How To Raise Your Self Esteem

If I asked you to go and stand in front of your bathroom mirror and say “I love you” to yourself, would you do it? Could you do it even?

I know it’s not the kind of question you get asked every day, but I’m a Life Coach and I get to ask such things, so how does the thought of it make you feel?

Could you do it if you were allowed to be sarcastic or jokey? Or is it completely out of the question for you no matter how you approached it?

For a surprising amount of people the above request would make them feel uncomfortable at best and downright anxious and physically nauseous at worst.

If that applies to you then there is a good chance you’re Dracula, have a phobia of mirrors or you’re suffering from low self-esteem.

One of the subjects that came up in the comments and via e-mail after my ‘Is NLP A Scam?‘ post was the thorny and oft ignored (by me anyway) problem of low self-esteem.

So today I thought I’d share some tips for you to help improve your self-esteem or those of people you know that would benefit from a helping hand.

It Starts With Consciousness

Nobody truly knows how many thought a human being has in any one day and no doubt it will vary, but scientifically speaking it’s a shit load, with guesstimates ranging from 40,000 to 75,000 for most people.

You may be thinking you don’t have that many because you can only remember about 9 in the last 24 hours, so what happened to the other 39,991?

The weird thing with your mind is it does much of its work on automatic pilot with zero manual intervention required from you. Not only is your unconscious doing lots of great stuff to keep you alive like beating your heart, digesting food and maintaining blood pressure, but it’s also thinking…constantly.

People often doubt this until they sit down and try to still the background chatter with meditation. Then they realize that there isn’t just a chattering monkey inside their head by a whole troop of the bastards and most of them are hammered on tequila or some other similar Simian intoxicant.

The problem is that many of these thoughts are simply looping round and round ad infinitum without any conscious intervention whatsoever. Think of the time you got a song you hated stuck in your head and you’ll know what I mean.

To begin with I want you to make a mindful effort to check in with your thinking more often. What is it you’re saying to yourself? What is your tone of voice like when things aren’t going to plan?

When you’re being tough on yourself, does it make you feel and perform better?

The answer to the last questions are no and no. I don’t even know you , but I do know it makes you feel worse and you perform worse. So maybe it’s time for a different approach because this one obviously isn’t working, is it? In fact it’s creating a self-fulfilling prophesy and trust me, they’re the worst kind of prophesies.

I’ve had clients use post it notes, calendar reminders and even friends and family to remind them in the early stages to listen out for what is going on inside their head. It’s weird to do it at first, but eventually you will pick up on things quite quickly.

When you listen to yourself is it really language designed to make you feel great about life. If other people talked to you in a similar manner, would that be ok to you?

Would you talk to friends and family the same way?

My guess is no, in which case you can be equally intolerant of talking to yourself like that, because you are the most important person in the world to you PERIOD.

Change Your Language

The language you use is crucial because it’s how you represent your subjective experience on this planet. If you use restrictive and negative language you’re going to experience a restrictive and negative life. It really is that simple.

I realize using more positive and empowering language may not make an immediate impact and there will almost certainly be some internal resistance, but persevere with it and you will see the results.

When you start to catch yourself saying disempowering stuff you can now intervene in a kind and non-judgmental manner.

By that I mean, start by doing the rather counterintuitive thing of thanking any negative language that arises.

I know it may not seem like it, but the negative chatter has a positive intent and is actually there to help you. So rather than beating yourself up for beating yourself up, simply say “thank you” and then gently delete what you said and replace it with something that you know will make you feel better in the long run.

Then do that again and again and again. Notice each time you do it that the gaps between the negative self-talk get wider and wider as your unconscious shifts and the positive way of seeing things starts to take over.

You can hear me jabber on in more detail about this subject on this YouTube video clip or read about it in my post ‘Mind Your Language’

Challenge The Belief

If you’ve been reading here for any length of time you know how to change a belief, but just in case here is a brief re-cap.

Firstly, you need to isolate the belief at hand that makes you feel it is ok to talk down or aggressively to yourself. Is it that you don’t think you’re worthy, that you’re unlovable or do you see yourself as a loser?

