Increasing self-esteem: Tips for increasing self-esteem

February 10, 2017

Sometimes you may feel that you are worthless. This makes it difficult to have self-esteem. Instead, it is important to increase your self-esteem so you don't fall into a slump and feel even more worthless. Increasing self-esteem can be done in several ways and has many benefits.

To ensure that you get the most out of yourself and find the most happiness in your life, in this blog I will discuss ways to increase your self-esteem.

Sense of self-worth

The word self-esteem already says something about its meaning. Self-esteem is the sense of how valuable you are to those around you. Because you attribute this feeling to yourself, it is also known as self-esteem.

Self-esteem is about valuing who you are and what you stand for. This can be about several things, such as appreciation for your appearance, appreciation for your character traits and appreciation for the work you do.

So the level of self-esteem need not always be the same. Perhaps you do all sorts of things super well at work and therefore have high self-esteem at work. However, if that means you have less time for your family and friends, that self-esteem can drop again when it comes to the social aspects of life.

Then you have the character traits, such as being very proud and therefore quick when someone jokes with you.

This combination of factors can be very important for the image you have of yourself. In addition, your level of self-confidence and self-assurance also plays a role in how much you value yourself ( 1).

Also check out this video on improving your self-esteem:

Self-Acceptance

For good self-esteem, it is important to accept yourself as you are. There is also evidence that this is quite possible.

For example, there are people who are stigmatized, such as homosexuals or transgender people, who have high self-esteem and confidence despite this.

This already shows that accepting yourself is important for raising your self-esteem.

Research also reveals another paradox. Namely, there is an expectation that people become more insecure with increasing age, but nothing could be further from the truth. People who age can actually have higher levels of self-confidence and self-esteem( 2).

This may also be because as you get older, you know more and more about life and are better able to accept yourself.

There are multiple ways to accept yourself as you are.

Accepting Your Body

Every day we look in the mirror and see something we like and don't like. Unfortunately, we don't always see our bodies as a whole, but zoom in on "parts" we like and don't like.

If you don't accept your body as it is, because you feel, for example, that you are too fat or too thin, this is often due to things that happened in the past. Perhaps your mother or father competed with you because they had trouble growing old. Perhaps you compared yourself too much to models to accept your "normal" body.

By identifying where not accepting your body started, it is already much easier to accept your body just the way it is.

If you find this difficult, a hypnotherapist can help you through regression therapy.

In addition, your body is not just something other people can see. It is the body you carry with you all your life that allows you to do all kinds of things, such as walking, typing, talking and making sure you can dance when you feel like it.

Through yoga , you can focus more on your body’s functions and, as a result, develop a greater appreciation for your body and yourself.

Accepting Your Character

First of all, I want to emphasize here that nobody is perfect. I, too, have my flaws; for example, I can completely wallow in the role of a victim before I pull myself together to solve my problems.

Everyone has little things they just can't seem to change. Those little things can be just that little trait that makes you unique.

To better accept your character, there is actually 1 question that is very important to ask yourself:

Do other people suffer from this trait?

For example, if you get angry over nothing, this can be annoying to others. But if that anger actually stems from the fact that you snap at someone who’s playing a joke on you, it might actually be a trait that the people around you find endearing. “Because you always snap back, hahahaha”—in that case, you’re actually the one who’s most bothered by it.

Self-compassion for self-esteem

We live in a tough world. Bullying behavior is a major social problem. Bullying has long since ceased to be something that reveals itself only at school, but it is increasingly happening at work as well.

This can be very bad for your sense of self-esteem. Therefore, sometimes it is necessary to increase your self-esteem. Even if it's just to speak up after an evaluation meeting with your manager.

Of course there are things to improve, but what you can't do yet you can learn. So you are certainly not worthless.

In doing so, it's also important not to hang your self-esteem completely on the things you achieve in business. Research on students shows that students who make their self-esteem dependent on their grades have lower self-esteem at times when their grades are down.

This could have unpleasant consequences in the future. After all, getting fired is the worst thing that can happen to you, and it can lower your self-esteem tremendously. This is very unnecessary, for example if your dismissal is the result of a reorganization or if it is the result of a loss-making company in which you are not responsible for sales or can do anything you want to do to boost those sales.

It is precisely during these kinds of difficult moments that self-compassion is important for boosting your self-esteem.

Increasing your self-esteem through self-compassion can be done in several ways.

Increasing self-esteem with self-hypnosis

For example, you can use self-hypnosis to increase your self-esteem. First, you can write down all the positive aspects of yourself.

For example:

My body is functioning properly.
I am always there for my friends.
At work, I always look for the best solution.
I help out colleagues when they need a day off.
Increase self-esteem with a journal.

By finding out these kinds of positive traits about yourself, you can repeat them to yourself during self-hypnosis. You may read them aloud at first, but over time they become a real mantra.

By continuing to repeat these suggestions, they become beliefs that boost your self-esteem.

Increasing self-esteem by helping others

Another way to increase your self-esteem with self-compassion is to show compassion to other people.

Helping other people has all kinds of benefits. One of those benefits is that it becomes very clear that you have real value, even if you’re sitting on the couch unemployed. Even if you’ve become disabled. Even if you feel like you can’t really be of help to anyone.

Just by doing it, you'll notice immediately that you can help others, which is good for your self-confidence and self-esteem.

Increasing self-esteem with mindfulness

A third way to boost your self-esteem is by practicing mindfulness. How often do you have a thought that undermines your self-esteem? “I can’t do this at all.” Or “Nobody likes me.” Or “I need to be harder on myself.” These are examples of thoughts that actually hurt you.

By keeping an eye on your thoughts, you can stop negative thinking faster. Mindfulness allows you to enjoy the here and now more, and therefore negative thoughts also fall through faster.

With such a negative thought, you can ask yourself the following question.

Would you say the same to a friend who is in the same situation?

If the answer then is "No," you may not say it to yourself either. Why should you be more strict with yourself than with your friends? In the end, you have their best interests at heart, too.

So it's important to keep in mind that self-esteem is about more than just accepting and appreciating your body. Self-esteem is also about valuing your thoughts, behaviors and the work you do. It is important to accept and appreciate the good and not so good sides of yourself for what it is.

Only when other people are really affected by character traits is it important to change your behavior, and otherwise it can actually be an asset of yours while you don't even realize it.

Would you like to learn more about mental techniques to boost your self-esteem? Then join the free online masterclass on hypnosis. Or check out the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.

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