Imagine going through life thinking you’re worthless, thinking you just aren’t good enough. It’s such a horrible thought but many of us do just that to one level or another.
Maxwell Maltz said:
“Low self-esteem is like driving through life with the hand brake on”
And this is exactly what it’s like.
When your self-esteem isn’t as high as I could be, you hold yourself back in life because you simply don’t think you’re good enough.
Let’s have a look at 3 ways in which you can begin to build your self-esteem and take that hand brake off.
1: Mind your language!
When we find our self-esteem to be low, we can find ourselves using quite negative language about ourselves.
“Oh I’m just not good enough”
“I know people say I’m a great person but just look at me”
“I’d love to do that but I’m crap at it”
Any of those statements ring any bells?
The common thread throughout theme is the negative language used towards yourself. You tell yourself you’re not good enough, you’re not a great person and you’re terrible at something. Ask yourself, would you talk to your best friend like that? Of course not, then why talk to yourself that way!
Start becoming aware of your language and consciously catch yourself and change it. So next time you hear yourself saying something like “I’m so crap at this”, change it to “I don’t know how to do this yet but I’m willing to learn”, or maybe using “yet” at the end of a statement such as “I’m not great at this YET”.
When you start consciously changing the language you use every day, it can improve your self-esteem. It’s not going to be easy but isn’t the effort worth it!
2: Affirm yourself.
I love using affirmations! When you start using affirmations every day, they can actually start re-wiring your brain! This is called neuroplasticity and it’s the ability to re-wire the neurones in the brain.
Your sub-conscious is amazing but it’s also a little dumb. You see, it believes whatever you keep telling it. Think of those times when you are telling yourself that you’re miserable, you find yourself getting more and more miserable don’t you. That’s because your sub-conscious is believing that constant stream of “facts” and so you become that. Flip that though and keep telling yourself positive things such as “I’m confident and powerful” or “I can achieve anything I put my mind to”. Keep repeating statements like that to yourself and you begin to absolutely believe it.
This is like in health coaching, the way to change your diet isn’t to say to yourself “I can never eat those foods again”, that’s never going to work, but if you begin to crowd out the bad with the good foods, pile the veggies on your plate so they naturally crowd out the crap, you will achieve those lifestyle changes.
The same principle is used with affirmations. You’re not saying “I can’t have those thoughts” because what will happen there is you will definitely have those thoughts, it’s human nature. What you’re doing is crowding out the negative thoughts by bringing in the positive ones. Over time the positive will push the negative out almost completely.
3: Visualise yourself as a super hero!
Just like affirmations, visualisation can help you tremendously with low self-esteem.
You watch movies, you see the powerful superhero’s being able to show strength and save the planet, now it’s time for you to be one too!
Find somewhere quiet, close your eyes, and see yourself putting on a costume that signified power and confidence to you. You may be Superman, Wonder Woman, or maybe a warrior, something that to you, signifies power. Once you see yourself in that costume, think of the traits that character has and begin to FEEL those traits and powers being transferred over to you. You are starting to absorb the strength and confidence of that character.
This may seem weird or silly at first but give it a chance, see if you feel the difference. You need to have an open mind and heart to allow this to begin changing your self-esteem.
Your visualisation may actually be you, in power clothes, pair of Ray-Ban shades, walking down the street with absolute confidence. You visualise whatever you need to visualise, so long as you completely feel that confidence and power.
Stay in that costume, let the power lift your heart, mind, confidence and esteem up and up and up.
Try these, let me know in the comments how they help.
Then the British championships happened and my first attempt saw me coming second and getting the silver medal. People noticed me, people watched me, people suddenly started to monitor everything I did, whether it was my work ethic when practising or what I was achieving in the single-day tournaments.
