How to Fix Low Self-Esteem
Disclosure: Happiness On Demand is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program as well as other programs, designed to provide means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated websites, at no extra cost to you. This post contains affiliate links, meaning that as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
“How to fix low self-esteem” may be one of the most discussed topics in the self-help industry. There are hundreds of studies, theories, courses, books, and other things that promise to solve the matter.
And it’s no wonder why. Self-esteem is one of the most coveted traits. Being confident in your value as a human being is a powerful resource for plowing through daily life. People with good self-esteem tend to achieve their goals, have good relationships, and have satisfaction in life. High self-esteem also brings with it positive outcomes such as happiness, resilience, and optimism.
Vice versa, low self-esteem can lead to unhealthy relationships, inability to achieve desired results, and general dissatisfaction in life. Studies show that low self-esteem is related to stress, depression, and anxiety.
So there’s plenty of reason to desire good self-esteem. But what is self-esteem really and what causes it to be high or low? Here’s my take to add to the list of “how to fix low self-esteem” guides.
My top picks
The best ways to fix low self-esteem
This course utilizes powerful psychological techniques, and programs you to live your life with confidence and self-belief. Paul McKenna is the number one hypnotherapist in the World and is renowned for helping treat the most difficult problems.
The Science of People is website full of actionable tips for improving your social skills in business, life, and love. Excellent resources for overcoming low self-esteem and self-doubt.
Introduction
Having good self-esteem is very important for living a happy life. Who wouldn’t like being able to face any situation and breeze through daily challenges with supreme confidence? Good self-esteem helps you achieve goals, build meaningful relationships and be satisfied with your life in general.
Besides, low self-esteem can cause some very negative consequences in your life.
The World Happiness Report identifies low self-esteem as one of the four individual risk factors for depression. So having good self-esteem not only helps you live a happy life but also protects you from developing mental health problems.
Luckily, there are many things you can do to improve your sense of self-worth and raise your self-esteem.
In this guide, I’ll reference the work of Glenn R. Schiraldi, Ph.D., author of The Self-Esteem Workbook and a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Health (and the go-to guy to fix low self-esteem).
And Christopher Mruk, Ph.D. professor of psychology at Bowling Green State University, the author of Self-Esteem and Positive Psychology: Research, Theory, and Practice.
According to Schiraldi, self-esteem consists of three elements:
1. Unconditional love
2. Unconditional worth
3. Growth
Understanding each of these areas and working at least a little on them will likely raise your self-esteem.
We will take a look at each of these areas shortly.
Schiraldi also states that people with good self-esteem are realistic. It means that they can evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, and potential honestly and realistically.
Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses first
Take some time to sit down and evaluate your strengths and weaknesses.
Think about things you are good at.
What makes you feel confident? What things, no matter how small, can you perform with determination? Write them down.
Then give some thought to your weaknesses, the areas of your life where you feel that you could do with more confidence.
What situations make you feel uncertain? What things make you doubt yourself?
Write these down as well, but try not to judge yourself: The first step in fixing something is knowing what is broken. This holds true when trying to fix low self-esteem and overcome self-doubt as well.
This evaluation will give you a template for improving yourself. It does not mean that you must start transforming all your weaknesses into strengths, but it will give you some ideas for growth.
Pick one or two weaknesses that you wish to develop. It will be a good starting point for growth, which we will come to see is the third part of the puzzle for better self-esteem.
Also, pick one or two strengths. These will serve as things that you will try to implement more in your daily life to gain experiences of self-worth.
Strategies for Strengthening Self-Esteem
Mruk states that overcoming self-doubt and gaining self-esteem is a function of two things:
1. Competence, combined with
2. Worthiness.
This means, that feeling good about yourself should be combined with actions that support your values and ideas of worthiness.
So the very basic concept of fixing low self-esteem is to increase the number of self-esteem-improving moments in everyday life.
This can be done by finding small ways to become more competent or feel more worthy, and here’s where the list of strengths and weaknesses may come in handy.
Look at the list you made previously. Pick a weakness from your list that you wish to improve. Find a way to improve your skills in that area, just by a little. Do that in a way that gives you a sense of accomplishment. This will be discussed in-depth under the heading “growth”.
Practice healthy habits
According to Schiraldi, it’s important to prepare your brain before even trying to fix low self-esteem.
To maximize your potential for success (in anything really), think about the basic elements of your life:
- Is your diet healthy and nutritious?
- Do you exercise enough?
- Do you get enough sleep?
- Do you have any medical or psychological conditions that need to be treated?
Getting these basics in order will help greatly in improving your self-esteem. Again, you can identify your strengths and weaknesses in each area and start working on some.
Starting new habits can be a rewarding process in and of itself, and can help boost your self-esteem and overcome self-doubt.
1. Unconditional love
The first of the three elements of good self-esteem is unconditional love. And it is first and foremost unconditional love for yourself that you need.
