A
female
age
26-29,
anonymous
writes:I have had self esteem issues since the age of about 12, and even though they have improved i still get so down about them and convince myself alot of the time "i'm not good enough". It doesn't really help that there are few people in my life who do think i am good enough. About a year ago i really really hated who i was and hated everything about myself to the point I didn't even want to be me any more. But i have been working on improiving things like that and i must say i have done well and i do now have things i like about myself. However the feeling hasn't completly gone away and at times i still have the feeling of not being good enough. I have had loads of people who have doubted me and treated me frankly like scum. It hasn't been easy trying to tell myself that i am not that bad looking and i do have a chance in life when i would get alot of people just out of spite telling me the opposite. I want to just feel comfortable in my own skin and be able to take pride in myself and my personality and my looks. If anyone can give me suggestions on improving my self esteem it would be great. Thanks for reading x
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female
reader, Abella  +, writes (25 November 2011):
 You asked for a follow up. Hope something here helps?
Life is not meant to be all work and pressure.
Choose to see a comedy, chill out with someone you trust. Find some jokes to read out loud. Change your routine – cut your own lunch instead of buying it. Buy yourself a bunch of flowers. Laughter is important. Not taking yourself too seriously helps. Having long relaxing soak in the bath is good. Being kind to someone else will benefit you.
If you (automatically reach for this solution always) - to fill an emotional void - with a need to spend money to make you feel good then you need to re-think what is really important.
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Anxiety can make you doubt you and sap your inner strength.
It is important that you keep an eye on this. Because too much anxiety can derail you and affect your belief in yourself. And undermine your inner strength. Fortunately there are a lot of free resources available to support you. (and a whole lot more paid ones – but work through the free resources below first, as that will keep you busy)
http://www.social-anxiety.org.uk/
http://www.beyondblue.org.au
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder
http://www.socialphobia.org/ (this one does have items to purchase – but also has a lot of good free information)
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Procrastination can be a sign of stress and anxiety.
http://johnplaceonline.com/stress-management/11-causes-and-cures-for-procrastination/
http://www.effective-time-management-strategies.com/overcome-procrastination.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination
Those who procrastinate may do it because they are over anxious and lacking in self -confidence. Or that may be so anxious about making a mistake that they go over and over a task to ensure that there are no mistakes and that is complete perfection. Address the anxiety issues and ensure that the person is well supported emotionally and the procrastination should abate.
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Relaxation is important too.
Find the time to put your feet up. Make sure you stop judging you by what other people think. Sleep in late occasionally – the world will not come to an end if you do. Take your vacation time. Practise doing nothing at all. Read a book even if the ironing is building up. Start assignments early so you finish early. That way you will not subject you to undue stress close to deadline time. And remember your home should be a calm sanctuary, not a trophy to impress the neighbourhood.
Even just one member of the household in an over-stressed state is one too many.
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Do not over-estimate you.
For you are not a machine and your body will act up if you fail to get enough sleep. If you abuse your body and if you allow other people to subject you to undue pressure your body will feel the strain you are putting on yourself. It is also why you need to spend within the limits of your limited means. Debt is destructive to your health. It does not matter what other people think about what you do or do not spend your money on. It matters that you DO live within your means. Keep away from negative people and keep away from negative people poisoners - people I call emotional happiness destroyers.
If someone is being carping and overly critical and judgemental then they will affect you and try to bring you down to their own nasty level. Just walk away from them. You need a better class of people than a carping nasty overly critical person in your life.
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Make sure your Emotional Bank stays in Credit.
We all have an emotional Bank. And it needs to stay in Credit. Withdrawals reduce the balance. Deposits increase the value in your Emotional Bank. You cannot reach out to support others if your emotional bank is running on empty.
You need to maximise your deposits and minimise the withdrawals.
your emotional Bank falls into debt then you need to address the situation (of too many withdrawls).
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Credits to your emotional Bank are:
a Thank you, a courteous please, A new pet, Doing something good for you, Achieving a Goal - all these things make you feel good and make deposits into your Emotional Bank. A compliment from another is a deposit into your emotional Bank. YOU knowing you did well is a deposit. Falling in love of course is a deposit while all is well. Getting a new job you really wanted is a deposit.
Helping someone else is a deposit.
