For many centuries, women have sought emancipation and, although now many professions that were previously considered purely “male” have also been mastered by women, the fair half of humanity has been and remains the weaker sex. A woman is more vulnerable, more sensitive and usually does not adapt so easily to the realities of today.
Everyone knows that the path of life is not always and not for everyone lined with fragrant rose petals; sometimes you have to walk over thorns. How can you not break, persevere and prove, first of all, to yourself that you are worthy of love and respect? And in addition, it also happened that in the modern world there suddenly are no more important criteria in a person’s life than personal growth and spiritual self-development.
Assess your strengths
Psychologists note that, when talking about themselves, many prefer to concentrate on their shortcomings and remain silent about their advantages, considering them insignificant. Think about what your strengths are. Take a piece of paper and write a list of your positive qualities. It can be anything: kindness, the ability to be a good friend, a good education... Try to write at least 15 properties that you can be proud of.
list should be in front of your eyes more often. Hang it on your refrigerator or carry it with you in your business notebook!
Zone 2 - your head
What's on your mind? How much time can you spend alone with yourself? What do you constantly think about? Do you have a lot of negative “not” thoughts?
Information
In order to feel self-love, your head must work. You should be interested in yourself. The situation here is absolutely the same as with nutrition. What do you feed your intellectual part?
The simplest things that will fill you are knowledge. Take on a new project at work, learn something you haven't dived into before. Maybe it’s the history of Russia or the culture of the West, learn more about successful personalities like Churchill and Catherine the Great, immerse yourself in politics, economics, art, learn a new foreign language. Feed your head!
Skills
Learn to do something you haven't done before. Learn a new profession. And yes, this applies to the head area. With a new business, your horizons expand, knowledge and skills appear, you meet people, you become part of society and subconsciously you will strive to be more and more involved. This way you upgrade yourself, and you have more reasons to be proud of yourself and respect yourself as a person.
Art
Exhibitions, museums, and theaters could easily be classified as the next zone, but we will leave that here. Things from the world of art, created by other people, can give us new thoughts, they can change our view of ourselves and help us look at the most ordinary things from a different perspective. Look for a reflection of your personality in art. Catch your emotions and states, analyze them. Answers to questions can really be found in art, because this is the experience of other people. Why not take good ideas for yourself? Think positively, removing the “no” part, use strong words - “I can, I must, I will, I want.”
Are disadvantages always disadvantages?
Every person has qualities that he considers to be his shortcomings. However, experts note that there are no absolutely bad personality traits.
Do a simple exercise. Write 5 characteristics that annoy you about yourself. Then try to think about what is good about each of these properties. For example, impulsiveness gives you spontaneity, laziness gives you the opportunity to save resources, shyness makes you cute in the eyes of some people...
Seven steps to ideal self-esteem
If you follow the advice of psychologists, you can become a confident woman and increase your self-esteem in a few months. It is important to have a clear desire to change yourself and your own life, the determination to finish what you started and consistently follow all the recommendations.
Circle of friends
First you need to evaluate your inner circle of friends. If a woman’s self-esteem is low, most likely there are people next to her who do not strive for change, who have no ambitions, perhaps lazy, lacking initiative, and lacking motivation in life. Contacts with people who are strong, but who take advantage of someone else’s character weaknesses and assert themselves at the expense of others, only further reduce self-esteem. This kind of social circle needs to change.
It is important to establish contact with people who experience success. Purposeful and prosperous, they are able to instill confidence in their abilities in those around them. In communicating with them, a sense of the value of one’s own individuality will gradually come, the attitude towards personal time will change, and the desire to set goals and achieve them will appear. The very first achievements will force you to respect your own personality and believe in your own strength.
No self-criticism
To increase self-esteem and love yourself, as psychologists advise, you need to stop finding flaws in yourself, in your own actions, in the world around you. Stop focusing on them and beating yourself up. You need to avoid negative assessments of your appearance, career, and personal life. You need to find your strengths, focus on them, work on them and develop them. It is useful to think about your own uniqueness and value as often as possible, until it becomes a habit and ceases to raise doubts.
If you stop focusing on your own shortcomings, often exaggerated and even far-fetched, you will have the energy and time to be creative and set a worthy goal, for example, for self-improvement. There is no need to criticize yourself for failure - let it be a lesson that will show how to act in the future.
No comparisons
Comparing themselves with other people, women often feel their self-sufficiency disappearing and begin to judge themselves. After all, there are many people around who have achieved more and look more attractive. Comparison with others will only hinder your work on increasing your own self-worth. When you see someone else's success, it is important not to feel envy - you need to be inspired by it, learn from such examples. Envy is a feeling that can devour from within, take away energy, which is better spent on building a renewed personality.
The only comparison that can be allowed is comparing the old self, not expecting change, with the new one. Ready for success and having already taken steps on the difficult path. What is also important is that when comparing, do not focus on the level of results achieved. It is better to concentrate on the new knowledge acquired, on the positive experience gained.
