5 Ways To Boost Your Self-Esteem

Self-esteem comes down to being able to value yourself, both the parts you're proud of and the parts you'd rather hide. When you have a clear picture of who you are and what you bring to the table, and you trust yourself along the way, that's self-esteem at work. It doesn't sit still. The people we run into can shift how we feel, and so can the gap between where we are and where we think we're supposed to be, whether that standard came from us or from someone else.

Say your boss hands you a critical review. If you buy into that judgment, your sense of worth can take a hit. A compliment from the same boss might lift you in the opposite direction. What really decides whether you go up, down, or stay level is how you read the event. The goal is to stop handing that power over to the outside world. You learn to run your own mind instead.

There's a lot riding on where your self-esteem sits. People who have a healthy supply of it generally feel deserving of love, respect, and basic dignity. When someone fails to treat them that way, they don't conclude that something is wrong with them. They conclude that they're being treated badly, which is a different thought entirely.

The flip side is harder. Those running low on self-esteem may put up with poor treatment and quietly tell themselves they had it coming. People with a stronger sense of self tend to carry a steadier kind of contentment, keep relationships going through rough patches, notice what's good in other people, and let things go without much of a fight.

So how do you actually build it up?

Start with the way you frame things. A more positive outlook tends to feed belief in yourself, and seeing the glass as half-full makes it easier to catch the small wins, in you and in the people around you.

Take stock of what you're good at. People with solid self-esteem can name the strengths in their own character. They can also look squarely at the weak spots and treat them as problems to work on rather than verdicts.

Make peace with what won't budge. Some flaws you can fix; others, like your skin color, your birth parents, or anything already in the past, you can't. Figure out your best traits and pour your attention into what's changeable.

Give yourself goals you can actually reach, and sketch out how to get there. Progress toward something keeps you oriented, so the rough patches read as part of the climb rather than proof that life is against you. The plan is the part that matters most. It's what turns a dream into something real.

Find one good thing every single day. It can be about you or about your life. Noticing your own strengths, and the parts of your day that went right, tends to lift your mood and your estimate of yourself along with it.

Why bother with any of this? Because self-esteem, high or low, spills into everything. Friendships, romantic relationships, work, family, even money. Money, yes. Feeling good about yourself breeds confidence, and confidence makes you more willing to take the useful risks, the kind that land a promotion or a smarter career move, which can mean more financial room to breathe.

Until you take the reins, plenty of forces can nudge your self-esteem around: people, situations, the plain bad luck Hamlet called the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The fix is inner work and mental training, and it doesn't arrive overnight. The more you practice, the better the odds it holds. When something starts dragging you down, spot it, then adjust the thoughts and habits feeding it. Building real self-esteem is slow going, and these five steps are a way to start turning your thinking in a different direction.

- Kim B.