If due to any reason you have lost faith in your abilities and think that everything right now is impossible for you in life,then do read this article till the end.In this post I will share with you the top 10 secrets to boost your confidence and self esteem.

As a Success Life Coach I keep on getting clients on a regular basis who are able to bounce back in life.They have had a major fall in their career,relationships or finances that now they think that everything in their life has ended.Often people start feeling depressed,disconnect themselves from others and start to live in isolation in order to avoid facing the world.

Let us first try to define confidence.Confidence is your belief in yourself , in your competence and ability to be able to accomplish a particular task.

And self esteem is a collection of viewpoints you carry about yourself in relation to your achievements in various aspects of life like career,relationships,finance,physical appearance,health and so on.

So it means confidence usually it connected to a singular event or task and self esteem to a wide variety of factors.Confidence can build up or break due to excellent performance or failure in a particular task.Self esteem is build or destroyed over time.People with prolonged physical illness,repeat relationship breakups,consistent failures,Extended health issues often tend to get low self esteem.

It is very important to keep confidence high because repetitive failures or adversity may lead to low self esteem which can lead to depression.Keeping self confidence high is also related to being resilient which will will learn in this post.Your perception of yourself is what lets you achieve goals in Life.If you assume your are weak,you will perform similarly.Our subconscious mind is very alert in picking up point of views which we assign to ourselves.

Let us now study how  Self esteem is  built or how it is destroyed so that we can actively implement the suggestions in our life.

Self Esteem is Built in following ways:

• When you have good and rational role models who you want to follow as examples in your life.
• When you regularly receive praise and compliments from your loved ones and relevant people.
• When you show gratitude in life and be thankful for whatever blessings and good you have in your life.
• When you are able to keep your inner critic quiet and also avoid and ignore criticism from other people.
• When you make use of affirmations and positive self talk to encourage yourself.
• When you try to keep healthy,fit and in shape by doing regular exercise and healthy eating.
• When you get over the guilt in your life and forgive yourself for your past mistakes.
• When you regular practice and perfect your existing skills or talents
• When you aim at upgrading yourself to learn new talents and skills.
• When you take out time to relax,unwind and de-stress.

Self Esteem is Destroyed in following ways:

• When you yourself or others compare you with other people.
• When your goal is to be like someone or achieve what they have and the benchmark is too high or irrational.
• When you regularly talk and give negative feedback to your mind about your inabilities about doing some task
• When you are put down by people who hold value in your life.
• When you underestimate yourself and are unaware of your abilities
• When you have unrealistic goals or near perfect expectations.
• When you have suffered from constant and repetitive failures in life.
• When you have had multiple relationships breakups.
• Lack of exercise,weight gain,poor sleeping habits,lack of self love and poor body image.

The benefits of High Self Esteem:

• They are willing and happy to meet new people because they are not afraid of being judged.
• They are fearless and can easily express themselves without worrying about how people will perceive them.
• They are adored and appreciated by people moreover people want to be around them.
• They can make good leader because they believe in their abilities and help people do the same and lead them to achieve goals
• They are willing to try new things and experiences in life without fear of failure.
• They have less mental health problem and less prone to depression as they have silenced their inner negative critic
• They have a Yes I can do it Attitude and are always charged with energy

The Disadvantages of Low Self Esteem:

• They doubt their abilities and lack faith in what they are capable of 
• Even before trying something they assume they will surely fail
• They again and again regret,show remorse and inability to forgive themselves for past mistakes and hence cannot move on.
• They often compare with other and feel they are not as good as them
• They fear taking chances or trying new creative things for the fear of getting ridiculed.
• They like to be lonely and disconnected from people
• They worry too much and are always anxious so much that they never take any practical steps to change.
• They are very ,uch prone to depression,stress and anxiety.

Why is low self esteem so dangerous

• For our psychological existence Self esteem and self worth are extremely important so that we consider yourself potential enough to do things in life.Low self esteem can make living life pointless or directionless.
• We are programmed in a way that we often give feedback or pass judgements to others and this applies to our own self also.When we pass a judgement on ourselves that we are not good enough, we become limited,chained and unproductive.
• Just imagine if you think you are worthless,have no qualities or are a complete failure, do you think others will treat you any better.What you think about yourself is how people will treat you.
• Constant low self worth can lead to you gradually feeling unloved,uncared for,unimportant or ignored which can lead to so much dissatisfaction and sorrow in life.
• When we start to feel the above,we tend to feel powerless and in this process we start making up for it by becoming a people pleaser,doormat and giving undue power to other people.

Some people feel low confidence in particular tasks only which is called situational.While some people constantly feel inability to do anything which is called Characterological.Both types of low confidence can be very well solved,In order to boost your confidence and self esteem first try to answer some questions to know whether you have low self confidence?

Answer True or false for the following questions: 

• I cannot accept myself as I am                                                                                        T / F
• I want to change the way I look                                                                                       T / F
• I think i have failed more than I have Succeeded                                                            T / F
• I fear people will not like me when they meet me                                                            T / F
• Everyone is much more talented than me                                                                       T / F
• I avoid taking new tasks ,challenges or meeting new people                                          T / F
• I feel so jealous of successful people                                                                              T / F
• It is unacceptable to make mistakes                                                                                T / F
• I feel that I am not good at my work                                                                                T / F
• I feel hopeless and empty                                                                                               T / F

 The more true answers you give the lower your self esteem.

The following are some practical ways to boost your confidence and self esteem:

1.Mind your Seeds

• Your mind is like a fertile land.Your thoughts are the seeds.You can grow a garden of roses or a cluster of cactus.It’s your choice
• Whatever you consciously or subconsciously plant in your mind is going to grow on day.Yes to grow a plant requires sunlight,water and nourishment.Your belief system,point of view about your own self,your inner critic and people’;s perception about you are enough fertilizers to grow your seed into a tree.
• The fruits can be sweet and juicy or they can be bitter in the form of limiting beliefs and fear.Be careful about what you sow.

