How To Improve Your Self Esteem - Learn How to Value Yourself - Self Mastery Marix

*“To be loved by others, you first need to love yourself”*

Intro – The Self Esteem Problem

Out of all the underlying issues that our generation is facing, the self esteem issue is probably the most serious one. There are countless young people who simply do not value themselves or the life that they have been gifted at all. If you are part of this group, you need to improve your self esteem desperately.

I have had many encounters with people part of this massive group. They all seem to not value themselves or their future at all and only do what feels most comfortable to them at that very moment. When presented with the chance to improve, they throw a billion excuses into the mix and do everything they can’t to not take any action at all. I find that really strange, these people want to change so bad but when they’re presented with an opportunity to change they shut it down. In this post, I want to find out why.

It’s not just that though. The main goal of the post is to help you overcome your self esteem issues so you can live your life to the fullest. Self esteem issues damage almost every aspect of one’s life, and they make any other issues one may have a whole lot worse. This is because they’ll be stuck in a cycle of believing they can’t get over their other issues because of their lack of self esteem. If you suffer from similar issues you probably already understand this though.

Now let’s dive and and start building up your self esteem.

Self Awareness and Acceptance – The Root of Your Self Esteem Problems

Let’s face it, Your self esteem issues don’t just show up out of thin air. There’s almost always an underlying cause for these issues. This is usually because there’s a deeper issue at play, that manifests itself through various other issues. One of these issues just so happens to be a lack of self worth and self esteem. Many people’s underlying issues eat at them and cause them to dislike themselves more and more, it’s a sad reality.

That’s why the first and most important step you must take in your journey of self validation is acknowledging and/or accepting those underlying issues. That’s not an easy task though. These issues are hard to notice in certain cases and can be even harder to accept in other cases. To tackle those problems, let’s dive in and explore how you can become aware of any underlying issues and the best way to go about accepting them.

The Yin and Yang of Self-Discovery

In this situation, it’s better to see self awareness and self acceptance as two sides of the same coin. Self awareness is taking the time to peer into the depths of your mind and shining a light on your strengths, weaknesses, desires, and fears. On the other hand, self acceptance is about accepting what you find regardless of if it hurts to do so. Now that we’ve established what self awareness and self acceptance are, let’s go through them one by one.

Self Awareness

Being self-aware is a really important trait to have. It’s the key to building confidence after all. People who are self-aware also understand their issues better, which leads to them having an easier time trying to fix them. You could say it’s a necessity as well, considering that people who aren’t self-aware often come across as either delusional or not very intelligent depending on if they overvalue or undervalue themselves. To help you become more self aware, I’ll list a few techniques you can use to become more self aware.

Ask Yourself Questions

That’s right, the first technique is just some simple questions that you can ask yourself. These simple questions can end up going a long way though, so it’s worth setting aside a little bit of time to ask yourself them. Make sure the questions are thought-provoking and that they lead you to becoming more self-aware. If you want an example to help get you started, here’s a great one:

What are my core values, and do my actions align with them?

This is a great question to ask yourself for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that you’re reminding yourself about what’s most important to you. That’s what your values are and always should be. By reminding yourself of your values, you are also reminding yourself of why it’s important to stay on the right path and stick to them no matter what. The second reason is because you’re taking a deeper dive into your actions. By going through your actions you can identify things you’re currently doing that may not align with your values. This is a great start on the path to correcting those actions.

Obviously Though, one question isn’t enough for this kind of thing. You’ll need to ask yourself a range of questions to become more self-aware. That means asking yourself questions that cover every aspect of yourself that you need to be aware of. Another example for a good question would be:

What triggers my stress or anxiety and how do I react in those situations?

One of the most important aspects of self-awareness is being aware of the uglier sides of yourself. You know, the parts of you that you wish didn’t exist. You can’t live in denial and pretend that these aspects of you simply don’t exist because you know deep down that that isn’t the case at all. Denying that will only make your self esteem even worse. In fact, denying your darker sides may very well be one of the causes of your self esteem issues.

One of the darker sides to all of us is our stress triggers. We all have them, whether we want to admit it or not. We all have things happen to us that make us a little stressed out and irritated. In order to understand ourselves better (and to help deal with the stress), it’s important that we identify our stress triggers.

It’s also important to look over how we react to those triggers too, because a lot of the time we don’t really do a great job. For example, the most common reaction to these triggers is anger. This anger will often lead to our emotions taking priority over rationality. In situations like that, it’s easy to do things you’ll regret later.

