Eight things you must do if you continually struggle with low self-esteem
There’s much I’ve learned over the last twenty years, going from a deeply insecure teen to a confident man who loves life (for the most part).
A lot has changed for me.
These are some tips I’d pass on if you’re struggling.
Please don’t feel ashamed to read these, regardless of your age or where you feel you should be in your life.
We all experience what feels like low self-esteem at points in our lives.
Re-wire your top 3 most unhelpful beliefs.
What thought pattern do you continually entertain that makes you feel bad about yourself?
Often, a repeated line of thinking governs your perceived inadequacy. Maybe it’s something like, ‘I’m just not an intelligent person.’
There could be others, too.
We buy into these stories, which can hold tremendous sway in our lives, often without realising how much they do. You must identify these pernicious thoughts and call them out by name.
Why are they not true?
What evidence do you have to support the opposite belief? I.e. I AM an intelligent person.
You will find the evidence, and when you do, those beliefs will be instantly erased.
Write an achievements list (and meditate on it).
As we’ll discuss shortly, your self-esteem needn’t rely on your circumstances.
Your life doesn’t have to be a particular way to enjoy self-confidence.
But as a primer and for the purpose of lifting yourself out of self-critical thoughts that are likely swirling if you consider yourself to have low self-esteem, this is a valuable exercise.
Many of us get so hung up on what we haven’t got that we forget to note what we have achieved.
Bringing these things back into your awareness, no matter how ‘small,’ will help shift your perspective. Your wins are there.
You must find them and give yourself the gift of realising how far you’ve come.
Improve your diet.
If you continually feel depressed and also regularly eat processed garbage, you have an opportunity.
Many of your woes will be solved here. Make an assessment of what you consume. You need to get real with yourself. What we eat counts in a big way.
My two cents is to veer towards the diet humans have been running on for millennia — less of this modern plant-based, seed-oil-infused, carb-heavy take-out stuff.
More primal. More meat (ethically and locally sourced).
But don’t take my word for it. One needs only to peruse some of the many positive online comments people share since shifting to a more carnivore-based diet*:
*If you feel good and rarely get sick on a plant-based diet, great — this is for those who don’t, and are looking for solutions.
Renew your commitment vows.
Most of us are miserable because our commitment is to ourselves and no one else.
Yes, we must prioritise our joy, but that’s different from being self-obsessed.
Turn your attention away from your own happiness and over to contributing to other people's happiness.
Something will switch in you.
How to do this? Creating things that others enjoy.
It’s hard to feel low when you’re busy creating cool shit and not worrying about yourself.
Understand the true nature of ‘self-esteem.’
Here’s the real kicker: self-esteem is an illusion.
It’s a made-up concept we’ve cleverly constructed in our minds. We can thank decades of societal programming for this.
There’s no part of ourselves we can lose.
Self-esteem creates the sense that we have ‘worth’ to lose.
We can’t, because it doesn’t exist in the first place.
When we realise this and that we’re essentially indestructible, we are free. It’s all in the mind.
Familiarise yourself with the present.
If we’ve been depressed or anxious, we’ve likely been neglecting the bright, colourful beauty of the present moment.
Here’s a cheeky reminder for you: it’s still here. You just need the courage to let go occasionally and return.
In the now, there are no worries — only life free of heavy meaning.
Isn’t that refreshing?
Listen to — and follow through with your deeper inclinations.
Living life for others at the expense of following your own passions is a one-way ticket to ShitVille, Alabama.
Listen to the quiet voice you keep ignoring.
You might feel it like a little buzz in your chest, too. Once you’ve identified what drives you, stop stopping.
You must be biased to creating insane amounts of momentum.
This will come more naturally when you find something that both interests and challenges you.
Re-assess your success parameters.
A huge source of suffering for many comes from how we define success for ourselves.
We make it up our success parameters. And then we get sad when we fall short of the expectations we built for ourselves.
How are you defining what success should be for you? Are you following someone else’s playbook?
Forget them. They’re on their path, and you’re on yours.
An example I like to use is writing online to grow your audience. Many people I work with write for a while but then get disappointed and quit.
Why? Because their definition of success in this context is for an article to be popular.
If not, they suck as a writer. But writing successful articles is hard, especially when you’re just starting. The parameter for success must be simply writing and publishing.
That’s a win you have full control over and is something of which to be proud.
Make sure you define success for you in an attainable way and ensure you continually take steps in the right direction.
How?
- Create a better system that clarifies what actions you take.
- Be biased to plenty of action (automatically means rumination diminishes).
- Get on with it.
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