By Ida Cathrine Jakobsen, psychologist
If you want to improve your self-esteem, it’s important to become more aware of how you think about yourself. Negative thoughts are often a critical part of the problem.
We all have thoughts and feelings about who we are as people. A number of different terms – self-confidence, self-image, self-esteem and self-respect – are linked to the perception we have of ourselves, as well as how we judge ourselves.
Among the most commonly used terms in this context are self-esteem and self-confidence. The latter refers to your confidence in your ability to master a situation, and is linked to specific achievements. For example, the same person may feel very confident on the football field, but much less confident when giving a speech at their best friend’s wedding.
Self-esteem is a broader concept and often refers to your sense of worth as a person, regardless of your achievements:
- It is about knowing and respecting yourself, including both your strengths and weaknesses.
- It is possible to have great self-confidence in several areas, while at the same time have difficulty seeing yourself as a good and valuable person.
Low self-esteem
Unfortunately, low self-esteem is an all-too-familiar problem for many.
People who struggle with low self-esteem are often very self-conscious and can become overly focused on what others might think about them, rather than paying attention to what they themselves think. People with low self-esteem may put other people’s preferences and needs ahead of their own because they don’t see their own as equally important. This may show up as difficulty expressing your needs or setting boundaries with others.
People with low self-esteem may also have feelings of inadequacy in many areas.
They may also be very critical of themselves, which can make it harder to get started on tasks. Low self-esteem is often expressed socially, at school or at work, as well as in one’s personal life. In short, low self-esteem can have a profound effect on a person’s overall enjoyment of life.
4 tips on how to improve your self-esteem:
1) Set yourself concrete goals
Self-esteem develops over time, is influenced by experiences, and is not a static thing. Much like a muscle, it is possible to train and build up your self-esteem. However, this requires you to be willing to make changes when it comes to your thinking style and behavior. If you want to make changes, you must first of all decide what you want to achieve, and set clear goals for yourself. The vaguer a goal is, the harder it will be to achieve.
Because self-esteem is such a broad term, you need to ask yourself what better self-esteem will actually mean for you.
- Does it mean taking more initiative to connect with colleagues, for example?
- Or perhaps it means just daring to say no to unreasonable demands from others?
Answering this question is an important step in the process of building up your self-esteem.
- Your goals should also be realistic and broken down into specific objectives.
- Unrealistic goals can quickly get in the way of progress and make it harder to experience the sense of achievement you need to keep going.
2) Your style of thinking
If you want to improve your self-esteem, it’s important to become more aware of the way you think about yourself. Negative thoughts are often a critical part of the problem, and in that context it’s important to consider what are called core assumptions. Thoughts such as “I’m inadequate,” or “I’m a bad person,” are examples of core assumptions. These, in turn, often lead to self-critical thoughts in a number of other more specific situations.
For people with low self-esteem, thinking negatively about themselves can become a habit – an autopilot that filters how they see themselves. Thoughts such as “I’m not good enough” are often treated as facts and can take up far more space than more neutral or positive thoughts about yourself.
Find a better balance
- Take a step back, look at the flow of your thoughts and ask yourself, are you only listening to your inner critic?
- Is there room for a more supportive inner voice that notices what you’ve actually achieved?
- It’s important to practice seeing yourself in a more balanced and nuanced way.
Use concrete examples
- Try to identify two or three things you’ve achieved during the day, or positive qualities you see in yourself.
- Write these down, and repeat this activity daily regardless of how small or large these achievements may seem.
- This can help you build a more balanced picture of yourself.
In Mindfit, you can record what you’ve achieved, what you’re proud of, or what you appreciate. It helps you pause and give those positive experiences a little more space.
Shift your focus
People with low self-esteem are often caught up in other people’s opinions or perceptions of them – but it’s important to shift the focus away from this concern. Ask yourself, is it really possible for me to fully know what other people think about me? Or to be able to control this at all?
- Focusing on what other people may think of you rarely helps you feel better about yourself.
- Shift the focus away from thinking about others in relation to you, and try instead to be aware of what you want, think and need.
- Take yourself seriously. Give as much space to your own desires, opinions and needs as you normally would to others.
It is much more useful to focus on what you actually have control over, which is your relationship to yourself. It is also useful to reduce the time you spend comparing yourself with others. This is a common trap to fall into.
People with low self-esteem also often make strict demands on themselves, and feel that they are never good enough. In this respect it is important to work on accepting yourself and your accomplishments as good enough.
Voltaire once said that “perfect is the enemy of the good.”
This quote points to how perfectionism can get in the way of work or achievements that are already more than good enough. High expectations can also lead to procrastination and make it harder to get started. For many, another important change in relation to improving self-esteem is to lower the expectations and standards that they have for themselves.
3) Behavior
An important step toward better self-esteem is having experiences that challenge the negative beliefs you have about yourself. Negative thoughts about yourself often lead to avoidance, which in turn helps to ensure that your thoughts are never disproved. The key is to gradually stop avoiding the situations that make you uncomfortable.
Change also has to happen in what you do. Set specific goals and start taking small steps.
This could mean speaking up at least once in your next work meeting, or saying no to a friend who is always asking for too much. This may feel uncomfortable, but discomfort does not necessarily mean that you’re doing something wrong. It may simply mean that you’re stepping outside your comfort zone. Continuing to push yourself will most likely allow you to expand your comfort zone as well.
Self-esteem does not improve on its own, so in the beginning, it can be smart to behave as if you have good self-esteem, even if you don’t feel that way inside – in other words, “fake it till you make it!”
Changing how you act, even when it feels uncomfortable, can be just as important as changing the way you think, because thoughts and behavior influence each other.
4) Throw yourself into it
It is common to think that you should wait until you feel “ready” or confident enough before starting a challenging task. This is usually not a helpful strategy, because that moment may never arrive on its own. Getting started can help build the confidence that may eventually make you feel more ready.
Improving your self-esteem often involves changes in both the way you think and the way you act.