Something I’ve noticed about this as well is that a lot of people often let themselves off the hook when they let their anger take control. You can’t do that. You need to hold yourself accountable and take measures to make sure it doesn’t happen again. That way, you’re not running away from the issue and trying to forget it, you’re being self-aware.

So far, we have two solid questions that will help you a ton. Before I show you the last one though I wanna make sure that you know that you don’t have to copy these questions exactly, they’re more guidelines for you to follow. So don’t be afraid to put your own spin on them. Now, let’s go over the last question.

Am I being lazy and can I do more?

This is a really powerful one to ask yourself. It’s not only great for self-awareness, but it’s also a strong reality check. Let’s face it, a lot of us are lazy. As much as we don’t want to admit it, it is the case for a lot of us. Hell even I think that I can be lazy at times. And trust me, I know that it sucks to admit that you’re being lazy, but you must do it anyways. Not just so you can be more self-aware, but also so you can grow as a person.

Asking yourself if you’re being lazy is directly calling yourself and your actions out. When asking yourself this, you should analyze how you spend your time and try to spot any instances where you are being lazy or wasting time. Calling yourself out on this is the first step that you can take to start improving things like this. It’s also important to note that getting over things like laziness will improve your self esteem, since you’re becoming a better and more productive person by doing so.

However, not everyone is lazy. That’s where the 2nd part of this question comes into play. Asking yourself if you can do more is a great way to push yourself even further when you’re busy doing hard work. It’s also just a great way to improve your work and become a more productive person. When you ask yourself this question, make sure that you take proper time to analyze whatever you’re working on. You should check how efficient you’re being, as well as if you’re missing anything. Also make sure to check if there’s anything else you can add to your work as well.

By asking yourself questions about yourself, you’re taking a deep dive into the core of your mind. This will lead to some important revelations, as well as a huge amount of insight on yourself. Although if you read all of this you probably already understand that and this section is already long enough, so let’s move onto the other trick you can use.

Artistic Expression

I’ve talked about stuff like this quite a lot, but I still feel like it’s super important. One of the best ways you can understand yourself better and express yourself more freely is through artistic expression. What exactly do I mean by artistic expression though? Well, it’s where you engage in a creative activity of your choosing and use it to express yourself. These are usually activities like drawing, playing an instrument or writing.

While doing these activities, it’s key that you enter a flow state. For those of you who don’t know what that is, I attached a link on the word that explains it. There is also a section in my previous post that is all about flow state (It is under the “finding your passion” section). Anyways, we should identify why a flow state is key for becoming more self aware during these activities.

Alright, to break this down more easily, we need to identify the most common circumstances where self-discovery usually takes place. The answer is fortunately pretty simple in this case. Instances of self-discovery usually take place where one is in a deep mental state of focus. During this time, you’re more aware of your emotions, and you’re letting more of them out than you would usually do. This state of focus is best achieved through an artistic activity where you can absorb yourself in it completely, see what I’m getting at now?

You’ve probably already figured it ot but basically, by entering a flow state, you’re more absorbed in the activity you’re doing. This allows you to express yourself easier during the activity. Expressing yourself like this can easily lead to new discoveries about yourself that can enhance your self awareness. And what are the best kind of activities for this? Artistic activities.

Meditation

Meditation is perfect for enhancing your self awareness. In fact, it’s probably the most common method that people use to enhance their self awareness, so you know I had to include it. It also provides many other benefits, some being relevant to this post, others not so much. I’ll go over as many as I can think of right now for you though so you can get a good idea: Improved self esteem, good for treating phone addiction, enhances critical thinking, strengthens your sense of self/belonging, allows you to live in the moment, reduces stress, increases overall happiness. There’s way more but I don’t really wanna waste your time anymore. Regardless, you should have a good idea now.

Back onto the topic of self awareness though, there are many different types of meditation which all server different purposes. Since this section is focused on self awareness (I’m already fed up of typing that term), we need to identify the best meditation technique for the job. Luckily for you, it’s one of the most straightforward ones. That’s right, you’re gonna be doing some breathing exercises.

Wait wait wait, I know it sounds boring but at least hear me out before you click off. I’m pretty sure most people’s history with breathing exercises is being forced to do them a few times in school, hating it each time, goofing around a bit during the exercise, then never doing them again. Yes, I was in that situation just like you. But trust me, it’s way more fun without a teacher giving you instructions all the time. I’ll break down how to go about it as a beginner for you.

