INCREASING YOUR SELF ESTEEM

 LIKING YOURSELF
Developing self esteem is about liking yourself and appreciating your talents, abilities and
attributes. This does not mean becoming egotistical or vain. It merely means acknowledging your good traits and qualities.
Your self concept has a great deal to do with your self esteem. If you continually tell yourself
you are a failure, a loser, a poor student or whatever terms you use to put yourself down, you are
feeding your low self esteem and creating a negative attitude. You are reinforcing what others wrongly caused you to feel about yourself. If you accept that they were wrong, or perhaps ignorant in doing this to you, why would you chose to do the same thing to yourself?

TAKING ACTION TO IMPROVE YOURSELF
Building self esteem requires action; it is not something you can wish for, purchase or borrow.
There are things you can do everyday to help build your self esteem. Here are just a few:
⇒ practice positive thinking
⇒ visualize success everyday
⇒ accept compliments and believe them
⇒ seek counseling through difficult times
⇒ identify your values
⇒ identify your goals
⇒ be honest in expressing your strengths, talents, and skills
⇒ learn from constructive criticism
⇒ write down your accomplishments everyday
⇒ give yourself credit every day
⇒ take action on ideas you believe in
⇒ nourish your physical, mental and spiritual self
⇒ forgive those who have hurt you
⇒ make time for self development every day
"It is only by taking risks everyday that we live at all."

PATTERNS OF LOW SELF ESTEEM

PATTERNS OF LOW SELF ESTEEM
Self esteem develops in childhood and forms patterns of thinking and behaving. These patterns tend to reinforce self esteem, whether low or high, and become habits. In some cases, these habits can be very destructive, causing us to feed and nurture feelings of low self esteem even when there are no reasons for it. In other words, things in our lives may have changed significantly since childhood, we may no longer be subject to the influences that contributed to our low self esteem, yet we perpetuate it by our beliefs and behaviors. We keep our self esteem low when we should be striving to raise it. How does this happen?
Low self esteem is perpetuated by our behaviors, thoughts and actions.

 Read the following list and check those items that you think contribute to your low self esteem:
___ A lack of faith, both in myself, other people and the world around me.
___ A lack of purpose or meaning in my life.
___ A lack of goals to motivate and guide me.
___ Dependence on others for a sense of importance or meaning in my life.
___ Failing to accept responsibility for my life and well-being.
___ Failing to recognize, appreciate and reward myself.
___ Adhering to false concepts and assumptions about myself.
___ Feelings of negativity toward myself and others.
___ Failing to develop my abilities and talents.
___ Comparing myself to others.
___ Feeling I have to prove myself to others.
___ Feeling a need to give in, please or agree with others to be accepted.
___ Feeling I have to prove myself to others.
___ Resisting, fretting or worrying about things I can do nothing about.
___ Not allowing myself the freedom to make mistakes and fail.
___ Not allowing myself freedom of self expression.
___ Being impatient, harsh or demanding of myself.

DEFINE WHO AM I?......

Self Esteem

Self esteem is a state of mind. It is the way you think and feel about yourself. Having high self esteem means having feelings of confidence, worthiness and positive regard for yourself. People with high self esteem feel good about themselves. They feel a sense of belonging and security. They respect themselves and appreciate others. They tend to be successful in life because they feel confident in taking on challenges and risking failure to achieve what they want. They have more energy for positive pursuits because their energy is not wasted on negative emotions, feelings of inferiority or working hard to take care of or please others at the expense of their own self-care.

Factors affecting  Self Esteem

The amount of self esteem you have depends on many factors -- how you were raised, parental attitudes, life experiences, etc. Sometimes people lose self esteem and feel bad about themselves because of failures or disappointments in life, or because of the way others in their lives have treated them. It is important to know that self-esteem can be gained at any time in life. Ideally, it happens in childhood; realistically, most people have to cultivate it later in life.

Why develop Self Esteem?The rewards of developing self esteem include being able to take risks, having positive relationships, not being held back by fears and insecurities, pursuing your dreams and desires, making good choices and reaching your goals.

WHAT CAUSES LOW SELF ESTEEM?It is believed that low self esteem is caused, in part, by negative emotional responses.Criticism, teasing, punishment and abuse, poverty, economic deprivation, failure in school and many other factors affect our feelings of self-worth. Even race, religion, the media, culture and sex have an influence on how we feel about ourselves.
When negative thoughts and feelings take root early in life, they can become powerful thought patterns that form habits of thinking. Before long, we begin to think in ways that limit our growth and self-development. We begin to doubt ourselves and feel dissatisfied. We become afraid to accept challenges and feel unworthy, even when we do accomplish important things. The deeper these thought patterns take root, the lower our self esteem falls, until we cannot envision what it is like to feel good about ourselves.