2.Identify the Inner Critic

• There is a feedback mechanism in all of us - called the inner critic which can give us positive or negative response.
• The Negative critic often raises an alarm when things go wrong.It starts to pass judgement on you and blow up your mistakes.It also sets unrealistic standards of perfection .
• The primary role of the critic is to keep you aware of your surroundings or warn you in certain situations but sometimes it turns out to be of a bashing nature.
• It is important to identify this.The critic should work for you and not against you.You have to carefully notice when it turns around to be your enemy from your friend.
• We often believe our negative critic because the voice is coming from inside and we misinterpret it as our gut feeling or measurement of our abilities.
• As an activity on a piece of paper write down what your negative critic says to you?

3.Immunity from Inner Negative Critic

• Best way to stop the critic or being unaffected by what it is saying is to talk back to it with logic and facts.
• Use aggressive response to the critic like in an angry tone loudly say “STOP IT, no more negativity” to a cloud full of thoughts in your mind.
• Ask your own self how will believing these negative thoughts affect you, your relationships,career,health and in all your confidence and esteem.
• Use positive self assuring and fact based affirmations like “ Yes I failed earlier buy this time I will succeed with this new strategy”
• Yes, remember the more attention you pay to the negative critic,the more unworth and bad you feel about your own self and in return this will take away your abilities to perform.

4.Accurate Self Assessment

• Poor self esteem can make you just see the faults in you and often neglect the good qualities you possess.This can lead to a distorted self image.
• There is nothing wrong in having faults.We also make mistakes and none of us is perfect.The Problem is using your list of faults against yourself in a way which makes you feel good for nothing.
• Describe your weaknesses in a simple way.Dont not use exaggerating words,used as accurate words as you can.For example: If you banged your car somewhere,then don't say you a bad driver or cannot drive again.Just say that you have a problem multitasking the front and rear view mirror which can be learnt over time.
• Don’t use absolute words like everything,never,ever,always or completely.
• When highlighting your own weaknesses,also use corresponding strengths to play down the weaknesses.
• With respect to strengths,forget about being egoistic or arrogant,just take pride in appreciating your own self wherever you are good.
• Remember any of your past accomplishments or success or hurdles you have overcome.
• Also remind yourself of your strengths,positives,skills you are good at.

5.Self Compassion

• Self esteem can only be developed when you have compassion for your own self.This is not self pity.This is understanding oneself like a friend.
• Easily forgive yourself for past mistakes even if they were repeated, also you will notice that you repeated those mistakes because you never truly did forgive yourself in the past.
• Don't let guilt control you.Guilt will never get the work done.Moreover guild will make you feel worthless and you will repeat the mistakes because you never truly learnt from it.
• Accept yourself as a whole package of good,bad,qualities,strengths,weaknesses,limitations and over all a scope to be better and improve.

6.Develop Healthy Values

• Seeking Perfectionism is like trying to fit into another person’s underwear.It will be dirty,smelly and not even fit right.Rather than perfectionism you should target self improvement with an internal measuring scale.
• You should question your values and ask whether you have decided on this value or it is just accepted from another source.
• Are the values which you are chasing easy to implement in the long long too.Are they flexible? Are they life enhancing or life restricting?
• It is very important to develop values which come from your inner mechanism of self healing and not directionless suggestions from others.

7.Responding to External Criticism

• Avoid Aggressive responsive which can lead to fights and arguments and even turn people against you.
• Avoid Passive response like surrendering or apologising which can avoid conflict but lead to you  accepting their criticism
• Avoid passive aggressive response which can often showcase your inner insecurities.
• Instead use acknowledgement if the criticism is accurate.use sentences like - You are right ,I made an error.Thanks for telling me.
• Use Clouding- Means, agree to just the part of the criticism which was accurate.If someone tells you - You were late today, You are so irresponsible. Reply to them- Yes I am sorry I was late due to traffic .How does thus highlight my irresponsibility?
• Use Probing - Ask the critic to be specific , what they are unhappy about or what part was not done properly.This will lead the communication to be useful and insightful.This can change the criticism into constructive feedback.

8.Develop resilience

• Resilience is your life’s antivirus.It is you self developed mechanism which can help you survive in difficult situations or help you from adversities in Life
• Resilience is a sum total of protective behaviors you learned over time from different struggles,negative events and challenges of life.
• Resilience is your inner strength and your ability to rise up again from difficult times which even money cannot provide.
• To develop resilience build supportive and positive friendships
• Know your strengths and work on your weaknesses.
• Learn self control and emotional intelligence to better projects feelings
• Develop problem solving and communications skills
• Become a part of a help and support group.
• Plan your goals properly - Set realistic and achievable goals .
• Try to meditate everyday and write a journal to write down and express your feelings.
• Be more flexible , forgiving and compassionate towards yourself.
• When something bad happens with you - Don’t say why it happened with me.Just say now that it has happened, I must deal with it with an action plan.
• Be optimistic and also hope for the best.
• Talk to your friends and family members in times of issues.
• In tough times, consider visiting a professional like a Life coach or counselor.

Closing thoughts

• You are a unique person with unique looks,qualities and even weaknesses.Accept it .There is no one like you.And you don't need to be like anyone else.
• You just need to be a better version of yourself day by day, very slowly and gradually.
• Overnight change is not possible and not even recommended.
• Love yourself,be your friend, guide yourself with love ,compassion and you will be able to achieve anything

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