First of all, you’ll need to set aside 10-30 minutes during your day to do this. I personally recommend doing it during the morning, so that way your mind is sharpened and ready for the rest of the day. Next up is music. If you want to make more discoveries about yourself, then no music is optimal. However, I understand that it can be hard to do that at first, so I recommend you start with background music for focus, preferably something relaxing. There’s loads of relaxing music on YouTube, so find some you like.

All you have to do now is close your eyes, and breathe. Focus only on your breath and bodily sensations. Just let any thoughts that pop into your head drift by, until you find one that may lead to some self-discovery. When you do, focus in on it and see where the thought train takes you. All you have to do now is rinse and repeat, you’ll see how quickly you get absorbed in your thoughts.

Self Acceptance

Ok that last section was pretty long, but we’re finally onto the other half of the coin: Self Acceptance. While self awareness is all about discovering more things about yourself, self acceptance is about accepting what you find regardless what it is. This means that if you discover something bad about yourself, you have to accept it no matter how you feel about it. In this section, you’ll learn how to properly accept both good and bad things.

The Good Stuff

Yep, that’s right, we’re actually going to go over how to process and accept the good stuff you find out about yourself. You may be wondering why I included this section at all, since it’s easy to accept the good stuff. While that is true, it’s also easy to fall victim to this stuff. What does that mean? Simple, it means that it’s easy to let this stuff go straight to your head.

When you see someone discover that they have positive trait that not many others have, it often goes straight to people’s heads. I know that not letting things go to your head is a common lesson that’s taught in modern day society a lot, with many movies/TV shows covering the topic. Because of this wide coverage, many people think they’ll never let anything go to their head. Don’t be lured into a false sense of security though, since in reality it’s actually dangerously easy to let any good traits or power you may possess inflate your ego. Trust me, it’s scary how easy this kind of stuff can affect you

It is for this reason that you should always be aware of what your impulsive thoughts are saying, since they often drive us to think in the way I just described. If you do catch your good traits going straight to your head, don’t be afraid to call yourself out on it. Be sure to remind yourself that just because you have a certain trait, it doesn’t make you better than anyone else. No one likes a narcissist after all (yeah, I’m calling out that one social media trend).

Also note that people who let this stuff get to their head do not have high self esteem. People who actually have high self esteem don’t feel the need to compare themselves to other people or put others down in the process. You should only be comparing yourself to who you were yesterday, no one else.

The Bad Stuff

No one in this world is perfect, not a single person. We all have flaws, we all have darkness in us. When confronted with this darkness, many of us deny it, and instead of accepting it opt to pretend it doesn’t exist. However, doing this will only make the darkness grow. Running away from your problems is never the answer. That’s why you have to accept your flaws, no matter how hard it is to do so.

Me saying this doesn’t make it any easier though, but that still doesn’t change the fact that it’s the right choice to make. Remember that someone with a high self esteem is well aware of their flaws, they don’t just ignore them. And you want to improve your self esteem too, so you will have to overcome this barrier. This is the only way forward, trust me. I know you may or may not be thinking something along the lines of “Wouldn’t admitting to your faults make you hate yourself even more?”. That isn’t the case at all, and I’m here to break it down for you.

While I did say that the statement from before wasn’t true at all, I was kind of lying and kind of not lying at the same time. I’m sorry you’re confused now but to put it simply, admitting to your faults will only make you hate yourself more if you allow it to. I know it will feel pretty bad for a while, I’ve been there myself when I realized how lazy I was. I was an emotional mess when I first faced that reality, and it’s likely that you will be too.

But don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you’ll be an emotional mess forever. When you feel like this, you have two choices. You can either let stuff like this lower your self esteem even more until your whole life is wreck or you can channel those emotions and use them as a source of strength to improve on your flaws and become a better person. To me, the second choice is the best way you can deal with finding out bad things about yourself.

By turning all those emotions into motivational fuel, you’re already on your way to improving your self esteem. You’re also just making the right choice in general, since you’re choosing to take responsibility for your flaws by fixing them and becoming better. You may not become a perfect person by doing this but I know you’ll become something truly special.