Here’s a simple exercise to get you started. This exercise will boost unconditional self-love and unconditional worth, thereby enhancing two of the three elements of self-esteem.
How to practice self-love:
- Stand in front of a mirror
- Look yourself in the eyes
- Say: “I love you” (in your head or even better, out loud)
- Repeat three times
Do this exercise every day, until you feel no more discomfort while doing it.
It may surprise you how hard it is to say to yourself. Just stick with it even if it feels uncomfortable. It will get easier and easier with time.
When you can accept that you love yourself, it will be easier to accept that you are worthy of the love of others too. This will help fix low self-esteem.
1.1 Identify and challenge negative thoughts and behavior
Are you talking yourself down? Do you hang out with people who steal your energy? Do you speak of your wants and needs or choose to stay quiet?
These and other similar thoughts and actions enable low self-esteem. Identify the stories you are telling yourself about yourself. Then change the stories to fix low self-esteem.
To catch your negative thoughts and behavior, start asking yourself: what am I thinking?
Condition yourself to do this.
- Write it on post-it notes and put them around the house
- Write it on your bathroom mirror
- Put an alarm on your cellphone
Asking this question often enough during the day will eventually form a habit.
You’ll notice that once you become aware of the thoughts you are thinking, you can consciously weed out the negative ones. This way you can consciously overcome self-doubt.
For example, when you find yourself thinking “I can’t do this”, discard that thought. Don’t give it a second thought, instead, replace it with a positive thought. Say to yourself: “I CAN do this!”.
You can also consciously tell yourself positive stories.
Try saying to yourself:
“I am confident”
“I am loved”
“I am enough”
What you focus on, will grow. Again, refer to the guide to starting new habits to help you with this step.
1.2 Find out who you are
Schiraldi also teaches that healthy self-esteem means having pride in who you are: “Every individual must determine his or her values, principles, and moral standards and live by them”.
Think about the following things:
- What do you value in life?
- What matters to you?
- What are you passionate about?
Once you have identified your values, you might realize that the very things you beat yourself up about have nothing to do with your goals.
For example, you might dislike yourself and have negative self-talk about how many grammar mistakes you make while texting.
But if it’s not your goal to be a professional writer, why would you beat yourself up about those mistakes?
In the end, the thoughts and beliefs you hold about yourself determine your self-esteem.
You do not need validation from others. You may listen to what others have to say, but it’s ultimately up to you to decide whether you believe what they say or not.
Your beliefs about yourself, including self-love and self-esteem, have formed from the thoughts you think during years and years of repetition.
Change your thoughts to change your beliefs and fix low self-esteem. Use the “what am I thinking” exercise to consciously weed out any negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones.
2. Unconditional worth
First things first. You are worthy and you are enough. That should be the basic premise no matter who you are.
According to the Science of People (which has some great, great, great advice for building confidence and self-esteem),
“Self-worth is the deep, unshakeable belief someone has that they are loved and worthy to be loved. People with high self-worth tend to have higher respect, confidence, and values. People with low self-worth might suffer from low confidence and feel bad about themselves.”
Any other thoughts that you might have about yourself have been conditioned throughout your life: They are put in your head by others. Often this happens by accident.
The good news is since the “not worthy” and “not enough” thoughts are learned, you can also unlearn them and condition yourself to think in a more positive way.
Replace the thoughts of others with your own. Start telling yourself that you are worthy.
Overcome self-doubt by constantly telling yourself:
“I am worthy”
“I have great self-esteem”
“I am enough”
Use a mirror to boost the effects. Stand in front of a mirror and look yourself in the eyes. Say the previous statements in your head or out loud, until you start to believe them.
2.1 Appreciate your body
Our identity is tied to our bodies, so the way we think about our bodies reflects the way we think about ourselves in general.
If you dislike your body, you probably dislike your thoughts, feelings, or behavior as well.
According to Schiraldi, bashing your weight, shape, or wrinkles, will lead to conditional self-esteem.
Learning to accept your body with all its imperfections will help you cultivate a more accepting view of yourself as a whole, and overcome self-doubt.
Some things about our looks we can change and some things we can’t. The things we can’t change we must learn to accept. Again, use the exercises above. You can use affirmations such as:
“I accept my body”
“I am perfect just the way I am”
“I love my body and I accept my body”
Learning to appreciate your body is a great practice to help you fix low self-esteem.
2.1.1 The importance of physical well-being
The things we can change about our bodies are usually related to weight and muscle mass.
While physical exercise is important and maintaining or building muscle mass is one of the key elements of longevity, the fastest and easiest results for your physical well-being come from a proper diet.
Perhaps surprisingly, the best thing you can do for your body is fasting. Not eating for a period of 16 to 18 hours each day may be all you need to fix your physical well-being.
