Boosting Self-Esteem For Dummies

1. Consider the broad categories of: family and relationships; work, career and study; recreation and hobbies; religion and spirituality; community and culture; mental and physical well-being; and your personal living environment. Record what’s most important to you about those broad areas of your life.

With regard to family for example, it may be most important to you to spend plenty of time with your partner and children. Or perhaps you place emphasis on the importance of keeping in touch with relatives overseas. Your value statements are entirely up to you and your personal circumstances.

2. Identify one or more actions that you can take to demonstrate your value in each category.

Start with small realistic actions like setting up a standing order for a valued cause, getting home from work earlier to eat with the family or joining a community-based initiative.

3. Keep your values evaluation sheet handy and refer to it as a way of reminding yourself to stick with value-directed behaviour.

Unless you urge yourself to try out activities that you generally avoid, your self-esteem will remain low. Doing things even though you fear them builds confidence and a sense of capability. You also discover that you can survive incidents of failure or rejection without any permanent damage. You may feel upset for a time but you’ll recover.

The effects of low self-esteem are so insidious and all-pervasive that you may not even be truly aware of how much your negative self-view dictates your actions.

Chart your progress faithfully. Taking note of your progress and all the positive changes helps to encourage you if you’re tempted to forgo your goals and personal commitments. Measure your progress on mini-goals and regard them as evidence that you’re getting closer to your overall goal or positive lifestyle change. Every step you take counts, so be sure to take note of even the smallest of shifts forward.

n addition, give yourself a deadline for completing finite goals like cleaning out the garage, planting the garden or applying for a course. Having a clear idea of when you can reasonably expect to have reached a concrete goal helps you to keep moving forwards rather than putting off starting.

Getting into a routine really helps to keep your moods stable so that you don’t have as many ‘bad days’ where you do nothing and good days where you go hell for leather.

). A basic rule of thumb is: Set yourself several smaller tasks leading to your main goal. Ensure that your mini-goals stretch you and urge you to develop tolerance for persistence and effort. Don’t make it too easy or unduly hard for yourself. Strike a balance between the two.

Strike a balance between challenging yourself and being realistic about what you’re able to achieve at this point in time.

In fact, luck isn’t really involved in honouring your personal commitments; success is much more about concentrated effort and planning. To increase your likelihood of success you need to be prepared for motivation lags and obstacles that life may throw into the mix. You can also arm yourself against slip-ups by giving yourself realistic sub-commitments and a deadline to aim at

Sometimes people give themselves goals and make personal lifestyle commitments but neglect to structure ways to follow through on them. When you don’t put some structure in place you leave your success almost entirely to chance.