Challenge Negative Self Talk

It’s often said that our mind is our greatest weapon; and while this is true, the opposite is unfortunately the case for too many people. The most common barrier between many people and a high self esteem just so happens to be negative self talk. It’s like a constant, critical companion that just tries to undermine any efforts you make at improving your self esteem and it seriously won’t shut up. That’s why you have to learn how to shut it up, or your self esteem issues will never go away.

Understanding and Conquering Negative Self Talk

The best way to start overcoming the negative thoughts that are beating you down in your brain, you need to understand them better. Not only will this help you understand yourself and your thought process a little better but it will also give you an easier time when it comes to challenging those thoughts. Understanding those thoughts is the first step you have to take to beat them.

Understanding your negative thoughts is easier said than done though, since there are mainly 2 different sides to it that are hard to fight. It’s never just as simple as your thoughts telling you that you’re not good enough, there are many factors that go into these sides. In this section, I’m going to break down the 2 different aspects of negative self talk so you can see which of them lines up with the negative thoughts you’re experiencing. Let’s do this.

Cognitive Distortions

The first one of these thought patterns that contribute to your poor self esteem are known as cognitive distortions. These distortions are irrational thought patterns that can easily affect your perception of reality. They’re most common in people with anxiety disorders and similar mental illnesses. They can easily lead people to believing things that will seem completely irrational to almost anyone else. Let’s go over some of these distortions:

Black and White Thinking: The first cognitive distortion is one that makes people think in extremes, with no regard for any sort of middle ground. Black and white thinkers are quick to jump to conclusions and don’t care much for finer details. They’re the type of person to give up after failing once. They’re the type of person to believe everything they see, without ever questioning anything. They’re also overly stubborn. Don’t be a black and white thinker.
Catastrophizing: Catastrophizing is basically blowing many small things out of proportion. It’s basically imagining the worst possible outcomes for every scenario you encounter in life. Not only that, but you’re also disregarding any positive outcomes that may come from something. People who think like this have a habit of prioritizing the risk over the reward, leading them to never take risks at all. In reality, the outcomes that these people envision are not rational at all. This thinking just leaved to the destruction of your self esteem.
Overgeneralization: This one is scarily common. Overgeneralization is basically taking one negative event and applying it broadly, assuming it will be true every time. A common example is someone failing once at something and then automatically thinking that they’ll fail at that one thing every other time. A lot of people do this, they try something once, fail, and then give up. This completely disregards the whole idea of improvement. It’s natural you won’t be good at something at first, but you can still improve. So don’t think like this.
Emotional Reasoning: Emotional reasoning is exactly as it sounds, trying to reason with yourself using your emotions. It occurs when you assume that because you feel a certain way, it must be true. Anyone who thinks that emotional reasoning is normal reasoning is just plain wrong. There is a fine line between emotional thinking and logical thinking. When your emotions take over you’re not going to be thinking clearly. An example of this is someone failing at something, feeling like a failure and then thinking they’re a failure because of that thought. See how irrational that is now?

Those are only a few examples but keep in mind that there are many more cognitive distortions out there. Luckily for you, they should be relatively easy to spot, since most of them are pretty similar to the 4 I just described. If you’re struggling to spot them though here’s a tip to help out.

Ok for this tip I’ll need an example of a cognitive distortion. Let’s make it something simple. Say you knew someone who had body dysmorphia (for those who don’t know what that is I provided a link to a definition). This person really doesn’t want to get fat. They constantly feel like they’re too fat, even if they look completely normal to most other people. As a result, this person tries their hardest to avoid eating, and they end up becoming really skinny. They end up getting so skinny that it’s unhealthy. Despite this though, they continue to avoid food out of fear of getting fat.

To most other people, this will be seen as completely irrational, and that’s because it is completely irrational. To the person in question though, they genuinely believe that if they eat more than what they do in a day then they’ll get fat. To show them that their thinking is irrational, I would present logic to them. Most other normal people on the planet eat 3 meals a day and most of them aren’t fat. Those that are fat eat way too much junk food and rarely exercise.

See what I mean? To get rid of your cognitive distortions, you have to attack with logic. And to do that, you need to look around and see if anyone else is worried about what you’re worked up about. If they’re not, then ask why that is and connect the dots from there. I know you can do this.

The Inner Critic

Next up is a guy who won’t shut up. You know that annoying guy who’s always lurking in the back of your mind who’s always berating you and telling you that you’re not good enough? Yeah we’re gonna talk about that guy now. This guy can easily undermine any efforts you make at improving your self esteem, so we have to silence him (or her). He’s also responsible for any bad decisions you make and is constantly urging you to give up and do the wrong thing. He’s just an all-round… wait I don’t know if I can say that word on here, moving on.

