Activities and Exercises to Boost Self-Esteem
Experiences in a person's life are a major source of how self-esteem develops. In the early years of a child's life, parents have a significant influence on self-esteem and can be considered the main source of positive and negative experiences a child will have.Unconditional love from parents helps a child develop a stable sense of being cared for and respected. These feelings translate into later effects on self-esteem as the child grows older.
Students in elementary school who have high self-esteem tend to have authoritative parents who are caring, supportive adults who set clear standards for their child and allow them to voice their opinion in decision making.
1. Be a Man of Principles
Firmly believe in certain values and principles, and are ready to defend them even when finding opposition, feeling secure enough to modify them in light of experience. You should able to act according to what you think to be the best choice, trusting your own judgment, and not feeling guilty when others do not like your choice. Do not lose time worrying excessively about what happened in the past, nor about what could happen in the future.
Learn from the past and plan for the future, but live in the present intensely. Fully trust in your capacity to solve problems, not hesitating after failures and difficulties. Ask others for help when You need it. Consider yourself equal in dignity to others, rather than inferior or superior, while accepting differences in certain talents, personal prestige or financial standing. Understand how interesting and valuable person you are for others, at least for those with whom you have a friendship.
2. Be Strong
People with strong self-esteem have a positive self-image and enough strength so that anti-feats do not subdue their self-esteem. They have less fear of failure. These individuals appear humble, cheerful, and this shows a certain strength not to boast about feats and not to be afraid of defeats.
They are capable of fighting with all their might to achieve their goals because, if things go wrong, their self-esteem will not be affected. They can acknowledge their own mistakes precisely because their self-image is strong, and this acknowledgment will not impair or affect their self-image.
3. Throw Away your Bad Habits
To begin with, you will catch yourself falling back into old negative habits, but with regular effort, you can start to feel more positive and build your self-esteem as well. Instead of saying things like ‘I’m not good enough’ or ‘I’m a failure’ you can start to turn things around by saying ‘I can beat this’ and ‘I can become more confident by viewing myself in a more positive way.’
Self-esteem varies from situation to situation, from day to day and hour to hour. Some people feel relaxed and positive with friends and colleagues, but uneasy and shy with strangers. Throw your embarrassing habits away in a bin!
4. Handling your Inner Critic
A good place to start with raising your self-esteem is by learning how to handle and to replace the voice of your inner critic.We all have an inner critic.It can spur you on to get things done or to do things to gain acceptance from the people in your life.
But at the same time, it will drag your self-esteem down. So, these things should obviously be kept in mind and avoided or pursued at proper occasions. Come up with a phrase or word that you like that stops the train of the thought driven by the inner critic. Then refocus your thoughts to something more constructive. Like planning what you want to eat for dinner or your tactic for the next soccer game. In the long run, it also helps a lot to find better ways to motivate yourself than listening to your inner critic.
5. Boost Your Own Morale
Allow yourself a treat from time to time, especially if you have overcome a hurdle in personal presentation, particularly after your first formal talk or after a successful meeting. It does not have to be expensive - a cup of coffee at a pleasant place, or some other treat. Congratulate yourself on a job/task well done and perhaps tell a friend. Do not always be the one to give out praise; you need some too. Justified praise is a good boost to morale.
To make the inner critic less useful for yourself and that voice weaker and at the same time motivate yourself to take action and raise your self-esteem it certainly helps to have healthy motivation habits. A common symptom of low self-esteem is the feeling that you cannot perform well in public. Gaining confidence to function in public with ease depends largely on previous personal experiences.
