We all want to improve our self-esteem, but cultivating it can be a challenge. Everyone experiences bouts of self-doubt. If you are experiencing low self-esteem, there are some strategies you can use to build confidence and boost your self-esteem. Learning how to build self-esteem starts with being kind to yourself and focusing on your strengths rather than weaknesses.
What is self-esteem? Self-esteem is the opinion we have of ourselves and our abilities. Low self-esteem can make us feel stuck, depressed, and lacking in confidence and self-worth. We all experience low self-esteem from time to time. To improve your self-esteem, express gratitude, focus on the positives, and spend time with people that build your self-esteem.
Building self-esteem makes you feel better about yourself, improves self-confidence, and makes you more resilient. Self-esteem is what allows you to believe in yourself instead of having negative thoughts about yourself. Self-esteem helps you build self-worth and self-respect.
When you have low self-esteem, you can lack confidence, feel overwhelmed, stressed, and trapped. When you have low self-esteem, you become prone to comparison and worrying about what other people are doing, rather than focusing on your achievements.
If low self-esteem affects your life, try these ten tips to build confidence and boost your self-esteem.
Increase your self-confidence with my 10 self-confidence tips.
10 tips for improving your self-esteem
Here are 10 tips for improving your self-esteem.
1. Be kind to yourself
If you want to learn how to improve self-esteem, be kind to yourself and practice self-care. Being kind to yourself means not judging yourself harshly for mistakes or not being perfect.
Being kind to yourself also means focusing on your achievements and not holding yourself to impossible standards. We can experience low self-esteem when we dwell on mistakes and failures.
To build your self-esteem, focus on the positives and express gratitude for what you have. Don’t compare yourself to others and focus on achieving the goals that are important to you.
When you are gentle to yourself and accepting of who you are, you will increase self-esteem.
2. Develop your strengths
You can improve self-esteem by focusing on your strengths. People with low self-esteem fixate on their weaknesses rather than feeling confident about the things they do well.
People with higher self-esteem are more able to recognise their values and strengths and accept their weaknesses. You can start improving self-esteem by identifying your unique strengths and spending more time using them.
Improving your strengths builds a more positive self-image. High self-esteem helps you develop strengths so you can seize opportunities available to you.
Self-confidence comes from knowing you can succeed. Improving your strengths can be a catalyst to achieving success faster and easier.
Improving your strengths is an essential mindset to develop. Get my tips on how to build a strong mindset.
3. Build positive relationships
Self-esteem starts with liking yourself and building positive relationships with the people that are most important to you. Every time you strengthen relationships, you improve your self-esteem and self-worth.
To improve self-esteem, focus on expanding your best relationships and eliminate the relationships that lower self-esteem. Positive relationships increase self-esteem and build trust and belief.
By improving your self-esteem, you will feel more committed and happier in your most important relationships. Having support, acceptance, and gratitude in a relationship can improve self-esteem in people who experience low self-esteem. Read more about developing a gratitude mindset.
4. Believe in yourself
Having self-worth is about the importance you place on yourself. Self-worth means how you think and feel about yourself in comparison to other people.
To improve self-esteem, elevate your feelings of self-worth, allowing you to control how you feel about yourself, not other people. We all face difficulties every day that can lower self-esteem and self-worth.
To improve your self-esteem, focus on things that increase your positive feelings about yourself. You can do this by expressing gratitude daily and celebrating daily achievements. You can also increase your self-worth by spending time with people who appreciate you, making time for self-care, and taking time out for yourself.
If you experience low self-worth, you may be experiencing imposter syndrome. Here are 7 tips to overcome imposter syndrome.
5. Develop a gratitude mindset
Gratitude increases self-esteem and confidence. Grateful people have high self-esteem. Gratitude can also transform how you feel about yourself and your achievements.
When you express gratitude, you feel more appreciative of yourself and are less likely to compare yourself to others. If you want to improve your self-esteem, focus on knowing your self-worth, appreciating yourself and the things you have.
