To become successful (no matter where exactly) you need to have confidence in your own abilities. It is extremely difficult for a person with low self-esteem to succeed and even just become happy: their whole life is built on doubts, disappointments and companies in themselves. And at this time, bright moments fly by, stopping in front of those who are confident in their abilities. Today we will reflect on how to increase self-esteem and love yourself with the help of simple and effective techniques.
This is a person's understanding of the importance of his own personality and individuality in the context of relationships with other people, as well as an assessment of his qualities, pluses and minuses. Self-esteem plays a huge role in the normal activity of a person in society and in solving various everyday problems: realization, family, finances and spirituality.
This quality performs the following functions:
- protection - ensuring the stability and relative autonomy of a person from the opinions of other people;
- regulation - gives people the opportunity to make personal choices;
- development - providing an incentive for self-improvement.
Ideally, self-esteem is based only on a person's own opinion of himself. However, in real life, it is influenced by multiple side factors, for example, the assessment of others: parents, peers, friends, friends and colleagues.
Adequate self-esteem (or ideal) experts call the most accurate assessment of the personality of their skills and abilities. Low self-esteem often leads to excessive doubt, introspection, and withdrawal. Overestimated is fraught with loss of caution and making multiple mistakes.
It's important to know! In psychological practice, low self-esteem is more common, when a person is not able to reveal his own potential, and in especially severe cases, experts talk about an inferiority complex.
What affects self-esteem?
So, the meaning of adequate self-perception is to "love" yourself as a real one - even with minuses, shortcomings and various "vices". Everyone has flaws, but a confident person is distinguished from others by the fact that he, first of all, notices his successes and is able to present himself favorably to society.
If you hate yourself or just consider yourself a failure, how can another person love you? Psychologists note an interesting fact: most people subconsciously (and perhaps knowingly) gravitate towards communicating with self-sufficient individuals. Usually they prefer to choose such as business partners, friends and spouses.
Symptoms of low self-esteem
In people with similar problems, such character traits are most often distinguished as:
Low self-esteem causes a person to perceive temporary setbacks and problems as permanent "life partners", which leads to wrong conclusions and wrong decisions. Do you feel bad about yourself? Get ready for the fact that others will react negatively to you. And this is already fraught with alienation, depressive moods and even emotional disorders.
4 reasons for low self-esteem
It is extremely difficult to indicate all the factors influencing the attitude of the individual towards himself. Psychologists attribute to them innate characteristics, appearance and position in society. Next, we look at the four most common causes of low self-esteem in a person.
Reason #1.
Have you heard the phrase that every problem “grows” from childhood? In our situation, it fits one hundred percent. At an early age, there is a direct dependence of the child's self-esteem on the attitude of parents and other significant adults towards him. If a mother and father constantly scold and compare children with their peers, they will not have faith in their own abilities.
Psychological science claims that it is the family that is the center of the universe for the child. In the cell of society, absolutely all the character traits of the future adult are formed. Lack of initiative, uncertainty, passivity are the consequences of parental attitudes.
Reason number 2. Children's failures 
We all face failure, the most important thing is our reaction to them. Psychological trauma in childhood can cause low self-esteem. For example, a child begins to blame himself for the divorce of his mother and father or family scandals. Constant guilt turns into insecurity and unwillingness to make decisions.
In addition, children react sharply to any harmless failure. Ranked second in a competition? An older person will simply redouble their efforts to achieve the goal, and a small person may refuse to work at all, especially if a significant adult has injured him with a ridicule or a careless remark.
Reason number 3."Unhealthy" environment
Adequate self-esteem and aspiration arise only in an environment where success and achievement of results are valued.
If people from the immediate environment do not seek the initiative, it is difficult to expect confidence from an individual.
We are not saying that it is necessary to completely refuse to communicate with such people (especially if they are close relatives). However, it is worth at least thinking about whether you have been captured by such a disregard for self-realization.
Reason number 4. Features of appearance and health
Quite often, low self-perception appears in children and adolescents who have a non-standard appearance or congenital diseases. Yes, relatives treat their “non-standard” child correctly, but he is not immune from the opinions of his peers, who, unfortunately, are ruthless, like all children.
A common example is fat kids who, in preschool and school institutions, become owners of the most unpleasant and offensive nicknames. Low self-esteem will not take long in such situations.
How to increase self-esteem: effective methods
If a person has realized his problems and decided to raise his self-esteem, he has already taken the first step towards confidence. We offer some of the most effective and efficient recommendations.
- Change of environment.
Negative people are not the best society for a self-doubting individual.