I do not know if the mechanism has been studied, or if it even can be studied, but dropping physical weight tends to drop emotional weight as well. You can use intermittent fasting and especially prolonged fasting as tools to shed excess weight both physically and emotionally.
If you have doubts, anxiety, stress, depression, etc, you may very well ease the symptoms or cure the cause completely just by fixing your physical well-being.
If you are interested in this, I recommend taking a look at the Bulletproof diet
2.2 Accept your imperfections
Accepting your imperfections may require a change of perspective. Think of your best friend, partner, or kids. Why do you love them?
I am willing to bet it’s not because you think they are perfect.
There are people in our lives whom we love despite their flaws. If we could only love people whom we deem perfect, we would never love anyone.
Schiraldi explains it clearly: “Love is a choice and a commitment that we make each day… and we can make the same choice and commitment to love ourselves as well…”
Accepting and loving yourself is a choice. Fix low self-esteem by making a choice to fix it (this will be the topic of the final chapter).
what helps to cultivate self-acceptance is mindfulness, which teaches compassion for the self and others along with the ability to handle painful emotions.
Here’s another way to cultivate self-compassion.
2.3 How to learn self-worth and overcome self-doubt
As described by The Science of People, self-worth is the deep, unshakeable belief someone has that they are loved and worthy to be loved.
Your self-worth is a belief that sits deep within your subconscious mind. Beliefs are thought patterns that you accumulate during years and years of your life and they can be a tricky bunch to change.
However, there are ways to change your beliefs about yourself. You can read my guide to beliefs here. It has an exercise for choosing your thoughts and feelings consciously, as well as an exercise for accepting and loving yourself. These exercises will help you change your beliefs.
3. Growth
Growth in this context means growth in the areas of your life where you feel the need to fix low self-esteem the most.
It only makes sense to improve the areas where you lack self-confidence, but you can also use the areas of your life where you feel confident to boost your sense of self-worth higher.
3.1 Make use of your daily habits
One way to grow your self-esteem is to make use of basic sources of self-esteem in your everyday life. Once again, evaluate your strengths and weaknesses.
- What are the everyday things you are good at?
- What tasks do you accomplish with confidence?
Try to find opportunities to do more of these or similar tasks throughout your day. It can be the tiniest thing, the effects will accumulate, as we will soon find out.
For example, you might be really good at organizing: Your clothes are always neatly folded and in order in the cabinet. Your mugs and cutlery are placed in strict order in your kitchen.
Find ways to organize more. Before you start your day, organize your desk. Organize the post-it notes around the office. Or just neatly color-code the events in your calendar.
Use your imagination. As mentioned, these can be small and quick tasks that you accomplish, but if they are done with confidence, they will boost your self-esteem.
3.2 Use your environment to raise self-esteem
Another method for boosting your self-esteem is to find healthy ways to influence your environment so that it becomes more meaningful or satisfying.
This means creating more opportunities around you to express your self-esteem.
Here’s an example that is used in fixing one’s diet.
Place the things that you shouldn’t eat in a hard-to-reach place: In the back of your kitchen’s top cabinets, in the attic, basement, or garage, or anywhere where it takes a lot of effort to get to these foods.
Then, place the foods you want to eat more of in an easily accessible place, like the table in front of your couch.
Apply this methodology to fix low self-esteem. Create opportunities in your environment to do more things that you already do with confidence and self-esteem.
3.3. Small accomplishments accumulate big results
Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) and Harvard University found that small rewards increase motivation. The simple act of successfully completing an arbitrary task and receiving a small reward keeps you motivated.
Identify small things in your daily routine that can give you a sense of accomplishment. In other words, fix low self-esteem one small step at a time.
Make sure you receive a small reward for completing this task. This will release dopamine, the “feel good hormone”, in your body. Dopamine will make you feel good and want more. It’s a win-win. It doesn’t even matter what you accomplish, as long as you identify and schedule it and then do it.
Making your bed, doing the dishes, and completing an item on your to-do list, all will give you the feeling of having completed a task.
So schedule small tasks, do them, and get a sense of accomplishment and control that will boost your self-esteem. Sounds weirdly simple, but it has been studied and found effective. Self-esteem gets a nice boost from dopamine that you get from accomplishing even the most non-essential tasks.
Doing this often also has a cumulative effect. Staying with the practice can even create a positive self-esteem cycle.
The key is recognizing the small possibilities each day and acting on them. Over time, this enhances well-being as well as self-esteem.
3.4 Seek meaning in your relationships
To increase your sense of self-worth, seek meaning and purpose in your relationships. Consider joining a group of like-minded individuals that share the same values and goals as you. This can be any group or community that you like. Join a book club. Do some gardening. Volunteer at your local animal shelter.
The point is to be a part of a group or community that supports your self-esteem and gives a sense of accomplishment.