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Debits to your emotional Bank are:
Anyone yelling at you. Death of a loved ones . Anyone being rude or unkind to you. Debts piling up and unable to pay your debts, car breaking down. Feeling miserable takes a huge chunk out of your emotional Bank. That withdrawal needs a corresponding deposit or several smaller deposits to redress the balance. A break up with a loved one is a withdrawal. Moving house (as it is stressful) is a withdrawal. Running up too much debt is a withdrawal both from your Bank Balance and your emotional Bank- more so if you are over-stretched financially
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Your Own Motivation Achievement Board
This is a another option.
it is your Motivational Achievement Board with a series of small achievable goals that you believe you CAN achieve over the next 12 months.
This is about small steps and small goals that you can achieve, and by doing so it can allow you to see visual success and encourage you to go on to do more.
Believe me, an Achievement Board with ticks (for succeeding) all over it can make you feel good.
If you are not a visual person then you can use a generic spread sheet to list all the priorities. Make sure it is on your Desktop on your laptop/pc all the time so you see it when you open the computer.
Or
If you are visual (like me) then you can try to visual board that I created to kick start some achievement goals.
If you choose the Visual Option then it needs to be put where you will see it daily, but not where others are likely to see it. It is a very personal private motivational tool. An account of what you want to happen in the future.
So choose a place that is prominent to you and discreet enough to not be visible to anyone coming into your room.
The inside of a wardrobe door is one place. Or behind a door - where you will see it prominently when the door is closed and you are inside the room
And it will be up for at least 12 months. So get a very sturdy A3 or double that size piece of thick strong poster paper. Strong enough to allow you to paste other pictures on the poster.
In the centre put your ONE most important priority that must be completed in the coming week.
In the next ring around the centre write THREE things that are next in importance to YOU and must be completed within the next 3 weeks. And place an inspirational picture that reminds you what each item means to you.
Each rung further from the centre has things that are lesser in priority and so you are allowed more time to achieve each one. But keep it manageable. Don't overload any rung too much. Bump them into the next outer rung
And put a Date of Completion time by each aim.
Such as: enroll in classes in ..... at ........and complete (number) lessons on .. ..... to learn how to .........
enroll by ........ and commence class by .........(date)
And this will allow me to then ............(next related goal)
Be very specific.
And the priorities on the board are yours alone to decide..
No one else can judge what is a higher or lesser priority than you. mark things off as you meet the goal with a Gold Star and a tick. Some goals may get shifted. Paste over a picture if you need to. Anyone who does see your priority list and dares to make fun or question it - you should be asked to leave (until they grow an empathy gene)
And the list does not need to be earth shattering things. It can be simple things that mean something to you. The goals do not have to be material things, and do not need to cost money. But everything you list does have to be something YOU want for you. Not what anyone else thinks you need.
I do hope there is at least one thing that might be helpful, a little.
Address the anxiety and many other issues will right themselves.
Best Wishes
Abella
A
reader, anonymous, writes (24 November 2011): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionAbella- Thank you so much for your advice. With the list thing i did that about 10 months ago and i couldn't even get 3 things down, and i did a new one 1 month ago and i got atleast twelve things down so i am happy i have made some improvement.
As for the steps you wrote down I wrote a similar list a couple of months back and to give you abit of an inside view i'll tell you how i have improved on them and which ones I am stuggling with and if you have anymore adivce to offer that would be brilliant :).
1. I have already done it, but i will write another one down just to compare and to look back on in 6 months as you said to see if i have made anymore improvments and use it as a form of motivation when i get days where i'm in the nagative zone if you would like to say.
2. I do get into the negative thinking pattern alot and it is something i am trying to ease myself out of but it is really hard but i'll keep in up.
3. I do use positvie affirmanations but not as often as i should, they do help alot and thankyou for your list and i will try to do it every day.
4. This one is the hardest, i have a very big problem with people so to speak and I have two anxcity disorders and a mild form of agrophobia. You answered a pervious qeustion of mine a while ago about going back to my old school and one of the main reasons i left was because of my problems with people partically in my age group. Even though i have improved with saying NO i find it so hard to walk away from people and because of the anxcity disorders i can never tell what people's true intentions are and i know it sounds pathetic but when i walk away from people (even if they are horrible to me in eveyway) I feel mean and like a bad person.
I will try to open my eyes abit and not take crap from people.
5. I'm getting better at that, and have slowly started to appreciate things i do. The thing which makes me doubt it is when i get critisim from others and then it makes me qeustion " Is it really good? or is it just stupid" but i will work on it.
