Showing posts with label improve yourself. Show all posts
Showing posts with label improve yourself. Show all posts

Boost Your Self-Esteem


Self-esteem is a realistic, appreciative opinion of oneself. Realistic means that we are accurately aware of our strengths and weaknesses. Appreciative means that we have overall good feelings about the person that we see. It’s about feeling whole and secure in oneself.
 
The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others. The strongest single factor in acquiring abundance is self-esteem: believing you can do it, believing you deserve it, believing you will get it. People are motivated to have high self-esteem, and having it indicates positive self-regard. 

There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity. People who do not experience self-love have little or no capacity to love others.

Do you like and accept yourself? Are you happy with whom you are? Do you have faith in yourself? Do you believe that you have what it takes to be able to lead a rich and fulfilling life? These questions are all related to your level of self-esteem.  Self-esteem is essential for success and happiness. It’s also essential in order to be able to achieve your goals. People with high self-esteem say the following about themselves:
  • I like myself as a person.
  • I’m as good as everyone else.
  • I like what I see in the mirror.
  • I am happy to be me.
  • I respect myself.
  • I’d rather be me than anyone else.
  • I’m not affected by what others say to me.
  • I have the skills and qualities to make myself a success.
  • I like taking risks.
  • I’m not afraid to make mistakes.
  • I can laugh at myself.

Here are a few ways to boost your self-esteem.

Recognize Your Intrinsic Self-Worth
The basic premise of self-esteem is that all people have intrinsic worth as a person which does not have to be earned. Intrinsic self worth is basically self love. When you feel intrinsic self worth, you are happy and satisfied with yourself as you are. Someone with intrinsic self worth does not require external awards, kudos, gold stars, or the acknowledgement of authority figures (parents, priests, teachers, etc.) in order to feel good about themselves. Someone with intrinsic self worth loves themselves unconditionally. This core human worth is not affected by external factors, this means that you don’t need to compete in order to establish your worth, or be constantly comparing yourself to others with money, looks or physical things. It means that your self-esteem is not something that is developed by any external factors.  One of the building blocks of self-esteem is recognizing your intrinsic self-worth. Seek respect mainly from thyself, for it comes first from within.

Thoughts Determine Self-Esteem
Self-esteem and circumstances are only indirectly related. Self-esteem is 100% determined by your thoughts.

One example to illustrate this point is what you say to yourself when you’re standing in front of a mirror. If you look in the mirror and think, “I’ve gained five pounds; I look fat”, you feel bad about yourself. If, instead, you think about something positive, “My hair looks nice like this”, you then feel good about yourself. The reflection in the mirror remains the same; only the thoughts change.

In addition, certain external circumstances can make it easier for you to feel good about yourself. However, external circumstances are never as powerful as your own thoughts. Here are two examples:
  • If you’re the vice-president of a major corporation and you say to yourself, “By my age I should be the President of this corporation”, you feel bad about yourself even though you hold an important position.
  • If, on the other hand, you hold a job that is not regarded by society with as much prestige but you say to yourself, “I do my job well and it allows me to pay my bills on time and spend quality time with my family which is my priority”, you feel good about yourself.
You can increase your self-esteem by changing the way in which you interpret your life, and by uncovering the negative self-statements you habitually make. You then need to create new, positive self-statements. They add that research indicates that it is more effective to stop telling yourself negative things, than to just tell yourself positive things.

In order to understand self-esteem, you need to be aware of the Pathological Inner Critic. This is the voice you hear in your head which is constantly reminding you of your failings and shortcomings. The inner critic destroys your self-esteem. In order to silence the inner critic, I recommend the following process:

1. Pay attention to your thoughts and learn to become aware of when your inner critic is doing the talking inside your head.

2. When you hear the inner critic, talk back. You can mentally say to yourself any of the following: “That’s a lie”; “Shut-up!”; “I don’t believe that”; or “That’s not so”. You can also wear a rubber band around your wrist and snap it when you hear the inner critic talking, in order to break your chain of thought.

3. Instead of being occupied with thoughts about past occurrences which may result in feelings of anxiety, sadness, regret, shame, or guilt, based on what your inner critic is saying, get up and go do something else. You can also shift your attention: look out the window, look at an object nearby and study it intently, think of something pleasant you’ve done lately, or think of someone you enjoy spending time with.

4. Schedule time to address the things you need to think about or figure out. If there’s something that’s not resolved, set aside a specific time to think about it. Then, only think about it during that designated time.  If you catch your inner critic trying to get you to think about things prematurely that interrupt your day, stop the thoughts and make it wait so it has a place and time instead of allowing it to rummage through your head the entire day. Worrying about things with no result in sight only disrupts your ability to focus on other things that are important.

5. Replace the inner critic with a positive voice. Compliment yourself or repeat a positive affirmation. Stop the thoughts that are negative and replace them with good thoughts to create a habit that will become second nature in time. 

Keep Your Self-Esteem Muscles Strong
Self-esteem is a mental muscle that must be developed and maintained through regular psychological workouts. Here are some of the “workouts” recommended.

1. Pursue something you’re passionate about each day, even if it’s just for fifteen minutes. This can be gardening, hitting golf balls, taking a walk at the beach, reading a chapter in a book or reading a bedtime story to your child over the phone if you have to work late. Actively seek out activities and projects that generate passion.

2. Instead of just giving yourself credit only when you achieve a goal, stop to recognize your efforts. Make a list of things that you give your 100% to.

