5 Habits to Boost Your Self-Esteem

Posted on February 26, 2023 by Justin Gerard, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

Do you feel overwhelmed or stressed by the rapid and fast-moving world we live in?
Do you have unwanted thoughts that creep into your mind, saying that “you can’t handle this, it’s too much”? Well, these are some symptoms of low self-esteem.

Self-esteem is extremely important because it is the basis of how we think and feel about ourselves. It’s the sense of worth and value that we attach to ourselves as individuals. Low self-esteem may impact on how you view yourself as well. For example, if you have low self-esteem, you might struggle to believe in your abilities at work, which can negatively impact your performance and career prospects.

Self-esteem can be broken down into four elements: self-worth, self-confidence, self-respect, and self-acceptance.
Self-worth: This refers to the value we place on ourselves as individuals. It’s about recognizing our inherent worth and understanding that we deserve respect and kindness, just like everyone else.
Self-confidence: This is the belief in our abilities and talents. It’s the sense that we can accomplish our goals and overcome challenges.
Self-respect: This refers to the way we treat ourselves. It’s about valuing our own needs and desires, and treating ourselves with kindness and compassion.
Self-acceptance: This is the ability to accept ourselves for who we are, our flaws, and all. It’s about recognizing that we’re not perfect, but that’s okay.

Here are five daily habits that can help you boost your self-esteem:

Practice self-compassion by forgiving yourself (Habit 1: Self-forgiveness)

Take 10 minutes every morning for yourself without any distractions. Make this time a sacred “me” time. During this time, forgive your old self for any mistakes made in the past or yesterday. Self-forgiveness and self-compassion go hand in hand. Self-compassion involves acknowledging the mistake, accepting that it happened, and self-forgiveness is getting the learnings and making it a point that the past failure and mistake is no longer going to interfere in the present moment and deciding to let it go.

Kill ANTs and challenge negative thoughts (Habit 2: Kill ANTs)

We all have Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs). Dr. Daniel Amen describes nine ANTs in his book, “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.” These ANTs include:

1) All or nothing thinking: seeing things in black and white without considering gray areas.
2)Overgeneralization: taking one negative event and believing that it will happen in all situations.
3)Mental filtering: only paying attention to negative events while ignoring positive ones.
4)Discounting the positive: dismissing positive experiences and accomplishments as insignificant.
5)Jumping to conclusions: making negative assumptions about people’s motives without evidence.
6)Magnification or minimization: blowing negative events out of proportion while downplaying positive ones.
7)Emotional reasoning: believing that feelings are facts without evidence.
8)“Should” statements: setting unrealistic expectations for yourself and others.
9) Labeling: labeling yourself or others based on one negative trait.

Knowing these ANTs can help you identify and challenge negative thoughts that undermine your self-esteem.

Know your values and live them (Habit 3: Practice values)
Identify what’s important to you in life and what kind of person you want to be. List down five values of the person you want to be and start making it a habit to practice one of them each day. Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father of the United State listed down 13 virtues that he wanted to live by and had a checklist to review them each week. He did this to improve himself and his character.

Engage in the act of service (Habit 4: Daily act of random kindness)

Helping others can be a powerful way to build self-esteem. Kindness is defined as a type of behavior marked by acts of generosity, consideration, rendering assistance or concern for others, without expecting praise or reward. These actions can provide a sense of purpose and fulfillment that can help build self-esteem. Listen to your intuition and follow it. The more you are in touch with this part of yourself, the better you feel and think about yourself.

Set daily goals and praise yourself (Habit 5: 5 by 5)

To make things fun and interesting, set a game for yourself to complete five tasks by 5 pm for your most important goals. For example, if you’re a content creator and you need to create, schedule, and record content today, the five things you can do could be to 1) list down the title of the content, 2) write a draft script for the content, 3) plan out the recording day for content, 4) prepare equipment for content and 5) schedule block

In short, self-esteem is important for our mental health and well-being. When we have healthy self-esteem, we’re more likely to thrive in all areas of our lives. Practice these five daily habits to boost your self-esteem and notice the transformation in your life.