How can you develop self confidence and self esteem? Here’s the importance of self-esteem in your life and tips on how to improve it.

When I was a kid, my self esteem issues were based on some inflated ego, my looks and how i thought I should have performed in school. As an adult, I still struggles with self esteem at times but with “more important” issues e.g. career, relationships.

I find the earlier you take control of your esteem the better for you – as some people you’ll meet are going to feast on your low-self esteem issues which makes it WORSE or use you to fulfill their own dreams (since they feel you don’t have any).

10 tips to regain your self-esteem and confidence

1) Increase your Competence

What if you’re not yet as good as you can be? Drop the ego. Check your assumptions and see what outcome they produce. When people look down on your results –it could be a TRUTH you need to address even though they’re hard on you.

Get good at something through practice and stop settling for less. Tim Ferris has an advice to question himself – What if you did the opposite of how you normally act today?

Find ways to make some extra income (if people look down on you because you’re broke).

Put in more effort and recheck everything you do before submitting (if your employer looks down on work).

Keep your beliefs nimble and see what results they’re serving you – Tom Bilyeu

2) Focus on things you have control over

Separate the things you want to improve on from those you can’t control. Start by accepting yourself for who you are and recognizing your own worth.

It comes from the 5 A’s of Self-Esteem: Awareness, Acceptance, Appreciation, Action, and Assertiveness which can help you boost your self-esteem in a HOLISTIC way.

Whatever improvements you make to boost your self-esteem should be based on things you have control over e.g. Skills, Work-ethic. Be unapologetic on things you don’t have control over as an adult e.g. Race, Colour, Height instead be proud of them.

3) Listen to the story you tell yourself & believe in yourself.

The stories you tell yourself determine your PERSPECTIVE in life and how you handle problems.

Being Optimistic >> pessimistic

Courage >> fear

Self-love >> self-hate

Believing in yourself is key. To beat low self-esteem do this every morning – write down 5 things you love about yourself and read them out loud. Be willing to radically love yourself!

4) Get rid of your need for external validation

Many kids get their self-esteem CRUSHED because of the kind of words their parents used on them (whatever their intention was). But now you’re an adult.

Fault is past tense, taking responsibility is present tense. Take responsibility and avoid seeking validation or approval from others to improve your self-esteem.

Replace this need with Empowering self-affirmations: Repeating positive statements about yourself can help build self-esteem by combatting negative self-talk.

5) Pursue meaning and don’t forget to do things for fun

Success isn’t just about money, but about mental health, physical health, a good environment, high self-esteem.

Its funny how things we do for fun can give the most joy and meaning to us. When David Perrel was asked how to get better at writing – all he said was focus on having fun.

I made one of the biggest mistakes that smashed my self-esteem at first. When I got into college – I thought of focusing only on academics and minimizing hobbies. After all “hobbies don’t pay.”

But the problem was I had little intrinsic motivation for what I was studying or natural competence on it – so i started doubting myself.

When I picked back my hobbies, I knew I was good at something – which I later used to build a business. Since then I’ve felt zero need to use “titles” or “how people perceived me” to increase self-esteem.

6) Practice – Take baby steps

Improving your self-esteem is not an overnight task.

Start with baby steps- do something that makes you feel good about yourself and engage things that will boost your self esteem day, no matter how small it may seem.

7) Start keeping promises to yourself 

Each time you do what you wish or say not to do – you doubt yourself. But when you build yourself up emotionally and mentally, you’ll be able to better withstand the challenges life throws your way.

8) Decrease your emotional reaction to your triggers

Between stimulus and response is a SPACE. It doesn’t matter what people say – “you’re not good enough”, you’re a bad person.”

You don’t have to get all worked up. Taking life too seriously or problems personally is not wisdom.

Habits that can help you decrease TRIGGERS to your Esteem:-

• Meditate
• Listen more, talk less
• Walk out from heated conversations until you can react as little as possible.
• Sleep on problems – you don’t have to react to everything on the heat of the moment

9) Fake it until you make it

Act confident even when you don’t feel it and eventually it will become second nature.It starts with being self-aware.

Walking erect no matter how downhill or rock bottom you are present.

Dressing smart or clean no matter what’s going on outside.

Do things like complimenting yourself, setting realistic goals, and practicing gratitude.

10) Build your self-esteem on the right foundation.

I got this idea from Tom Bilyeu on Impact Theory – Focus on “LEARNING” rather than how good you look or think you are.

Discipline over motivation.

Being present over past glory.

Your vision over what people think.

Its the key to shift things from the inside out.

Bonus point

11) Get help

At some point, you should consider where you are, and why things haven’t changed or improved in a while. That’s an indicator that something needs to change.

Invest in a Coach. Finding someone to be your accountability partner for things like working out or eating healthy can help increase self-esteem by giving you support and motivation.

CONCLUSION

When you develop High self-esteem and confidence you easily increase your levels of happiness, positivity, fulfillment, money, growth and feeling higher energy than ever before.

No matter how far you go in life, you don’t want to feel broken deep inside. Part of success is the reward of building self-confidence and high self-esteem.