3. Put up a self-esteem bulletin board in a place where you can see it often and fill it with things that make you feel good: an email from a client thanking you for your great work, a photo of yourself that you like, a painting your child made especially for you, and so on. Update your collection once a month. This is a visual aid that does wonders for your mental state of mind each day when you see it. It sets a positive path for you.

Conclusion
The reputation you have with yourself - your self-esteem - is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life. 

Get the tools you need to excel in your life by working with Denise Dema, a Business and Life Management Coach who has over 20 years experience empowering individuals, executives and business owners to attain self-defined success in their professional & personal lives. Book a complimentary session at http://www.denisedema.com to get started in reaching your personal and professional goals today!

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love & affection. ~Buddha

Self Awareness Is The Key To All Successfull Relationships!


Who am I? To answer this, we must first learn to become more aware of ourselves. To be aware, we need to step outside ourselves and objectively watch ourselves in action. We live most of our lives by habit. These habits keep us stuck in self-limiting patterns. Once we identify these unconscious patterns, we then have the choice to change them.

To start building the awareness habit, stop and pay attention to your actions. Set an intention to become aware of how you automatically "react" to the events in your life. How do you react to traffic, colleagues at work, family situations, your partner or children? How do you react to anger or fear in someone else? Become a witness to your own life. Pay attention to how you react to things and how it affects all of your relationships. Become aware of how your thinking creates your reality.

Learn to experience the emotions that are underlying each of your reactions. These are the beginning stages of listening to your internal dialogue.

Awareness reveals to us a whole new fascinating world. Personal growth, to a large extent, depends on self awareness. You can only change what you recognize. Self awareness is not a simple process. It requires that we consistently step outside our "automatic" or "pre-programmed" selves and take a good look at ourselves objectively. The following qualities of character need to be present and developed in order to enhance our ability to become more self aware;

Honesty takes emotional awareness, self confidence and a great deal of courage. Until a person is willing to accept the truth about themselves, they will not have a clear path to change. If we are more emotionally honest with ourselves, we will get to know our “true selves” on a deeper level. This will help us become more accepting of ourselves and eventually, of others. It will also help us to make better choices about how to spend our time and with whom to spend it with. When we are honest with others as well, it encourages them to be more honest with us. We are then more likely not to be asked or pressured to do things which we do not want to do. We will also find out quickly who respects our feelings and who does not. Being honest with your feelings, facing issues as they arise, and accepting responsibility for your actions without blaming others is what living an honorable life entails. You cannot grow as a person until you become honest with yourself and others. Observation and awareness of oneself means that we need to understand how the world "is" around us. If we are capable of seeing the factors that influence other people’s behavior, we are much more likely to see it in ourselves as well. We can make better decisions when we are fully aware of what is driving other people’s intentions. It is not just what we see, but how we interpret everything around us and our perception of others creates the circumstances in our daily life.

Gratitude for what you have is beneficial to your emotional well being. Having an attitude of gratitude each day for your blessings puts your mind in a positive state, without relying on others for your happiness. Being able to express gratitude for any situation projects a magnetic force that draws to you more of what you are expressing gratitude for. People who experience gratitude tend to be happier, more helpful and forgiving, and are aware that they automatically activate the "Law of Attraction". When gratitude becomes part of your identity, you ultimately attract circumstances that resonate with who you are.

Humility is all about maintaining our pride about who we are, about our achievements, about our worth, but without arrogance. Something interesting happens when we approach situations from a perspective of humility–it opens us up to possibilities. As we choose open mindedness and curiosity over protecting our point of view, we spend more time in that wonderful place of the child's mind, willing to learn from others. We move away from pushing into allowing, from insecure to secure, from seeking approval to seeking enlightenment. We forget about being right and enjoy being in the moment. There are many benefits to practicing humility, to being in a state of non-pretense; it improves relationships across all levels, it reduces anxiety, it encourages openness and it enhances one’s self confidence. It opens the window to the higher self.

Flexibility is the ability to adapt your lifestyle to be in harmony with your expectations. Flexible thinking moves thought patterns out of their neural ruts. When you are truly flexible, you can accept any event or surprise that life gives you. Flexibility allows people to adapt, shift and move easily. Insight is the power of seeing a situation beyond the surface. It assists us in overcoming the limitations placed upon us by living our lives "reactively", as opposed to responsively. It gives us the ability to discover why, how and where problems exist and what is needed to correct them. Insight teaches us to become aware of self-destructive belief systems and shows us how to diffuse them. We can then start taking control of our life by becoming the cause of all we experience and not the victim. Having the insight to be proactive, not reactive allows us to pursue the life we desire.

Ambition is striving for something higher than one's self and it is the motivating force of change. Not everyone has the same level of expectations for themselves. Some people thrive on becoming the next CEO, while others would rather be surfing at the beach. Even if someone had all the other factors of self-awareness, without the ambition to change, self-awareness is not easily accomplished. Imagine ambition as the master. The other principles of self awareness rely on ambition to feed them. Without ambition, there is no motivating force to observe or change one's behavior.

These are not the only factors that govern self-awareness. Certainly communication skills also play a big role. Having mentors in your life is also important in the journey of personal growth. Having a coach helps you gain the ability to see yourself as you really are in order to work on change and attainment of a better life.

Denise Dema is a Business and Life Management Coach who has over 20 years experience empowering individuals, entrepreneurs and business owners to attain self-defined success in their professional & personal lives. To book a complimentary session or to  learn more about the author and her practice please visit http://www.denisedema.com/

“What is necessary to change is to change his awareness of himself.” Abraham H. Maslow

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