ly/2pwLsPh we're exploring your self esteem, being inspired to change, and funny things that happen along the way. If you're interested, then why not join us.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. If this post has made you think and you would like to make a change, then contact me and we can have a free 30-minute chat about how I can help you.
About the Author Elizabeth Pickering is a Resilience coach, who helps people find success, focus and balance in their life. I take them from feeling overworked, overwhelmed, stuck and stressed to feeling energised, empowered and falling in love with life again.Working with sole traders, business owners and entrepreneurs, I keep them on track towards their goals, giving them energy, focus, motivation and the freedom to enjoy their life.
Comentarios