Thankyou so much for your feed back xx
aunt earnest- Thanks for your advice, i do understand that low self esteem is a part of growing up and i am sure every person has expeirenced it at some point. You see i have a few problems which make it alot worse for me and complicates it which is one of the reasons i get so worked up about it.
Thanks for the awesome bit :D your awesome too :)
Starlights- Thanks a million :) i will defointly keep your list of postive affirminations in mind. And i do understand i have to get better at just letting things go over my head and now i think about it, alot of people have critised me for things which are infact there own problems and not mine, which at the time i didn't see. Thank you alot :)
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A
female
reader, aunt earnest +, writes (24 November 2011):
 I know how you feel. I used to have really bad self-esteem, and now I feel much better but I still have awkward moments. I have a big nose and a "young" body (if you know what I mean) for my age. Also, I have a really good friend who is incredibly outgoing and confident, and I am constantly being overlooked for her.
I just want you to know that things do get better, and part of your self-confidence problems are just part of being a teenager and growing up. I am sorry that the people in your life do not tell you how awesome you are, but I assure you that you are awesome and you have a friend in me :)
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A
female
reader, Abella +, writes (24 November 2011):
What anyone else thinks of you is entirely their own problem.
Please do not make their problems you problem.
If you do not yet have any reliable honorable friend or friends you can confide in then keep on coming back to DearCupid and use any other reliable resource that can help get you to the place your thinking needs to be.
Being negative will wear you down. So you may like to read this account of tunnel vision Positive thing. It is way more fun than negative thinking.
http://www.dearcupid.org/question/tunnel-vision-positive-thinking---used-to.html
What you think of you matters.
And improving your belief in you is very important.
So how to do it?
You do have good points, we all do. But when things are tough we can lose sight of who we are and what is important to us.
Here is an initial plan of action.
1. write down your 5 top points. No qualifying. No minimising, not if and no but. Just and NO, do not write down your 5 worst points.
Now right now you may struggle to write down your best 5 points. And i bet you can list more than 5 points that are negatives about you. But this is a focus on your 5 Best Points. Study the list and then put it somewhere safe for 6 months. If you follow a good plan to improve your self esteem then in six months that list will amaze you as you will by then have found far more than 5 good points about you.
2. Start focusing on the things you Can do. Not the things you Cannot do.
3. Start using positive affirmations.
(a) I have a right to happiness
(b) I forgive all those who have hurt me in the past, they are un-evolved and not worthy of me
(c) I have the skills to find ways to be more successful in life.
(d) People do not always have to like me but they do need to show me respect and I will walk away from anyone who treats me with disrespect for I deserve better
(e) Change is inevitable in life and I can adapt to make good changes in my life and go on to better things.
(f) I am a loveable kind good person. And good people will recognize this truth.
(g) If I have tried my very best then I can be satisfied with that as my very best effort. That is success.
4. And learn to walk away from negative carping nasty people and anyone who puts you down. For such people are not worthy of your time and effort. They have their own problems. Leave them to solve them. They cannot help you for they are too mean and too judgmental to be of any use to you.
5. And learn to give yourself a pat on the back, out loud (though in private) when you do well. Such as “well done ……. You managed to ………and …… and accomplished …….. resulting in you completing that task very well”
And I answered a very similar question to this so if you would like to read my answer to that one here it is http://www.dearcupid.org/question/how-can-i-improve-my-self-esteem.html:
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A
female
reader, Starlights +, writes (24 November 2011):
 Hi there!
Ive been through the same thing as you when i was younger. It was very hard being "put down" in every way but the only way i got over that is by reaffirming to myself everyday in the mirror "I am good enough."
This helped me in achieving alot of my goals in my life :)
the key is not to believe others in their negative talk about you.
Remember you are good enough.
Anyone who tries to find fault with you is usually seeing things in you that is essentially within "them".
The way I deal with people like this is not to take things personally what people say. Like water off a ducks back. They are taking their insecurities out on you.
One way as I mentioned above to take pride in yourself is by using affirmations and believing them to be true.
Positive affirmations do work. An affirmation can help you replace a negative thought with a more helpful positive one and then you feel good.
List of positive affirmations you can use to boost your self esteem:
-I deserve to be happy and successful
-I deserve to be loved, I am worthy
-I am beautiful inside & out
Remember your unique and special there is noone in this world like you! so love yourself and accept yourself just the way you are.
I hope this helps!
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