Likewise, you will benefit from cutting ties with non-beneficial groups or individuals. Identify and get out of any toxic relationships that put your self-worth down.
Doing something together with others provides opportunities for demonstrating some form of competence. For example, overcoming challenges together is a demonstration of competence, and this is a great self-esteem booster.
3.5. Act virtuously
You can increase your self-worth by acting more virtuously. That is, conforming to moral and ethical principles.
It sounds so noble, but it just means admitting mistakes, making up for errors, doing what you feel is right, and standing up for the rights of others.
You may recall from the beginning of this article, that according to Christopher Mruk, overcoming self-doubt and gaining self-esteem is a function of competence combined with worthiness.
Self-esteem benefits from aligning your actions with your values and ideas of worthiness.
And Glenn R. Schiraldi reminds us that we should determine our values, principles, and moral standards and live by them.
3.6. Set goals for yourself
Set yourself a goal, then methodically work towards it. Making a personally significant achievement is a good way to fix low self-esteem.
Read about setting goals the right way here
Start with a decision
I’ll tie this up with a personal story.
When I was a teenager, I had very low self-esteem. I liked to stick to my own company if possible. I had a hard time fitting in at school because I wanted to be myself, not dress and act as everybody else did. So I wasn’t the most popular kid, nor the most social, and I felt it.
But when it came time to go to high school, I decided that I’m going to change. I took the opportunity to create myself anew on a mental level.
I didn’t change physically, nor did I get new friends. High school was even located in the same building where I went the previous year.
So nothing changed, except my beliefs about myself.
I started to socialize more, and go out more. I became outspoken and confident. Just like that, almost overnight. Nowadays when I tell people that I used to have low self-esteem, they don’t want to believe it.
After I decided to change, I still wasn’t the most popular kid at school and certainly not the trendiest. Yet I was happy with myself and my social life. Most importantly, that’s how I felt inside.
One decision can change everything
I didn’t care how others perceived me, it only mattered that I knew who I was and acted accordingly.
That’s a change I still remember to this day and my years in high school were some of the happiest years of my life.
This is an example of the power of our minds. Just one decision, made with desire and intention, can change everything.
Think about all the people who have suffered an accident, only to vow that “if I make it through this, I will live my life differently, never taking things for granted”.
You don’t need an accident or other life-changing moment for that. You can consciously make a decision any time you want to change yourself and change your life.
Of course, it’s often easier said than done and the whole thing boils down to a matter of motivation. What motivates you to make changes?
I can’t answer that for you, but what I can tell you is that it comes down to who you believe you are. In order to make a lasting change, you must change your beliefs about yourself.
Ultimately your self-esteem is a product of your beliefs
You are who you believe you are. Your thoughts, words, and actions are dictated by your beliefs. So ultimately, you can be only as confident or worthy as you believe you are.
The tips in this blog post will help you overcome self-doubt and boost your self-esteem, but for the most powerful results, you may want to start working on your beliefs.
You can do many things to actively change your beliefs, among which increasing your awareness is one of the most effective.
You can read about awareness here
Then there’s hypnotherapy, which in my experience is the easiest, most effective method for producing lasting change in any area of your life.
For this, I recommend checking out the work of Paul McKenna (no affiliation).
Conclusion
Good self-esteem helps to achieve your goals, have good relationships, and have satisfaction in life.
It also brings with it positive outcomes such as happiness, resilience, and optimism.
Vice versa, low self-esteem can lead to unhealthy relationships, inability to achieve desired results, and general dissatisfaction in life.
Studies show that low self-esteem is related to stress, depression, and anxiety.
Self-esteem consists of three elements:
- Unconditional love
- Unconditional worth
- Growth
Overcome self-doubt and fix low self-esteem with a combination of
- competence
- worthiness
Feeling good about yourself should be combined with actions that support your values and ideas of worthiness.
Strategies that help fix low self-esteem:
- Practice healthy habits
- Practice unconditional self-love
- Identify and challenge negative thoughts and behavior
- Live by your values
- Appreciate your body
- Accept your imperfections
- Practice personal growth
- Make use of your daily habits
- Use your environment to raise self-esteem
- Seek meaningful relationships
- Act virtuously
- Set goals
- Work on your beliefs about yourself
Your confidence and sense of self-worth are dictated by your beliefs. Use the methods in this blog post to change your beliefs, fix low self-esteem, and overcome self-doubt.
Disclaimer
The entire contents of this blog are based upon the opinions of the author. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. The information in this blog is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult your health care professional before trying any of the products or methods based on this content. I cannot guarantee that you will be free of stress, anxiety or depression, or that you will be happy. I simply want to share with you what I have discovered during my twenty years of seeking happiness and what has worked for me may not work for you. Happiness On Demand is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program as well as other programs, designed to provide means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated websites, at no extra cost to you. This post contains affiliate links, meaning that as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