Psychologists advise you to reconsider your own social circle, including successful, self-confident, positively related individuals. Gradually, confidence and self-respect will return to a person. - Refusal of self-flagellation.
It is extremely difficult to increase self-esteem by regularly blaming yourself, speaking negatively about your own abilities. Experts recommend avoiding negative assessments regarding their appearance, personal life, career, financial situation.
Priority is given to positive feedback. - Avoiding comparisons. You are the only such person in the world: unique, unique, combining advantages and disadvantages. In addition, it is quite easy to find people who have achieved much greater success in any field of activity. A possible option is to compare yourself (with new achievements) with the former, unwilling to change.
- Listening to affirmations.
This difficult word in psychological literature means short verbal formulas that create a positive attitude in the human subconscious.
Affirmation should be formulated in the present tense so that the person perceives it as a given. For example: "I am a beautiful and smart woman", "I own my own life." It is better to repeat such phrases in the morning and before going to bed, and you can also record them on a voice recorder. - Doing unusual things.
The desire of a man or woman to escape into a zone of personal comfort and "hide in a shell" is quite natural.
It is easier for us in a difficult situation to console ourselves, our beloved (beloved) with goodies, alcohol, tears. We do not call for extreme sports, just try to face the problem face to face. - Training attendance. In large cities, trainings, courses and seminars are regularly held to help increase confidence and raise self-esteem. Of course, it is necessary to find a real expert in psychology, and not "konoval", which, unfortunately, is also lacking. Another option is to read psychological literature and watch fiction and documentary videos on the topic.
- Sports. One of the most accessible opportunities for raising self-esteem is playing sports. Regular physical exercises make a person less critical of his own appearance and with more respect for himself. During exercise, people release dopamines, the so-called joy hormones.
- Diary of achievements. Both the girl and the young man are helped by diaries of their own successes, in which they should make notes about each of their small victories, achievements, even small ones. For example, every day 3-5 “little things” are written in such a notebook: they transferred the granny across the road, learned 10 new foreign words, earned 500 rubles more this month than last.
Increased self-esteem is closely related to self-guilt and self-rejection. How to love yourself and increase self-esteem for a man and a woman? Very simple and, at the same time, difficult - be kinder and more tolerant of your own personality. The following methods will help you with this.
Adequate self-esteem and self-confidence is not a fantasy, but a quite probable development of events. The most important thing for a person is to understand the importance of change and have the desire to go in the right direction: a change in personal life, career, appearance. Remember that self-love in some situations must be earned by going through dissatisfaction and self-abasement.
Hello, I'm Nadezhda Plotnikova. Having successfully studied at SUSU as a special psychologist, she devoted several years to working with children with developmental problems and advising parents on the upbringing of children. I apply the experience gained, among other things, in the creation of psychological articles. Of course, in no case do I pretend to be the ultimate truth, but I hope that my articles will help dear readers deal with any difficulties.
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52 comments on the article " 8 Ways to Boost Self-Esteem and Love Yourself»
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You're not right. Reminds me of a little green goblin! Stop blaming your parents for your shortcomings. If you are not a teenager and over 19 years old, you should be in charge of your own life and not look back! How can a person be compared to a tree? And even if they compared, then think about if the trunk is curved but growing, can it be directed in the other direction? Thus, to give not a standard even shape, but much more beautiful and interesting? (YES IT IS POSSIBLE AND EVEN NECESSARY) The brain develops up to 25 - 27 years. You can independently bring up in yourself the one you want to see every morning in the mirror!
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Absolutely agree with you.
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Man is not a tree. I do not agree. A person can change.
My grandmother constantly told me in my childhood that I have ugly ears, a nose, eyes, and in general I’m all so-so, and I don’t need to be too much of an upstart, I need to be like everyone else ... I still can’t completely eradicate it. But the self-esteem of travel has increased, when in different countries you catch thousands of admiring glances of men, young men, boys. When they want to get acquainted, or take a picture with me. THIS is what really cured me.
As a person with low self-esteem, it helps a lot to keep a diary of my achievements. When I start to doubt myself, I reread the useful things that I have done and my mood instantly improves!
A person is like a tree, if it has grown a little crooked, it can’t be leveled) No matter how much you “hit your head against the wall”, but, as we were programmed from childhood by our parents, a kindergarten-school and a close circle of friends ... this is how we will eke out an existence all our lives . The most offensive and paradoxical thing is that, it turns out, our parents, without knowing it themselves ... made us so unhappy. Because their parents made them unhappy, and so on. and it is unlikely that a psychologist / psychiatrist will greatly change the situation, and the person himself understands himself even less ... therefore, re-read at least a thousand articles, and you will remain the same notorious creature, like this.