Boosting Self Esteem Guide

A Positive Outlook for a Positive Life

Our outlook and attitude on life in general plays a huge part in how happy we are in life and how successful we become. Someone who thinks positively about everything will be more relaxed, calm and smile more than someone who is always looking on the bad side, who lets stress get to them and who constantly wear a frown.

Not only does how you think and feel affect you, it also affects those around you, in short our mood affects our day. Developing and keeping a positive outlook is essential if you wish to lead a positive and fulfilling life.

There are many ways in which you can develop a more positive outlook and begin to change how you think and feel about many situations that you encounter in day-to-day living. Changing your attitude and not slipping back into negative thinking will take time but eventually the new outlook will become second nature. The five main key points to remember when changing your outlook are

1. Turn your way of thinking into positive thinking and practice on a daily basis thinking positively. You should set your mind on completing one task at a time and think only of a positive outcome and how good you will feel when you have completed the task. Never give in to doubt and let yourself believe that you have taken too much on and just keep going.
2. Don’t let your conversations turn negative, when in a conversation it is easy to let others discourage you, particularly if they have a negative outlook on life. Don’t be tempted to fall back into your old ways, turn negative talk into positive and look for the good in everything and any situation.
3. Look for the positive in those around you and point it out, this way you can encourage a positive attitude all around you.
4. Whatever you are doing in your day-to-day life always look for the good in it, although it might be a boring task which you usually hate doing and one which leaves you feeling negatively, try to find something about it that turns it into a more positive situation.
5. Never let yourself become distracted or hoodwinked into going back to negativity, it takes time to change the way you feel and think and if you have been down on yourself and the world for a long time then your new outlook will take a while to register and stay around.

You will find over time that many areas of your life can be changed just by changing your outlook from a negative one to a more positive. You will find that your self-esteem improves, you become more popular, you feel happier and are more confident than before, you are able to tackle the tasks you once hated without them causing you stress and anxiety and your relationships improve. These are just a few of the areas where you can self-improve and gain a more positive outlook and thus lead a more positive life.

Know your self-worth

Realizing your self-worth has nothing to do with checking your bank balance, it is about you, the person you are in life. We give others respect, love and consideration but how often do we give ourselves what is due? How you value yourself is based on the self-esteem you have, your self-esteem shows you how much you truly value yourself. Healthy self-esteem leads to independence, happiness, flexibility, the ability to adapt easily to change, co-operation and a positive outlook on any situation. Unhealthy or low self-esteem on the other hand leads only to irrational thoughts, unhappiness, fear of the new, rigidity, defensiveness and a negative outlook on life in general.

How we see ourselves has a lot to do with how others see us, if we are happy, smiling and full of confidence then others see us as someone they want to be around, if we respect ourselves and portray this then others will respect you too, after all how can you ask for respect from others if you don’t even respect yourself? So finding and developing your self-worth is all about developing your self-esteem, so let’s take a look at esteem

High self-esteem

If you have a high self-esteem you will see certain traits in yourself and how you see yourself, traits linked with a high self-esteem or self-worth are

• You are secure about who you are and have confidence in your abilities
• You allow yourself to show your true feelings to others
• You don’t have intimacy problems in relationships
• You are able to recognize and take pride in yourself for your achievements in life
• You are easily able to forgive yourself for mistakes and also forgive others

Low self-esteem

Similarly if you have problems with self-worth or low self-esteem then you will follow a certain pattern in your thoughts and ways, if you have problems with low self-esteem then you will see the following points in yourself

• You lack belief in yourself and are very insecure
• You have problems showing and accepting intimacy in relationships
• You never let your true feelings show
• You never recognize and give yourself credit for your accomplishments
• You have the inability to forgive yourself or others
• You resist change at every opportunity

Developing your self-worth

 There are plenty of ways in which you can boost your self-esteem and change to a more positive and healthy outlook about yourself, here are some tips for developing and boosting your self-worth.

• Don’t take other peoples criticism to heart, instead listen to what they are saying and learn from it.
• Take some time out for yourself everyday, meditate, look inside yourself and realize all your good points and imagine changing your bad ones into more positive.
• Celebrate and pride yourself on even the smallest achievements that you accomplish.
• Do something everyday that you enjoy, such as talking a walk in the sunshine or soaking in a bubble bath.
• Never deprive yourself of something you enjoy, if you know you shouldn’t be doing it, then do it anyway and stop chastising yourself about it.
• Talk positively to yourself, repeat affirmations to chase away all of the negative thoughts and feelings.

The benefits of using positive self-talk

One of the biggest influences that we can use to our advantage in life is oneself.  In particular, we can use our thoughts because they in influence our feelings and therefore can have a profound effect on how we deal with life in general. By learning to control our self-talk and turning it into positive self-talk rather than negative, which most people do unconsciously throughout the day, you can begin to gain more control over every aspect of your life and make essential changes.