In order to shut this guy up, we have to break him down piece by piece (woah not like that, definitely not like that). I’ll try not to make it too long since this post is already over 4000 words, so let’s get into it:

The Origin: First up, we need to understand where this guy even comes from. He usually appears pretty early on in your life and his appearance is often tied to your upbringing and social interactions early on in life. The voice may even be tied to a few specific memories that caused him to appear in the first place. This is why this voice affects your self esteem so much, he’s been eating at you for years and destroying your self worth. That isn’t the worst of it though.
Reinforced beliefs: While the origin point may come from somewhere deep in your mind, his voice can easily be made stronger by external factors. These factors may be societal norms or any other events that happen to you. Either way, they’ll make the beliefs that keep the voice alive stronger, which makes him stronger, which in turn makes your self esteem even worse.
Exaggeration: This is by far your inner voice’s most common trait. The guy simply loves to exaggerate, it’s like second nature to him. Why does he do it so much though? Well that’s because it destroys your self esteem and self worth the most. His exaggerations make things seem way worse than they actually are, so keep that in mind.
Self-Sabotage: Oh, did I mention that this guy also loves to mess up any plans you may have to be productive or become a better person. He simply cannot help but lead you to doing self destructive behaviours like procrastination or avoidance. He also seems to be into urging you to keep up your unhealthy addictions, just to ruin all the self worth you built up even more. I bet he’s the reason many smokers can’t quit. What an a-hole right?
Comparison: Another one of his favorite strategies he uses to wreck your self esteem even further is comparing you unfavorably to others. It’s like an addiction of his. He’ll take any chance he can get to compare you to other people. He specifically does this to highlight your own shortcomings, and to ruin your self worth even more. Seriously this guy is an A class hater.

Now that we know the guy a little better, I say it’s time to learn how to fight back. You can’t just sit there and let him wreck every bit of self worth you’ve ever built up. At some point, you have to start saying no. And I’m here to tell you how to do that, so let’s go over some strategies already:

Externalization: To give yourself the best chance of winning against him, you’ll first need to distance yourself from his influence. How do you go about doing that you ask? Well that’s actually kind of a stupid question, since it’s in the title. That’s right, you’re going to externalize him from yourself. You can do this by giving the voice a name or an identity of its own. By doing this, you’re not affiliating him with your true self. This will reduce his impact on you significantly.
Challenge Negative Thoughts: Now that you’re well positioned thanks to externalization, it’s time for a counter attack. The next time he berates you and tries to ruin your self esteem, you have to fight back. The best way you can do that is by questioning how valid his claims really are. I know that they may seem like the truth but you have to remember that those arguments can be easily deconstructed. If you’re struggling with this, go look for some evidence. If you can’t find any, then make your own evidence by becoming someone who knows their own worth.
Positive Affirmations: Another thing that you can do alongside challenging the negative thoughts is counter them with your own positive affirmations. If you’ve read up to this point, then you must understand that this guy is only out to destroy your self esteem and self worth. He doesn’t care about anything else, so why would you believe this guy in the first place? Instead believe in the you that wants to improve, believe in the you that is working hard to become better. The fact that you’re reading this proves that you are indeed working to improve. So don’t let him have his way, counter his negativity with some positivity.
Practice Self Compassion: I doubt the voice in your head or whatever is a very compassionate character. Well of course he’s not, being that he wants to wreck your happiness and self esteem. So it’s up to you to be compassionate for yourself. Try your hardest to treat yourself with more kindness and compassion, trust me the voice will totally hate it. He may even up his game, but you won’t back down from that will you? You’ll just have to up your game too by being even kinder to yourself. Tell yourself not to listen to him, that he isn’t a part of you, and that you’re doing a great job.

And there are 4 of my personal favorite strategies that I used to combat my inner voice. Actually, the term ‘use’ would be more accurate, since he still shows up from time to time. Oh don’t worry though, he can’t lay a finger on me. Me fighting him now is like being level 99 in an RPG and heading back to the first area of the game and all the enemies that used to give you trouble now die in one hit. Yeah I practically own the guy, and you will too.

