What is Self-Esteem?
Our feelings about ourselves can fluctuate with the experiences of day-to-day life. How well you do with projects at school or work, or the status of personal relationships affect you in both positive and negative ways. When the situations in your life are not good, they can negatively affect your well-being. For those of us with healthy self-esteem, these periods are temporary, and we recover, and move on. For those of us with low self-esteem, negative happenings are consuming, and even positive experiences are downplayed and not celebrated. Dwelling on negative experiences contributes to daily stress and anxiety, you need to learn to manage these negative thoughts and establish strategies for handling positive experiences and allowing them to take a larger part in your life. The Midwest Center's Attacking Anxiety & Depression Program helps you do just that.
Why Is Self-Esteem Important?
How we feel about ourselves influences how we live our lives. With healthy self-esteem it is much easier to achieve goals because you actually believe that you are capable of success. The positive outlook allows people to enjoy better relationships and to do well professionally. A person with low self-esteem dwells on defeats and undermines victories, in effect feeding a cycle of negativity that provides for failing relationships, and poor performance at school or work.Steps to Self-Empowerment
Defy the Internal Critic In every situation where your inner critic says something too critical, counter with a positive. Every day write down something that you like about yourself, and make a mental reference to the growing list.
Aim For Accomplishment, Not Perfection Don’t let perfection paralyze you. Decide what you enjoy, and what you are good at doing, and go for it.
View Mistakes as Learning Opportunities Everyone experiences setbacks. The occurrence of a setback does not signal defeat. Setbacks are valuable learning opportunities for future application.
Recognize What You Can Change & What You Cannot Change If you realize that you are unhappy with your eating habits-change them. If you are unhappy with your height, then you have to work toward loving yourself regardless of your altitude.
Set Goals Set goals for yourself to achieve and plans on how to achieve them. Keep track of your progress, and don’t be afraid to reward yourself from time to time. If you need help setting goals, the Attacking Anxiety & Depression Program is here to help!
Exercise Physical activity releases endorphins that make us feel good and exercising makes you feel good about doing something for yourself. It’s a win-win situation. Even if you do not like going to the gym, there are plenty of ways to get some exercise: take a walk, a bike ride, go swimming.
Have Fun Spend time with the people who bring out the best in you, and make you feel good. Do the things that you enjoy doing. Stop putting things off with self-deprecating reasons such as, “I’ll go out for volleyball after I lose ten pounds. I’ll lose ten pounds when I find time to go to the gym. I can’t go to the gym until after new years...”. Decide what you really want to do, and do it. Once you start doing everything that you want to do, you’ll realize that it feels fantastic, and so do you.