Your ability to succeed in life largely depends on how you deal with life, a positive mental attitude leads to a confident and ultimately more successful person than one full of negativity which leads to a lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem. By taking a positive attitude you look at life in a different way to one of negativity, a positive attitude leads to seeing good in people and the world which leads to optimism and success. Your quality of life is based on how you think and feel from moment to moment and changing the way you think can drastically change how you see life and deal with life.

The person who goes through life optimistically with a positive attitude is better able to deal with life and the problems which it sometimes throws at us, they are able to bounce back and recover from problems or set-backs in life. The optimistic person will see the problem for what it is, nothing but a temporary set-back which they can overcome and move on, when looking at life in this optimistic way the person is able to take full control over their thoughts and feelings and turn a negative situation into a more positive one by simply altering the way they think. Since thoughts can either be positive or negative and you can only have one thought in mind at any one time then choosing positive will keep your thoughts, feelings and actions optimistic which leads to a happier person who is able to achieve their goals much easier.

Using positive self-talk in your daily life

You should use positive self-talk throughout the day in order to establish a new thinking pattern, you will probably have established a pattern of negative thinking for many years and this will take time to overcome, to start with you should aim to repeat positive self-talk around 50 times throughout the day, this can be achieved by repeating positive statements quietly to yourself or out aloud. Positive self-talk can be used for many different aspects in your life, it can help you to overcome difficult situations, gain more confidence in yourself, help you to quit habits, recover quicker from illness or make changes to your life in general. Popular phrases or sentences that can be used in positive self-talk include.

• I have an interesting challenge facing me – this could be used when a problem occurs in life or there is some difficulty, rather than looking at the situation in a negative way and thinking I have a problem, thinking of it as a challenge is a much more positive way of dealing with it.
• I like the person I am – this could be used to bolster self-confidence and gain respect about yourself and the person you are, similar statements could be “I am the best”, “I am a good person” or “I have many excellent qualities”.
• I know I can do this – this could be used if you are faced with a certain task that you would previously doubt yourself capable of conquering, similarly you could say “I have the ability to conquer this” or “this doesn’t pose a problem for me”
• I am full of health, energy and vitality - this can be used to encourage good feelings about your health either after you have been sick or while recovering from an illness.
• I am fulfilled as a person - this can be used to encourage good general positive thoughts about yourself and the world in which you live.

How positive affirmations can change your life

Having a positive attitude is the key to being happy and leading a successful life, our thoughts play a huge role in how we feel and positive thinking leads to a confident person happy in life, while negativity leads to low self-esteem and you missing out on so much in life. We so often talk ourselves out of things without even realising we are doing so, everyday hundreds of negative thoughts drift freely through our mind, we put ourselves down too much and sow the seeds of doubt. There is a small simple tool that you can use throughout the day to help to change these negative thoughts and instil a more positive way of thinking; using daily positive affirmations can change your life drastically for the better. They can make you more confident, more aware, more sure of yourself and change your life in many more aspects for the better.

What are positive affirmations?

Positive affirmations can be used throughout the day anywhere and at anytime you need them, the more you use them the easier positive thoughts will take over negative ones and you will see benefits happening in your life. An affirmation is a simple technique that is used to change negative self-talk that we are rarely even aware of doing, into looking at your life with a more positive attitude. Most of us have for many years bombarded ourselves with negative thoughts so changing your thoughts and the way you think won’t happen overnight but if you stick with affirmations they will work once you have retrained your way of thinking. There are many different affirmation techniques for dealing with different situations in life and the most popular and successful are listed below.

The mirror technique

This technique helps you to appreciate yourself and develop self-awareness and self-esteem, you should stand in front of a mirror, preferably a full length one in either just your underwear or better still naked. Start at your head and working down your body say out loud what it is you like about areas of your body, for example you could say “I like the way my hair shines, the slight differences in color where the light hits it” or “ my eyes are a lovely shade of _ _ _ _. They sparkle and glint; my eyes are a wonderful feature” take the time and go slowly over all your body building up a more positive image of yourself.

The anywhere technique

This technique can be used anywhere and whenever you catch yourself thinking a negative thought, when you realize you are having a negative thought think of yourself turning down a volume knob inside your head so that you turn it down low enough so as not to hear it any longer. Then think a positive affirmation to replace the negative and turn the volume back up repeating it to yourself.

The trashcan technique

If you have negative thoughts write them down on a scrap of paper, screw the paper up into a ball and throw it into the trashcan, by doing this you are telling yourself these thoughts are nothing but rubbish and that’s where they belong.

The meditation technique

Find somewhere quiet where you able to relax for 5 or 10 minutes close your eyes and let your mid empty of all thoughts and feelings. Begin to repeat your affirmation to yourself over and over again while concentrating on the words you are repeating and believe in what you are saying.