The Link Between the Two

Before we move onto the next section, we need to quickly establish the link between cognitive distortions. The two have an interesting link and I’m here to show it to you. I believe that the voice in your head is responsible for creating/maintaining many cognitive distortions, let’s break down why I think this. The voice’s goal is to destroy your self worth. He does this by attacking you and berating you. If you don’t know how to fight back against him, then it’ll lead you to believe everything he says when most of it isn’t true. This is creating cognitive distortions.

The voice also urges you to keep indulging in bad habits. Take that example I gave earlier about the person who didn’t want to eat, it was likely that this person’s inner voice was forcing them to keep away from eating. That voice was probably also telling them that if they eat, then they’ll get fat. This created a cognitive distortion in the person’s mind that if they eat more than what they are now, then they’ll get fat.

However, I don’t believes that he creates all cognitive distortions. There are many other outside factors that can easily create cognitive distortions in your mind like trauma or repeated failure. Cognitive distortions made by these factors usually give the inner voice more power over you. It’s quite concerning how linked the 2 are.

A Total Lifestyle Revamp – The Key To Improve Your Self Esteem

Alright, we’ve officially got the mental side of things out the way. I would apologize for it being so long but I can’t really help it when the info there is too valuable not to write down, all that’s left now is for you to take proper action and turn your life around for the better, since this is the best way to improve your self esteem.

Let’s face it, if you’re suffering with self esteem issues you’re likely not living your best life. An unsatisfactory lifestyle is one of the lead causes for self esteem issues after all. You know what kind of lifestyle I’m talking about, bored all day, practically living on the internet, too much time playing video games, no social life, terrible diet, uses vapes/smoking/drinking as an escape, no real ambitions. Ok you get the idea. You may not fall under all these categories but it’s likely that you fall under quite a few.

I’m here to help you change this kind of lifestyle though, so you can start living instead of just existing. I’ll break it down into sub sections as always so we can focus in on one aspect at a time. I’ll try not to make it too long either but sometimes it cannot be helped.

Self Care

First up on the checklist of things that you need to get right in life is self care. Without it, you’re not getting very far in anything else I mention here. For that reason, I call it the foundation of a high self esteem. If you truly want to love yourself, then you need to at least start taking good care of yourself.

To help you out with self care, I’ll go over a few things that you must do in order to take better care of yourself. Before we start though, I have something for you to keep in mind. Don’t just give up on these things after 1 week and go back to your usual unhealthier routine. I know it’s hard to stick it out sometimes but you must do it for a better future. These habits will become a part of your day-to-day life, so embrace them as much as you can.

Start Working Out

When it comes to self care, this is the first thing I recommend anyone to do. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, if you truly care about your health, then you should get your body in the best shape it can be in. This is the perfect way to start a self care and self improvement journey.

Going to the gym provides a huge number of benefits too, so let’s dive into some. First of all, it will improve your self esteem quite a bit. Being in good shape just naturally does that. It also forces you to partake in many other good habits (a few of which we’ll get into shortly) which will further improve your self esteem. Another interesting benefit is the respect you gain. When the results start showing, you’ll notice that people will start to respect you more, you’ll genuinely be treated a lot better wherever you go. Of course there will still be jealousy, but don’t bother getting mad at people for being jealous or making fun of them for it, that’s just looking down on them.

Also, try to go as often as you can and regardless of how you feel. If you skip out on the gym because you don’t feel like going, then you won’t ever get anywhere. There’s a very famous quote about this that I’m sure many of you know, it goes like this:

“The man who goes to the gym every day regardless of how he feels will always beat the man who only goes when he feels like it.”

This quote is so powerful that even The Rock himself acknowledged it.

So what are you waiting for? There’s no reason for you not to start going since it’s the perfect way to build up your self esteem and self worth.

Eat a Balanced Diet

Right alongside working out we have eating a balanced diet. You’ll have to do this if you want to see more results when working out, so you might as well start at the same time. It may take a little bit but once you do start eating well, you’ll notice the positive effect it has on your overall mood and energy levels.

What does ‘eating well’ entail though? Well there’s two things you need to remember about eating well. The first is that you should minimize the amount of junk food you are eating. In my country, it’s pretty normal to see people buy the bigger chocolate bars and eat them all in one day. You definitely shouldn’t be doing that. You should limit the junk food and straight up ban certain foods like sweets. They’re just no good for you

The second thing to keep in mind is that you should eat a variety of foods and not just the same few meals all the time. I know some of you love to eat instant noodles every day, and I’m very sorry to announce that you have to stop doing that. That’s not a varied or a healthy diet at all, you can’t eat like that. To eat a varied diet, you need to eat many foods. This doesn’t mean many junk foods, I see you bro. This means eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. See what I mean now? So make sure you eat well every day. Oh, and get your protein in too.