When you feel grateful, you feel more abundant and build self-esteem. Expressing gratitude improves self-worth and creates the opportunity for your best thinking, actions, and creativity.
If you want to learn how to build self-esteem, focus more time and energy on everything you are grateful for, and communicate that gratitude daily.
If you want to experience more gratitude, read my step-by-step guide on How to develop an attitude of gratitude.
6. Identify your goals
You can improve your self-esteem when you have goals and a clear destination you want to reach.
You can build self-esteem by having a clear picture of who you want to be in the future. When you make positive progress towards, your goals your self-esteem and confidence grow. Without clear goals with measurements and deadlines, it is easy to get off track, get distracted, and feel overwhelmed.
When you have no direction or purpose, it is easy to experience low self-esteem. Focus on your goals daily to improve your self-esteem.
Read my step-by-step guide to setting and achieving goals.
7. Improve your time management
Being in control of your time builds self-esteem. When you feel distracted and overwhelmed, it is easy for your confidence levels to drop.
Learning how to build self-esteem starts with being intentional with your time and having a clear focus on your biggest priorities. Having clear goals improves your time management and ensures you start each day feeling clear and confident.
To improve your self-esteem, spend your time wisely with the people that matter and on the activities that are crucially important to you.
Read my guide on how to manage time effectively.
8. Start setting boundaries
Having boundaries is a measure of self-esteem. Poor boundaries are a reflection of low self-esteem. People with high self-esteem set limits around their time and set boundaries around what is acceptable to them.
Setting well-defined boundaries give you an operating system to work within for yourself and others. The stronger your self-esteem, the stronger the boundaries you can implement.
Setting boundaries ensure others don’t control your time or take advantage of your nature. You can build self-esteem by learning to say no more often to the opportunity and people that don’t fit in with your goals.
Learn the habits of productive people to help you set better boundaries.
9. Focus on the positive
A positive attitude is at the heart of optimistic and successful people. To increase your self-esteem, have positive feelings about yourself. People with high self-esteem have positive attitudes. They look for the positives in every situation and look to improve every day.
The simple act of getting better every day at something important to you builds your self-esteem. When you take the time to acknowledge and celebrate daily progress, you feel more positive about yourself, which improves self-esteem.
To make positive progress every day, set measurable goals. Read my guide on how to set measurable goals.
10. Build your ideal future
Self-esteem is crucial if you want to achieve something important to you. People with high self-esteem are committed to making progress on their goals. It is that progress that builds self-esteem and confidence.
If you want to improve your self-esteem, commit to achieving something important to you. This commitment may require courage to take the first step. However, when you achieve your goal, you will feel more confident and capable.
With every small step you take towards achieving that goal, your self-esteem grows. But, it starts with making a commitment to something and putting measurements in place to track your progress.
Summing up
Use these confidence tips to improve low self-esteem. Start building your self-esteem by recognising what you are good at, be kinder to yourself, and permit yourself to be happy with who you are.
To improve your self-esteem, start liking and valuing yourself as a person, develop your strengths, and build more positive relationships. You can boost your self-esteem if you take care of yourself, practice self-care, express more gratitude, and focus on your goals. Hopefully, these confidence tips will help you build confidence and improve your self-esteem.
Now I’d love to hear from you.
What’s your number one tips for improving your self-esteem?
Which tip from today’s article will you implement to build your self-esteem?
Let me know in the comments.
Read also:
13 powerful ways to boost self-confidence
10 tips on how to get motivated
How to be more confident: 10 self-confidence tips
3 simple ways to increase confidence every day
Top 12 habits of mentally strong people
About the Author
Mark Pettit is a time management coach and accountability coach based in Colchester, Essex, UK. He is the Founder of time management coaching company Lucemi Consulting.
Mark provides time management coaching programs and accountability coaching programs to entrepreneurs and leaders in London, Essex, Suffol, East Anglia and across the UK, US and Canada.
Get more articles, tips and tools to help you start building self-esteem and self-confidence on the blog.
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