You Can be Great If You Really Want To

The first thing that you need to do is to get yourself out of the situation of being confused and battered in your life and to do this, you need to take a step back and take stock of the situation that is your life. More than likely, your life is a mess, and it is a mess because you have allowed yourself to slip in and out of disastrous situations and let yourself come upon wall upon wall of negativity. You need to take a deep breath and meditate. Remember that thing in your chest you call your heart? When was the last time you have listened to it? What needs to be done is you need to internalise yourself and calm yourself down. Listen to the rhythm of your heart and slow it down a minute and take a pause. Look at your life from a top down perspective and from there, you can identify what has been going wrong with your life.

The next thing that you need to do is to make a list of the strengths that you have. These can range from your internal gifts, your aptitudes, your character traits which make you a good person and the abilities that you have either possessed or developed over the years. If possible, recruit the help of people that know you the best in this, as they will be able to give you a different perspective as well. Sometimes, our low elf esteem can get in the way of recognising the strengths that we have inside and this can be a problem when creating this list. You need to understand that this is important because it allows us to recognise what we are good at and then change the focus of different areas of our lives. Sometimes we do not even know that we are trying to do something that we are not even good at in the first place and because of this, we see ourselves as failures.

The last thing you can do is to create a short or long list of the sort of achievements and successes that you have been able to achieve over the past few years and what you need to do is to celebrate in some small way every one of them even if you have done it before. This is the feel good list that every self confidence instructor will tell their charges to make, and this list will help to get you back on track. Everytime you are feeling down or you are feeling that you are slipping back, take a look at the list and if that is not enough, take a deep breath and assess what is going on with your life.

These are some of the things you can do to ensure that you do not slip too far into no confidence or a life of low self esteem. Life is short, and you need to enjoy it as best you can and sometimes, confidence in doing that is the only thing that you need to do to get back that zest and energy in life.

It is possible to change your self esteem. You can take conscious control of your thoughts and put positive interpretations onto present and remembered situations. Over time, this can improve your self esteem, causing you to become a more confident, positive person.

Begin by focusing on your strengths. We have all developed strengths through our education, training, work and life experience. All too often, however, we take these strengths for granted, not giving ourselves the credit we deserve. So get into the habit of writing down a few of your successes each day, and relating these to your individual strengths. Take responsibility for your actions and praise yourself when you do a job well! And don’t worry that this might make you big-headed. Its all done in the privacy of your notebook and your thoughts. But paying attention to what you do well begins a momentum of actually building on your existing strengths, quite apart from giving yourself a confidence boost.

You should also spend a little time analyzing your weaknesses. Every one of us has gaps in our education, a tendency to procrastinate or to set off without proper preparation or some other “failure habit” that needs to be straightened out. There are some failings (principally physical limitations) we simply must accept, but many of our weaknesses can be worked around or eradicated. We have to be honest with ourselves about what we need to change and how much change is possible. But concentrate on small individual steps and little by little we will improve. Making time to praise yourself should be part of your end of day routine. You know that complimenting someone on a job well done reinforces that behavior (that’s why it’s a cornerstone of good child rearing) – well, it is just as important to praise ourselves as anyone else! It won’t come naturally at first, but as with anything else, if you practice giving yourself a mental “pat on the back” each evening, you will soon find yourself in an upward spiral of improving behaviors and greater success.

It is essential to plan ahead, knowing what we need and want to get done. Achievements are what really improve our self esteem. Each and every one of us has the same time available to us this week. Seven days of twenty four hours each. It’s up to us to find the best use of this time. The only sure thing is that however we spend our next week – we’ll never get that time back. Making a plan gives us a far greater chance of using the time most effectively. Write down your week’s goals along with a timeline to achieve them. Be sure to leave some slack in the system for the inevitable “firefighting” and hiccups that crop up. And be sure to build in some “me-time” where you can reassess your progress and even just chill out. Just don’t try to change your entire world in one week – only set goals you have a reasonable chance of completing in the time you’ve allowed.

Encourage yourself by seeing the achievement of your goal in your mind’s eye. Develop a “can-do” attitude by celebrating each small goal you achieve as well as the major projects you’ve worked on for months or longer. Very soon, you’ll see how an encouraging word can revitalize you. Be sure to encourage those around you, too. Family, friends and colleagues will always react positively to an appropriate word of praise or encouragement, offered at the right time.

Most of all, to boost your self esteem, you must value yourself. No-one else knows all the individual qualities that make you the special unique person you really are. No one else has seen all of the little kindnesses you’ve shown to help someone along. No one else has seen all the effort you put in to showing the world a happy face when really you’re not feeling that great inside. No one else appreciates all the times you went the extra mile … but you should pause now and again to remember, and give yourself a silent “Well Done. No-one else did that”.

To summarize: your self-image affects how you interact with others and how you set and achieve goals. Your current level of self-esteem is mainly due to your unique personal experiences and relationships. But your self-esteem can be changed – by taking control of your thoughts and putting positive interpretations onto life situations you can improve your self esteem and become a more confident, positive person.

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Many people all over the world have a hard time overcoming low self-esteem. They grow into insecure young men and women who have difficulties facing the challenges of everyday life.

But that is going to change right this instant. At this very moment, you will be learning the vital steps to overcoming low self-esteem. Here they are:

Step 1: Get To The Root Of The Problem.

Sometimes, a person’s low self-esteem might stem from something that occurred in the past. It could be something as simple as being teased by classmates, to something as deeply personal as never being good enough for one’s parents.

Overcoming low self-esteem means having to face your demons again in one way or another. You don’t necessarily have to track down that bully who tortured you all throughout middle school. However, you will have to look back and come face to face with those feelings.

Step 2: Re-Build Yourself.

Once you have determined how your low self-esteem developed, you can now move forward with more clarity and conviction. Now is the time for you to re-build yourself.

What specific issues do you have problems with? Is it your physical appearance or your competency levels? All of these can be tackled one step at a time.

Physical appearance is easy to deal with. Most of these issues can be solved with a simple makeover and a guide to proper dressing. Don’t be embarrassed to ask for professional help.

Keep your mind open to all possibilities. If you have other problems, there’s no reason why you can’t overcome them. Bruce Willis and Tiger Woods both stuttered when they were kids. But practice and determination got them through it.   

Step 3: Track Your Progress.

One powerful way of overcoming low self-esteem is finding out how much you have improved since before you made the effort to change.

By comparing yourself with your old you, you will be able to see areas of growth. This will give you the confidence to strive harder and aim higher. However, do not make the mistake of comparing yourself to other people. That is hardly a fair basis.

Overcoming low self-esteem is a part of life. The ways in which we face this challenge varies; but one thing is for sure: it is never too early or too late to deal with your issues.

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