Your Self-Worth – How we see ourselves has a lot to do with how others see us

October 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Self-Esteem

Realizing your self-worth has nothing to do with checking your bank balance, it is about you, the person you are in life. We give others respect, love and consideration but how often do we give ourselves what is due?

How you value yourself is based on the self-esteem you have, your self-esteem shows you how much you truly value yourself. Healthy self-esteem leads to independence, happiness, flexibility, the ability to adapt easily to change, co-operation and a positive outlook on any situation. Unhealthy or low self-esteem on the other hand leads only to irrational thoughts, unhappiness, fear of the new, rigidity, defensiveness and a negative outlook on life in general.

How we see ourselves has a lot to do with how others see us, if we are happy, smiling and full of confidence then others see us as someone they want to be around, if we respect ourselves and portray this then others will respect you too, after all how can you ask for respect from others if you don’t even respect yourself? So finding and developing your self-worth is all about developing your self-esteem, so let’s take a look at esteem

High self-esteem

If you have a high self-esteem you will see certain traits in yourself and how you see yourself, traits linked with a high self-esteem or self-worth are

You are secure about who you are and have confidence in your abilities
You allow yourself to show your true feelings to others
You don’t have intimacy problems in relationships
You are able to recognize and take pride in yourself for your achievements in life
You are easily able to forgive yourself for mistakes and also forgive others

Low self-esteem

Similarly if you have problems with self-worth or low self-esteem then you will follow a certain pattern in your thoughts and ways, if you have problems with low self-esteem then you will see the following points in yourself

You lack belief in yourself and are very insecure
You have problems showing and accepting intimacy in relationships
You never let your true feelings show
You never recognize and give yourself credit for your accomplishments
You have the inability to forgive yourself or others
You resist change at every opportunity

Developing your self-worth

There are plenty of ways in which you can boost your self-esteem and change to a more positive and healthy outlook about yourself, here are some tips for developing and boosting your self-worth.

Don’t take other peoples criticism to heart, instead listen to what they are saying and learn from it.
Take some time out for yourself everyday, meditate, look inside yourself and realize all your good points and imagine changing your bad ones into more positive.
Celebrate and pride yourself on even the smallest achievements that you accomplish.
Do something everyday that you enjoy, such as talking a walk in the sunshine or soaking in a bubble bath.
Never deprive yourself of something you enjoy, if you know you shouldn’t be doing it, then do it anyway and stop chastising yourself about it.
Talk positively to yourself, repeat affirmations to chase away all of the negative thoughts and feelings.

The benefits of using positive self-talk

One of the biggest influences that we can use to our advantage in life is oneself. In particular, we can use our thoughts because they in influence our feelings and therefore can have a profound effect on how we deal with life in general. By learning to control our self-talk and turning it into positive self-talk rather than negative, which most people do unconsciously throughout the day, you can begin to gain more control over every aspect of your life and make essential changes.

Your ability to succeed in life largely depends on how you deal with life, a positive mental attitude leads to a confident and ultimately more successful person than one full of negativity which leads to a lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem. By taking a positive attitude you look at life in a different way to one of negativity, a positive attitude leads to seeing good in people and the world which leads to optimism and success. Your quality of life is based on how you think and feel from moment to moment and changing the way you think can drastically change how you see life and deal with life.

The person who goes through life optimistically with a positive attitude is better able to deal with life and the problems which it sometimes throws at us, they are able to bounce back and recover from problems or set-backs in life. The optimistic person will see the problem for what it is, nothing but a temporary set-back which they can overcome and move on, when looking at life in this optimistic way the person is able to take full control over their thoughts and feelings and turn a negative situation into a more positive one by simply altering the way they think. Since thoughts can either be positive or negative and you can only have one thought in mind at any one time then choosing positive will keep your thoughts, feelings and actions optimistic which leads to a happier person who is able to achieve their goals much easier.

Using positive self-talk in your daily life

You should use positive self-talk throughout the day in order to establish a new thinking pattern, you will probably have established a pattern of negative thinking for many years and this will take time to overcome, to start with you should aim to repeat positive self-talk around 50 times throughout the day, this can be achieved by repeating positive statements quietly to yourself or out aloud. Positive self-talk can be used for many different aspects in your life, it can help you to overcome difficult situations, gain more confidence in yourself, help you to quit habits, recover quicker from illness or make changes to your life in general. Popular phrases or sentences that can be used in positive self-talk include.

I have an interesting challenge facing me – this could be used when a problem occurs in life or there is some difficulty, rather than looking at the situation in a negative way and thinking I have a problem, thinking of it as a challenge is a much more positive way of dealing with it.
I like the person I am – this could be used to bolster self-confidence and gain respect about yourself and the person you are, similar statements could be “I am the best”, “I am a good person” or “I have many excellent qualities”.
I know I can do this – this could be used if you are faced with a certain task that you would previously doubt yourself capable of conquering, similarly you could say “I have the ability to conquer this” or “this doesn’t pose a problem for me”
I am full of health, energy and vitality – this can be used to encourage good feelings about your health either after you have been sick or while recovering from an illness.
I am fulfilled as a person – this can be used to encourage good general positive thoughts about yourself and the world in which you live.

Please make sure to check out my previous article in this series: “A Positive Outlook for A Positive Life“

Posted by Pierre | Filed Under Self-Improvement

Your Self-Worth – How we see ourselves has a lot to do with how others see us

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