hey everyone and welcome to top think today we're going to learn about seven simple ways to
boost your self-esteem now let's begin number one record your story the word self-esteem gets used
in a lot of different contexts it's a stand-in for everything from confidence to self-worth but the
real definition of self-esteem is actually pretty simple self-esteem is how you feel about yourself
that's it it's all the positive and negative feelings that affect your vision of who you are
and what you can do but it isn't always easy to figure out who you are the majority of people feel
confused about their identity on a regular basis and that confusion just breeds more negativity
more feelings of inadequacy when you don't know how you feel about yourself you naturally lean
toward self-criticism because in your head someone who values themselves would know the
reason why but the truth is you have hundreds if not thousands of reasons to appreciate yourself to
feel good about who you are but like most people you take that positivity for granted you let it
slip into the back of your mind or fade away from your personality instead you focus on the
one or two negative feelings that keep swirling around in your brain so what can you do to bring
that positivity back to the surface what's the best way to reflect on all the reasons why you
deserve your own respect recording your life story is a fun and therapeutic strategy that
countless people have used not only does it help you remember what you love about yourself but
telling your story also motivates you to maintain that positivity in the future but it's not just
about reflection the fact that you're writing down your story plays an important role because
when you write something down you have to be clear you have to be concrete you're forcing
yourself to be specific about who you are so if you're feeling confused your story can give you
the clarity that you're looking for number two a point of pride instead of looking back in time
you can also boost your self-esteem by setting goals for the future okay just imagine you're
an aspiring author but you've never actually written a book before you've written plenty of
short stories but you've always been too scared to try something bigger maybe you're worried you're
going to fail or you're just feeling overwhelmed and you don't have enough faith in yourself to
take on the challenge how can you build the self-esteem you need to accomplish your dreams
try setting something called a point of pride a point of pride is one specific goal that you
accomplish in order to prove something to yourself going back to our previous example your point of
pride might be to write one chapter because if you can write one chapter that means you can
write another and another until you've finished your entire book by creating and achieving your
point of pride you're giving yourself a consistent source of motivation and more importantly a source
of self-esteem by taking this small step you'll discover a genuine confidence in yourself your
ultimate goals will finally feel like something you can realistically accomplish all you have to
do is pick one manageable but challenging point of Pride and concentrate all your attention on that
single goal if you can do that your self-esteem will start to skyrocket number three studying
yourself you can also boost your self-esteem by changing basic things like the way you speak for
example you might be using self critical language you undercut your own success you belittle your
own accomplishments and you overrate the value of the people around you the problem is you
probably don't even realize that you're doing it it's become almost automatic for you so how do
you change something that you don't even think about try studying the way you speak every time
you undermine your own achievements go and write it down that way you can focus your attention on
your harmful language and gradually change it for the better you may not notice a difference
at first but over time this simple strategy will have a huge impact on your self-esteem
number four practice self compassion one of the hardest things of building self-esteem is learning
how to forgive your own mistakes you want to be perfect you want to be respected and successful so
whenever that doesn't happen you either pretend that nothing happened or you become your own
worst enemy you criticize yourself and you hold a grudge but both of these approaches have the same
fundamental problem they're focused on preserving the good you're trying to maintain this fragile
image of yourself you expect to be that perfect successful person so you react negatively every
time that doesn't happen you either ignore your mistakes or you tear yourself down and slowly
but surely you chip away at your self-esteem so what should you do instead the real secret behind
your self-esteem has nothing to do with preserving the good it's about forgiving the bad you'll spend
the rest of your life making mistakes we all do there's just no way around it so before you can
believe in yourself you have to learn to live with those failures little by little you can boost your
self-esteem by actively forgiving yourself each time you say something stupid or make a careless
error just take a minute to acknowledge what you did wrong and then no matter what cut yourself
some slack number-5 revisit your past have you always struggled with low self-esteem or can you
remember a time in your life where self-esteem was the last thing on your mind many people go through
highs and lows throughout their life they start accomplishing their goals in developing healthy
habits so they feel positive and confident until some kind of failure knocks them down a peg if
you're stuck in one of those valleys you can use this easy trick to climb your way back out think
back to the happiest time in your life when were you the most motivated when did you love yourself
the most it really doesn't matter if it was last week last year or even decades ago reflect on
that point in your life and ask yourself this important question how did you climb to the top
of that mountain what about that period of your life stands out the most maybe you were excelling
at work or you might have had an amazing group of friends often times by reflecting on our past we
learn new things about what makes us happy for example many people like to say their career
oriented they focus all their time and energy on work but their job consistently makes them
feel inadequate or insecure so they think back to their happiest moments and they realize something
that changes their life they feel the best about themselves when they're helping others not when
they're concentrating on their career my point here is if you're struggling with self-esteem
revisiting your past is a simple and rewarding way to turn your mentality around and you might
just discover something new about yourself in the process number six go your own way people
want to fit in whether you're 15 years old or 50 you might think about your social standing
more than you'd like to admit it crosses your mind when you're getting dressed in the morning
when you're walking through the grocery store or when you're sitting down at your desk but the more
you think about your social standing the harder it is to build self-esteem huge study which analyzed
over a thousand participants found that people who spend time trying to fit in have lower self-esteem
on average it doesn't matter if you're popular unpopular or somewhere in the middle because
it's not about whether you fit in the best thing you can do for your self-esteem is to stop caring
altogether that's right do at least one thing every day that separates you from the rest of
the herd it could be a change in your style or some obscure new hobby it really doesn't matter
as long as you're carving your own path when you're focused on making yourself happy you'll
discover all kinds of new reasons to cherish your individuality number seven reclaim your values if
I ask you what things were the most important to you what would you say for most people it's
not that hard of a question it only takes a few seconds to prove your values to me but how long
has it been since you've proved your values to yourself even though you know what your values
are they might have faded into the background maybe they've gotten lost in your usual habits
and routines you might forget to make time for your family or you may have lost touch with your
passions by reclaiming your values you can remind yourself who you are you can remember what makes
your life worthwhile because that's ultimately where most of your self-esteem comes from when
you know yourself and the kind of person that you are you can learn to like yourself so set aside
some time every week or every day if you can to reclaim your values make some kind of conscious
decision that proves who you are you might put away work to spend quality time with your family
or skip a night out to get back in touch with your creative side each time you make these choices not
only do your values get stronger you also feel proud to call them your own hey thank you for
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