Appearance
Even recognized beauties always try to change something about themselves for the better. You need to take care of your appearance. Being well-groomed will give you self-confidence. A visit to a hairdresser or cosmetologist not only means taking care of yourself and improving your appearance, but also copes well with depressive thoughts. The same applies to buying new cosmetics or an outfit.
Important! The role of appearance in achieving success in life cannot be underestimated. But a flawless face and body are not a guarantee or the only factor in achieving it. A huge number of people have achieved fame and success, having a completely ordinary appearance, but possessing charisma.
Beauty is created not only by makeup, an elegant hairstyle, or a fashionable dress. A healthy diet and exercise will improve the condition of your skin and hair and have a positive effect on your figure. During sports training, the body produces endorphins - hormones that cause a feeling of joy and relieve pain. This has a positive effect on both mood and the general state of the nervous system.
Perseverance
The path to increasing self-esteem will not be easy. But one should not give up when the first difficulties appear. If you make plans, outline things to do, and then stop halfway and do not implement anything, your self-esteem will likely decrease even more. On the contrary, successfully overcome difficulties enhance it and inspire new achievements. Elementary laziness can ruin the best undertakings. But you have to try to cope with it. For example, make routine work more interesting or reward yourself with some kind of purchase or sweets.
To make it easier to achieve your goal, you need to look for motivating factors. For example, getting up a little earlier and doing exercises means getting closer to the desired slimness. It's better to take small steps, but every day. For example, when studying a foreign language, it is difficult to allocate three hours in a row, but 30 minutes every day is quite achievable. It's important to take action. If you find a like-minded person or follow an example to follow, things will go even faster. It is also important to constantly praise yourself. This is the simplest advice that psychology gives on how to increase a woman’s self-esteem.
Unusual actions
It’s easy, convenient, familiar to be in the comfort zone. For example, dedicate every evening to TV series. Even worse, when faced with any difficulties, console yourself with an excess of sweets or alcohol. The familiar environment seems safe, protecting from a hostile, inhospitable world. But it also protects you from real life, in which there is beauty, positive emotions, and adventure, finally. To increase self-esteem, you need to learn to break stereotypes, go beyond your comfort zone, while remaining calm and collected.
The first steps can be very simple - go to work on the road, talk to a stranger. Instead of watching a TV series, go to the pool. Learn something new on your own or in courses. With the help of new impressions, knowledge, and acquaintances, you can significantly increase your self-confidence, and fall in love with these new qualities in your personality, and finally, with your whole self.
Diary of achievements
To become a confident woman and increase self-esteem, psychologists recommend keeping a diary and recording daily successes of any scale. To begin with, it is best to list the qualities that a woman values in herself. Even a woman with low self-esteem should definitely find them. Then think about what qualities you would like to develop in the future, and also write them down in your diary.
Next, you need to fill out a diary every day - write down all your achievements there. You can even set yourself a minimum goal (five or seven) for each day. This should not be scary - achievements will not necessarily be large-scale, any overcoming of oneself is important. I got up early - it’s already good. Giving up the cake is a big plus. I sent my resume to a new job - it’s just great! Such a diary stimulates and inspires action, increases your own effectiveness, and gives you the opportunity to believe in yourself. The end result is exactly the one for which everything was intended: gaining love for one’s own personality and adequate self-esteem.
You don't need toxic people
Many people we consider friends or good buddies have a negative impact on our self-esteem. If after a meeting with a “friend” or a conversation with a colleague you feel a loss of energy, analyze the reasons for this feeling. Are you constantly being told that you should lose weight and that you could have achieved more at your age? Or are you uncomfortable with jokes about your appearance or life?
Ask the person not to say anything you don't like to hear. If you hear a refusal or a phrase that, since some words offend you, it means they are true, you should refuse communication.
True friends make a person stronger and give self-confidence and support, and do not assert themselves at his expense!
Advice and recommendations from psychologists
I don’t like myself: what should I do? Psychologists will help you develop true love and respect for yourself.
For men
How to truly love yourself and get rid of complexes? We are used to perceiving men as strong and confident, but this is not always the case.
Some representatives of the stronger sex also suffer from self-dislike.
If you belong to this category and want to get rid of complexes, then first of all you need to believe in yourself. Try to focus on your strengths and work on your weaknesses.
How to learn to love and respect yourself? Others will not respect you until you begin to treat yourself that way.
Finally understand that you deserve better and are worthy of it. Put your needs above the interests of others if necessary.
Do various exercises to improve your self-esteem.
Psychological techniques and exercises:
- Make a list of your strengths and weaknesses. What is your advantage? What shortcomings are there and what can be done about them? This list will help you look at yourself from the outside. And understand that everything is not as bad as it seemed.
- Control your thoughts. You can hang a rubber band on your hand and hit yourself with it every time you think badly to yourself. This way you will unlearn thinking in a negative way and tune into a positive mood.
- Use self-hypnosis techniques. If you repeat in front of the mirror every morning how confident and strong you are, then soon you will believe it yourself. The main thing is to do it regularly and consciously.
