Does a healthy relationship boost your self-esteem or does higher self esteem increases your chances of having a well-balanced relationship? It’s actually like the question whether the hen come first or the egg.
Sometimes we find it tough to take risks even when there’s a fair chance of success, or stop ruminating about something past, or handle criticism even when it’s constructive. And the key to managing these better is to work for getting a higher value of self-worth.
Roadmap to higher self esteem
Practical tips for higher self-esteem and a more satisfying approach to life:
1. Handling external influences
Let’s first tackle the obvious point, how to handle external things that boost or hurt how we feel about ourselves. Things like social comparison, financial struggles, relationship problems, and other such external influences make a big chunk of the things that have power to ding our self-esteem.
Now, we all have problems, some have it way worse than others, but what helps is to understand, things that aren’t really meaningful to you on a deep level can only affect your self-worth for a short while.
And the second thing that helps is mindfully choosing a stack of values to base your worth on not only because those qualities are generally valued, but because you find them meaningful on a deeper level.
And the key is to put only those things into your cart which you have control over, the things you can change.
2. Your inner voice
Okay, so now that you have chosen your stack of values, get a realistic picture of where you are at. Sit quietly, introspect, and get a clear picture without any judgment.
Write down 5 points each of your strengths and weaknesses.
The list of strengths will act as a confirmation of your self-worth & buffer for your confidence while you figure out an action plan to deal with the list of weaknesses. These weaknesses, when worked on, are going to act as your stepping stones to reach higher self-esteem.
The key is to simply focus, commit, get started and small step by small manageable step make a big impact on your self-esteem that’s going to show now and beyond.
3. Emotional resilience for higher self esteem
There will be times when you still feel bad about things you know you shouldn’t or fall into the comparison trap because we are hardwired in a way to instantly react in a certain way to certain things. So, it’s totally normal.
Allow yourself those moments of painful emotion, let it out, because holding it in would cause it to build up and come out even more forcefully later.
But be aware of when to stop and how to move on. This will train your brain to better handle emotions in tougher situations.
When we accept that there are areas where we can change, improve, grow…and that we are even ready to be uncomfortable to work on filling out those chinks…it boosts our self-esteem. We start respecting ourselves more.