If you want to know what foods you should be eating, I actually have a post that goes over 7 healthy foods you should eat, I tried to include some unique ones so check it out if you want.

Fix Your Sleep Schedule

We’ve finally arrived at the most common issue when it comes to an unhealthy lifestyle. It’s honestly quite amazing how many people have a terrible sleep schedule, especially young people. I’m talking about people who go to bed at like 4-5am and wake up at like 1-2pm. That’s no way to live and you know it. You’re missing out on so much of the day by doing this. Plus, it just puts you in a terrible mood and you know it does.

Wanna fix that terrible mood? Start waking up and going to sleep earlier. What are you even doing that’s making you go to sleep so late anyways? Let me guess, is it a booty call? Just kidding, it’s probably mindless scrolling on social media. It could also be playing video games for way too long. Sure those things may feel good in the moment but you always regret doing them the following day no matter what. So put what you truly want before what you want in the moment and just do it.

I should probably give you a method on how to do this so you don’t keep repeating the same mistake of going to bed too late again and again. The best way to do it is to set yourself an absolute latest time that you must be asleep by. If you’re part of the 4-5am club then I recommend setting it at 2am to start. You should quickly lower this by half an hour or an hour when you start getting better at going to bed on time though. You should do this until you reach a time that you and your self esteem are both happy with.

To Sum It Up

For me, these 3 things lie at the core of self care. They’re the first things you should work on when starting to self care. Of course you should do other stuff too, but your main focus should be fixing your sleep and diet, as well as starting to work out. There is one other important thing that you should work on alongside these though, although I didn’t give it a proper section because it’s kinda self explanatory. That other thing is getting over any bad habits you may have. This includes the usual suspects when it comes to the topic of bad habits: smoking, drinking, vaping. They have all got to go. I’m thinking of doing an entire post about getting over bad habits, so stay tuned.

There’s also many other small things you can do to improve yourself in the world of self care, with each thing giving you a small self esteem boost along with it. These things include buying new clothes and getting a new style, getting a new haircut and taking better care of your skin. You know, just small things that make a big difference. Doing these things show how willing you are to become better.

The Power of Positive Relationships

Next up on the complete lifestyle overhaul list is the topic of friendships and relationships. That’s right, your relationships may have a bigger effect on your self esteem than you think, so let’s see how you can better your relationships.

Removing Negative Influences

The first thing you must do to better your relationships is distance yourself from negative influences. Negative influences can easily impact your self esteem, and drive you down a dark path. That’s why they need to be removed. So let’s go over how to do just that.

The first thing you need to do is identify a negative influence. To do this, you should try and look for toxic relationship dynamics. You can spot them using the person in questions’ actions, as well as your own feelings. When it comes to their actions, you should try and look for red flags like peer pressure, gaslighting or comments that are meant to undermine your self worth. When it comes to your feelings, you should try and see how you feel when you think about that person. Do you feel happy around them? Do they make you feel happy? Do you trust them? Doing this should give you the answers you’re searching for.

Now that you’ve identified the negative influence, all you have to do is remove yourself from that environment. Some people don’t really handle this the best, so I’ll tell you how I would personally handle it, and you do whatever you like with that information, sound cool? Let’s do this. A common mistake this is made by many is to start an argument or a fight with the person in question for basically no reason. There’s no point in doing this, trust me. They may be a bad influence but they’re still a person who deserves some form of respect. Besides, you’ll become a bad influence yourself if you act like that all the time.

The better way to handle it is to respectfully walk away from the situation. No insults or arguments involved, it’s better to do things clean and respectfully. You’re not a kid anymore so you shouldn’t let your emotions get the better of you. Doing that will just lead you down the wrong path. You don’t wanna end up like the bad influences you’re trying to escape.

Also, don’t try the whole “Well if I leave them I won’t have any friends!” act. Trust me on this one, it’s better to have no friends than the wrong friends.