- Develop yourself . It will be easier for you to love yourself if your list of skills and achievements constantly increases.
If you want to delve deeper into this issue and read books on this topic , then pay attention to the following:
- A. Maksimov “Psychophilosophy. A book for those who have confused themselves with a stone”;
- S. Richardson “The Art of Being Selfish. Love yourself and start living life to the fullest”;
- M. Litvak “If you want to be happy”;
- V. Zeland “Transurfing of reality.”
Learn how to love yourself and gain self-confidence:
Get rid of unnecessary things!
A person's condition largely depends on what surrounds him. Take a close look at the place where you live. If you see things you don't like, get rid of them without regret and buy new ones that bring you joy and meet your aesthetic needs.
Don't turn your home into a repository of unnecessary things and memories. Even if you simply decide to throw away cracked dishes and clothes that you haven’t worn for a long time, you will feel that it has become much easier for you to breathe in your own apartment.
What causes low self-esteem?
Parents who make mistakes in raising their own children, often even with the best intentions, can lay the foundation for the formation of low self-esteem. Overly demanding parents who take their child’s successes for granted and, instead of praising them, point out that the result should be much better, teach the child to be dissatisfied with himself.
Frequent criticism creates a lack of confidence in one’s own strengths, a feeling that failure is exactly what one deserves. Strict, unkind parents cannot raise a child who will love himself and calmly accept all his positive and negative characteristics. Mom and dad, of course, do not want to harm the child. Often they simply reproduce the experience of their own childhood and have no idea about the psychology of childhood. Psychology helps a man or woman correct these mistakes in adult life and raise self-esteem.
Children are very sensitive to their own failures. They love to compete and strive to be first. Even when playing a board game, a baby may burst into tears if, for example, another participant’s piece reaches the finish line first. And when children spend a lot of effort, study hard, train, but do not become the first (in sports, in school subject Olympiads, in creative competitions), this frustrates them and undermines their self-confidence. The task of adults is to help the child cope with grief, to convince him that even participation in the competition is already his great achievement.
A dangerous situation from the point of view of self-esteem can be when there is nothing to strive for and clear achievable goals have not been set. This is true for a person at any age. The lack of tasks, the need to waste energy, to change something in life leads to apathy, and sometimes to depression. Some may even stop taking care of their appearance. Self-esteem that is not too high in such circumstances plummets.
Confidence or uncertainty is often shaped by the social environment. A similar rule works in childhood and is true for adult women and men. An adequate attitude towards oneself appears due to a good example that can be imitated. A self-sufficient, purposeful, self-satisfied woman is able to captivate her friend with her example and help her believe in her own capabilities.
And if you are surrounded by people who lack initiative, criticize everyone around them, feel sorry for themselves, but do not want to change anything, it is easy to become infected with such an attitude towards yourself and towards life, and slowly begin to lose confidence in your own abilities. You need to approach the choice of your social circle consciously, trying to be closer to people who are success-oriented and overcome difficulties. Their desire for self-improvement can captivate and force them to act. This will have a positive impact on self-esteem.
Those children who have physical health problems or defects in appearance usually find it most difficult to evaluate themselves positively and to feel confident in their own abilities. They really are different from other children - this fact is difficult to ignore. Competent, loving parents always help the child to correctly perceive his inherent characteristics, but it is difficult for them to protect him from others, especially peers. Children usually do not spare those who are different from them or cannot answer.
To avoid ridicule and bullying from peers, it is important to try to eliminate shortcomings and try to adapt to them. For example, find other talents in an overweight, unathletic child and develop them. Even a small success can make him feel confident and self-worth. A child or teenager will see the goal ahead and focus on achieving it. The growth of self-esteem will not take long to come.
Learn to say no
The lives of many people with an inferiority complex are filled with constant attempts to help others at the expense of themselves. This is due to the inability to refuse, because it seems that it is simply impossible not to love such a kind and sympathetic person. Unfortunately, people take such sacrifice for granted and are not in a hurry to thank for the efforts spent.
If you constantly stay late at work finishing a report for a colleague, or babysit your friend’s children for free on the weekend while she is having fun with her husband, you should learn to say the cherished word “no” to people! Refusal is not an indicator of your bad temper and unresponsiveness, but evidence that you know how to value your time.
Increasing self-esteem is not as difficult as it seems. Go towards your goal and sooner or later you will realize that your life has changed for the better!
Why is it important to love yourself
Sometimes you want to become like the girls “from the cover” - the most beautiful and ideal. But such people do not exist, and when they find disadvantages, they become depressed and experience stress. Those who value themselves do not feel guilty for their shortcomings, but try to eradicate them, feel their self-sufficiency and uniqueness. A person sees personality.
Love also gives confidence, which affects manners, movements, and gait. Those around you feel radiated calm and harmony, due to which a positive attitude towards them is formed. To love life and yourself means that a woman gains emotional stability. Such ladies do not need approval from others. They are less susceptible to manipulation by public opinion, which gives them freedom of action and freedom from the fear of “what people will say.”
