Self-Esteem Boosters: How to Stop Blaming Yourself

Dr. Aaron Beck, a cognitive therapist, once ran a survey that turned up a striking number: roughly 80 percent (sometimes more) of people living with depression actively dislike themselves (Cohen, 2006). They tend to describe themselves with a long string of grim adjectives. Defective. Defeated. Worthless. Helpless, hopeless, deprived, deficient, deserted, devalued. Part of what drives this is overvaluing a narrow set of traits: how they look (weight, beauty), how popular they are, how athletic or intelligent or strong, how much they've achieved, how healthy they feel (Cohen, 2006). If you believe you're somehow 'less than' whenever you fall outside a pre-made box of approved attributes, that belief can pull you down into low self-esteem fast.

Beck rejected the idea that any person is genuinely worthless, whether or not the feeling comes wrapped up in depression. His approach instead was to help people see how the depression itself was manufacturing the low self-esteem, which in turn fed the hopelessness, helplessness and sense of worthlessness (Cohen, 2006). Feeling inadequate and despairing when you're depressed is, frankly, ordinary. There's a biological reason for it. Depression affects the brain regions that regulate emotion and mood, and a chemical imbalance along with poor communication in that part of the brain can set off both the depression and the feelings that ride along with it.

Jen Wilson, who wrote for the mental health site Good Therapy (2012), pointed to a body of research tying depression and low self-esteem together. How deep the depression runs matters here. Beyond a certain severity, you probably won't be able to shake these feelings on your own, and that's when a trained professional (a psychologist, psychiatrist, counselor, therapist, or clinical social worker) becomes necessary. How that person responds to what you're feeling has a lot to do with whether your self-esteem recovers and whether the hopelessness and worthlessness start to lift.

Maybe you're not sure yet whether you need professional help, or maybe you can't reach anyone right now. Either way, there are a few self-esteem exercises you can try in the meantime.

Start with your attitude. One of the surest ways to chip away at hopelessness and worthlessness is to deliberately shift toward something more positive, and the mechanism is simpler than it sounds: catch yourself. When the doubting, questioning, self-criticizing or self-blaming starts creeping in, interrupt it and push back with a kinder thought. Say you've started telling yourself you're single because you're too fat, too dumb, too ugly. Stop right there. Replace it. Remind yourself you're a worthy person who happens to be attractive, and then actually name something, dimples, freckles, the color of your eyes, thick lashes, a heart-shaped face, full lips, curly or wavy or thick hair, a figure you like, toned calves, high cheekbones, whatever it is that's uniquely yours.

Take your intelligence seriously while you're at it. There's almost certainly something you know that most people around you don't. What pulls your attention, history, movies, music, dancing, books, cooking, writing, sports, space, animals, the environment, archaeology? Do you tend to work things out before other people do? Are you creative, able to see a problem sideways? Intelligence isn't only book smarts and grades and test scores. It covers the ability to make things, to look at a situation from an unfamiliar angle, to grasp the whole picture when everyone else is staring at what's directly in front of them. You are not dumb. Nobody really is. The fact that other people don't recognize what you've got doesn't downgrade it, and it may well mean you're ahead of most of them. If you draw a blank trying to find anything good to say about yourself, phone a friend, tell them how you're feeling, and ask what they like best about you. Hold onto those answers for the low days.

Spend time around positive people. This one is among the most reliable. Think about a time you were low until you called or dropped in on a friend who lifts your mood, and then everything felt lighter. If that's happened to you, you're in good company, because most of us shift upward when we're around upbeat friends, coworkers or relatives. A supportive, affectionate person can lift your self-esteem in a matter of minutes. They remind you that you aren't carrying your struggles alone. They make you laugh and sometimes hand you genuinely useful advice. So when the mood sinks, reach out to the most uplifting person you know and talk, about what's bothering you or about anything but that, your call. Give it half an hour and the hope tends to come back. Mood travels from person to person.

No one positive to call? Rent something funny, stream a movie that makes you laugh, put on a TV comedy, play music that's cheerful and loud, or read a book or magazine that's genuinely amusing. Any of those can brighten the day and give your self-esteem a nudge.

Let go of perfectionism. I mean it. The perfectionist streak is quietly feeding the hopelessness. Consider how it plays out: if you're both a perfectionist and depressed, scoring a 98 on a test doesn't register as a near-perfect result, it registers as failure, and down you go because it wasn't 100. Or you step on the scale, it reads five pounds heavier, and you brand yourself a failure, convinced you're enormous while you're still wearing a size 4. The standard you're holding yourself to is part of why your self-esteem keeps sinking, even if you can't see the connection. So when you start tearing into yourself for being human instead of flawless, stop. Swap the thought out. 'I'm not perfect, but my eyes and my hair look good.' 'I'm still smart even when my grades or my work aren't perfect.' It is allowed to be yourself without being perfect.

Volunteer, or pick up a hobby. Giving your time to a local organization is one of the quickest routes to feeling better about yourself, and it does double duty: you help someone else and you loosen the grip of your own depression at the same time. There are few better feelings than being useful to another person and hearing a sincere thank you. Those two words carry enough honesty and warmth to shift your mood. Next time the worthlessness sets in, go help out at a homeless shelter, a domestic violence shelter, a children's hospital, Goodwill, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross. You'll walk out feeling different.

If getting to one of those places isn't possible, build a hobby instead. It doesn't have to be physical. Crosswords, knitting, writing stories or poetry, singing, cooking, any of it works. The particular activity matters less than whether it holds your interest and leaves you feeling like you've spent your time well. Doing something you enjoy, and doing it well, has a way of raising your self-esteem and quieting the hopelessness faster than you'd expect.

- Dr. R. Y. Langham

References: Cohen, N. (2006). Feeling worthless and depression. Psych Central. Wilson, J. (2012). The relationship between self-esteem and depression. Good Therapy.