Surround Yourself With Positivity

Naturally, the next step in this process would be to forge some positive relationships. This is easier said than done though, but not impossible. You just have to be willing to put yourself out there and search for those positive relationships. You need to know what you’re searching for though, so here’s a few examples of positive relationships to search for:

Supportive Friends: This first one is pretty obvious. Instead of “friends” who constantly bring you down (they can hardly even be called friends), you need to surround yourself with people who support you. You know, people who believe in you and celebrate your successes with you, while also not abandoning you during your failures. These people will do wonders for your self esteem and self worth, trust me on that one.
Friendly Rivalries: A friendly rivalry is a great way for you to push yourself to become even better. There should be no malice involved though, since malice and unhealthy competition are never good for your self esteem. You shouldn’t be focused on being better than the other person, you should be focused on pushing each other to become stronger and better. The gym is ideal for these kinds of friendships.
Mentors and Role Models: These are the kinds of people who you can seek guidance from. You may already have some in your life and if you do, don’t be afraid to reach out to them. I’m sure they would be happy to help you out no matter what issue you’re facing. They’ll be there to help raise your self awareness when being lost, or remind you of your self worth when you’re feeling down. Don’t expect them to do everything for you though. They may provide a solution, but it’s up to you to execute it.

Now that is what I call positivity. Having relationships like that will do wonders for your self esteem. These people will make you feel like you belong, and give you a sense of purpose. If you’re really struggling to make friends though, I actually wrote a blogpost all about making friends that you can read here. You can thank me later.

Effective Communication Skills

Making all these new friends is nice, but it’s gonna be hard doing that if you can’t properly communicate with others. I know I just provided a link to my making friends guide, but I know some of you guys are lazy so I got you covered here too. I also didn’t go too deep into communication skills in that guide, I focused more on mental preparation and the best places to meet people. So I might as well go over some quick communication tips. Learning this is sure to give you a little self esteem boost too, so let’s go.

Expressing Yourself: The first thing you must do in orde to get better at talking to people is learn how to express yourself better. You need to be able to express your thoughts and feelings clearly. To do this, you just have to speak up and say what you feel. Don’t make it come across as awkward though. Just start voicing your opinion in conversations more. And if someone says or does something you’re not a fan of, don’t be afraid to speak up. Just remember to be respectful though.
Lead Conversations: A good skill to know is how to lead conversations and take charge in them. If done right, this can make you a more likable person and provide you with another cheeky self esteem boost. To do this, you have to speak with a loud voice, but not shouting obviously. You have to ask questions, give opinions and make sure your words are loud and powerful enough to reach everyone. Throw in the occasional joke for good measure too. Just make sure everyone is taking part, and the conversation is interesting. Oh, and no interrupting.
Active Listening: A common mistake many people do is to not listen to what others say properly, this happens when you get too impatient and only want it to be your turn to speak. You can’t do this, this may actually harm other people’s self esteem if they feel like you’re not paying attention to them. Remember: talk like you know what you know what you’re doing, listen like you don’t.

Chasing Your Dreams

If you’re especially sharp, you would’ve noticed a pattern forming among the things that I said improve your self esteem. Almost all of those things involve learning something new or achieving something. It is my firm belief that your self esteem is directly tied to your self worth, and your self worth is tied to self improvement as well as how much you’ve achieved. So for the final section, I wanna talk about chasing your dreams. There’s gonna be no order either, just my ramblings.

First of all, imagine how good you would feel about yourself if you actually achieved your dreams, the self esteem boost would honestly be insane. You won’t just get the boost at the end though, that would just be unnatural. Remember all those quotes? The ones about it not being about the goal but the journey? Well these apply here too. By chasing your dreams, you’re essentially going on a journey and leveling up as a person. The growth you obtain along the way will shoot your self esteem through the roof.

If you don’t have any dreams, then you need to have some. Dreams are what give life meaning you know. You have to start the search. And yes, before you ask, I have a guide for that too,. It’s a guide about what to do if you’re feeling lost that you can check out here. I understand that it’s hard to find your passion but it’s not impossible, so don’t give up.

Now, time to wrap things up.

Wrapping Things Up

Well that does it for the self esteem guide. I’m really going in on the less but longer sections in these guides lately, it seems to be going well too.

So, to sum it up, I believe that improving your self esteem consists of 2 core aspects: Mastering your mind, and leveling up as a person. Striving to improve and achieve great things is the best way to value yourself more. That’s why so many people have self esteem issues, because they don’t have control over their mind and they aren’t actively pursuing their dreams.

So make sure you wrestle control of your mind and chase your dreams. It won’t be easy, but you have to do it. And I believe in you.