Now personally I know those are crap beliefs to hold and are NEVER true, so let me help you see the same thing.

Do you believe in God or some other supreme being? If yes, do you think an intelligence so great as to create the majesty of the universe and all within it fucked up when making you?

Seriously, is that what you think happened? Was Big G having a bad day or just not paying attention when you were placed on this earth? Or is is possible he thinks he did a really cool job with you and would love for you to be able to see it too?

If you strongly believe in a higher being isn’t it showing an incredible lack of respect not to show the love to yourself that you have been shown?

And by the way, this isn’t an excuse to feel even worse about yourself by, this is an opportunity to make changes.

If you have no such spiritual beliefs that’s cool. Think of people that you love, respect and admire that also love, respect and admire you. You really aren’t so clever that you have fooled those people into liking you, you know?

They like you because they know you and see qualities in you that you are often blind too. Remember that you like and maybe even care for these people, so surely as in the above example, it ‘s showing a lack of respect not to trust them.

Undermining any belief requires you to look for counter examples that make it look ridiculous. You HAVE succeeded at things in your life, of that there is no doubt. Maybe not as much as you would like, but that’s pretty much everybody anyway. Most of us hold ourselves to higher standards than we do others.

Find examples of where you did succeed (and there will be literally hundreds) and start to focus on what you did right. They don’t need to be earth shattering, in fact the can be downright prosaic as long as they demonstrate you do some things well.

I feel sure you have passed an exam, been offered a job, gotten married, been given a compliment, cooked a nice meal, raised kids, mended something, helped somebody out, made somebody feel great etc. Whether you have done one or all of those things it doesn’t matter, you’re still a success. And even if it all went wrong after the event, you still succeeded at that time so kudos to you.

Start to develop a great memory for your successes and a poor one from your failures like Rich and Happy people do. When you do something wrong, see it as an opportunity to improve by learning from it and move on with no self-reprisals.

Never ever justify self abuse with “Yeh but this time it’s different, I really am an ass-clown for doing that”

Be Patient

If you have a low self-esteem you have acquired it over years, probably even decades.  Unwittingly you have been working on it and fine-tuning anything from mild dislike to full on self-loathing with the patience and craft of Michaelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel.

Therefore, it’s highly unlikely you will read this post and everything will be good in the world.

You need to commit to changing, but do so just for today. Don’t worry about next year or even next week at this stage, I simply want you to commit to being kind and supportive of yourself just for one day.

That includes not making negative comments even in jest. Self-deprecation is an admirable trait, but for now you can do without it.

Then tomorrow I want you to go through the process again and then again the following day. Each day you do this I want you to assure your unconscious that you’re just trying this out as a temporary measure. If it insists on going back to old habits at a later date, then of course you can.

Set An Example

Have you got kids? Do you want then to suffer from low self-esteem when they grow up? If the answer is yes and no, the results will still be yes and yes.

Kids model their parents with outstanding skill. I’m a 47 year old and I often find myself using phrases my dad used 40 years ago. Kids react to actions and behaviors, not words. It’s no good telling them to do one thing if you do another.

If they see or hear you beating yourself up, then they will almost certainly grow up to do the same.

Again I must stress this is not a chance to kick yourself a bit harder it is an opportunity to reverse the process and be the parent you want to be.

Hundreds of millions of people suffer from low self-esteem in all its forms and guises, but make no mistake, it can be overcome. It will require some determination, patience and most of all an open-mind.

If you honestly think you’re open-minded then you must be open-minded to the belief that you’re way way cooler than you give yourself credit for. In fact just between you and me I think you’re a super star and it’s about time you let others see that too.

I client of mines mom is soon to be 60. As you would imagine it’s  fairly big milestone in anybody’s life and a great opportunity to get loads of lovely presents. Except this lady doesn’t want lots of lovely presents. She wants people to donate the money they would have spent on her to a charitable cause.

Now that’s what I call a cool lady. If you too are inspired by such generosity, you can help out by clicking here.

If you’ve enjoyed this post, you’ll really like my book ‘Don’t Ask Stupid Questions’ and you can get the ebook version free by clicking here.