MENTPSYCH Meet Your Self
To boost your self-esteem, it’s essential to like and accept yourself. We’ll share some methods to help you achieve this.
Developing a strong sense of self-worth is crucial for a happy and fulfilling life. It allows you to like yourself, tackle difficulties with strength, and have satisfying connections with others. It’s a journey that’s worth embarking on to enhance your overall well-being.
Healthy self-esteem involves building a stable and harmonious sense of personal value and self-acceptance. This process starts in childhood as we form our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behavioral patterns. Let’s explore this topic further in the upcoming article.
What’s considered healthy self-esteem?
Maintaining healthy self-esteem doesn’t mean you’re always ecstatic and free from doubts or insecurities. It’s natural to have emotional ups and downs. What sets healthy self-esteem apart is a positive and realistic view of oneself. This includes confidence in your abilities to tackle challenges.
Furthermore, embracing your strengths and weaknesses plays a significant role in fostering good self-esteem. It involves self-respect, setting healthy boundaries, and maintaining a sense of dignity. Prioritizing your physical, mental, and emotional well-being contributes to healthy self-esteem. This is reflected in your ability to handle setbacks and criticism constructively.
Additionally, healthy self-esteem boosts your capacity to persevere, bounce back, and adapt when facing adversity. As a Frontiers in Psychology article emphasizes, resilient individuals are less likely to suffer from low self-esteem. It’s crucial to be kind and compassionate toward yourself.
How to build a healthy self-esteem
Developing a strong self-esteem is a journey that requires time and dedication, but it’s absolutely attainable. We’ll provide you with some useful tips to get you started.
Recognize your achievements
A vital suggestion for building a healthy self-esteem is to become skilled at identifying and appreciating your achievements, no matter how minor they might seem. Take pride in your abilities and talents.
Practice self-care
Allocate time to look after yourself. This means eating well, staying active, getting sufficient rest, and practicing good personal hygiene. Caring for both your body and mind is crucial for enhancing self-esteem, as highlighted in a study from the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology.
Be aware of your thoughts
Be mindful of your thoughts and substitute negative ones with more positive and realistic ones. Steer clear of excessive self-criticism and concentrate on your qualities and strengths.
Set achievable goals
Establishing realistic and attainable goals can lead to a sense of security and contentment. One effective strategy to reach these goals and relish the journey is to break them down into smaller, manageable steps, allowing you to celebrate each bit of progress.
Surround yourself with positive people
Select companies that uplift and make you feel valued. Steer clear of individuals who consistently criticize or bring you down. Instead, surround yourself with those who inspire and contribute to your personal growth.
Learn to accept yourself as you are
No one is flawless, and we all have areas where we can improve. Recognize your strengths and weaknesses, work on self-acceptance, and nurture self-compassion.
Seek help if you need it
If you’re grappling with emotional challenges or if your self-esteem is impacting your overall well-being, it’s wise to contemplate seeking professional assistance. Psychological therapy can provide you with the tools to enhance your self-esteem.
Is there an unhealthy type of self-esteem?
According to research published by The American Psychologist, having high self-esteem brings about positive advantages in social relationships, success, as well as physical and mental health. However, there are forms of unhealthy self-esteem that can negatively impact a person’s well-being and overall quality of life. These include:
- Low self-esteem: This occurs when an individual holds a negative and diminished view of themselves, feeling inadequate, unworthy, or of little value. It results in feelings of inferiority, insecurity, and challenges in accepting and appreciating oneself.
- Inflated self-esteem: This is when someone has an excessively positive perception of themselves. They come across as arrogant or narcissistic, constantly seeking praise and admiration from others. This type of self-esteem can be fragile and reliant on external validation, making it difficult to handle criticism or failure.
- Comparative self-esteem: This type of self-esteem revolves around perpetually measuring yourself against others and determining your self-worth based on these comparisons. It often results in feelings of inferiority or superiority, leading to envy, resentment, or a continual quest for external validation.
- Conditioned self-esteem: This form of self-esteem is contingent on achievements, such as professional success, physical appearance, or approval from others. Individuals with conditioned self-esteem only feel good about themselves when they meet specific standards, which can breed a persistent sense of dissatisfaction and challenges in maintaining a stable and robust self-esteem.
The difference between building a healthy self-esteem and increasing your self-esteem
The approach and process you follow can make a significant difference in either constructing a healthy self-esteem or boosting your existing self-esteem. When building self-esteem, you’re essentially starting from the ground up or from a low point.
This process delves deeper, addressing limiting beliefs, fostering self-acceptance and self-value, and cultivating a positive self-attitude. Building a healthy self-esteem necessitates internal work and adjustments in how you perceive and value yourself.
On the other hand, increasing self-esteem involves elevating or fortifying your current self-esteem, which might have been impacted by external or internal factors. The goal here is to enhance and reinforce your confidence and self-esteem.
Increasing self-esteem entails concentrating on acknowledging accomplishments, promoting resilience, striving for personal development, and strengthening your own abilities and talents.
Both building and increasing self-esteem are relevant processes and can complement one another, depending on individual needs and circumstances.
How do I know if I’m building a healthy self-esteem?
Building a healthy self-esteem is a personal journey, but there are observable signs of positive change. Some ways to gauge your progress include:
- Greater Satisfaction and Well-being: You experience inner peace and a heightened sense of contentment with yourself.
- General Feeling of Worth: You begin to recognize your inherent value and worthiness, without relying heavily on external validation.
- Confidence in Yourself: You develop more trust in your skills and abilities, gaining confidence to tackle challenges and believing in your capacity to overcome obstacles.
- Acceptance of Imperfections: You become more compassionate toward yourself, acknowledging that we’re all human beings continually evolving and learning.
- Reduced Self-Criticism: Negative self-talk diminishes as you treat yourself with kindness and compassion, recognizing your achievements and efforts instead of fixating solely on your failures.
- Resilience: You learn to handle failure and mistakes constructively, remaining less easily discouraged and viewing yourself as someone capable of learning and growing through challenges.
- Healthy Boundaries: You establish and maintain healthy boundaries in your relationships and self-treatment. You are attuned to your needs, ensuring they are met without neglecting yourself or permitting disrespectful treatment from others.
When is it advisable to seek professional support to address self-esteem issues?
When low self-esteem significantly impacts your quality of life and emotional well-being, it’s advisable to seek professional help. You may sense this if feelings of self-hatred and worthlessness are prevalent, if you struggle to set boundaries, and if negative, self-critical thought patterns persist.
Other indications that it’s time to seek assistance from a specialist include difficulties in self-acceptance and self-worth, problematic interpersonal relationships, and anxiety or depression stemming from these issues.
A psychologist can assist in exploring and addressing the underlying self-esteem concerns, offering strategies for developing a healthy self-esteem and aiding with emotional management. If previous attempts to enhance your self-esteem independently prove ineffective or if the emotional challenges become overwhelming, don’t hesitate to reach out to a specialist.
Thank you for reading. Hopefully this article will be helpful. Share it with others.
Source: exploringyourmind.com
