The fastest way to boost your self-esteem
Self-esteem is the basis of life. A sense of healthy self-esteem is the key to peace of mind. And it is at the core of true self-confidence. Self-esteem is often defined as ‘how you feel about yourself, when you are alone, and contemplating yourself and your self-worth’.
A lot of self-defeating behaviour is rooted in low or doubtful self-esteem. People often deny themselves what they want in life because of some feeling that they ‘don’t deserve’ what they really want.
A traditional way of helping people with self-esteem is to use something like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). This is a very sound approach, as it helps people to challenge the negative self-talk they are giving to themselves, and the negative beliefs they are fostering.
However the fastest way to build or boost self-esteem is to CLARIFY AND LIVE YOUR VALUES. This is in line with the ‘positive psychology’ movement that is becoming more prevalent these days, which basically suggests that it can be far more beneficial to people to accentuate the positives in their lives and personalities, rather than focus on, and try to correct, the negatives.
Values are the qualities of life that we are motivated towards. Values are different to needs. Needs certainly take up a lot of our energy and attention. We need food, shelter and beyond our basic requirements we need friendships, support, and some kind of social network. We can also have within us an unconscious striving for significance or importance.
Whereas needs tend to be largely unconscious, values are those best parts of ourselves that we can assert and impose on our life. Values are a fast way to get in touch with our Authentic Self. This concept of the Authentic Self is vital to understand, in order to remedy low self-esteem. Everyone has some sense of what they value in life. What we call ‘conscience’ is merely the tip of this awareness. We know what we are truly capable of in life, we know the qualities that we really want to assert. These qualities are our Values. And if we fail to bring them fully into our life, our sense of self corrodes and suffers.
Values are an essential part of your creation of a Vision for your life.
Values that people commonly experience include Contribution, Kindness, Productivity, Awareness, Adaptability, Connection, Sharing, Perserverance, Transcendence, Learning, Insight….these are the kinds of intentions and aspirations that we carry around inside us. Becoming more aware of our Values, and bringing them thoughtfully into our lives, not only boosts our own self-esteem very quickly, but also elevates the quality of life for those around us.
The secret to life, as has been expressed by writers and philosophers for thousands of years, is to ‘be yourself’. In other words, to be your Authentic Self. The ancient texts of the Yogis express this truth. They said that whatever your problems in life may be, such as struggling to make enough money for your needs, struggling to find a life partner, fearing what might happen to you, and the whole array of human problems, can be totally solved with this one action. Be Yourself. Be your Authentic Self.
Reconnection with our Authentic Self is achieved by living a life in which our Goals, Purposes, Values and Ideals are united and carrying us towards a Vision for our life.
Many coaches are trained in the art of helping people to clarify and live their Values. In the psychological science known as NLP, there are some advanced techniques regarding clarifying and strengthening Values, and aligning an individual’s life towards them. The result can be a tremendous boost of energy, vitality and meaning in a person’s life.
If you want to experience this boost in your sense of wellbeing and wholeness, it may help you to get in touch with a coach and do a short program on this.
As an NLP Master Practitioner I am able to help you if you wish, and we can talk further about this in a free session.
Warren at Conscious Gain.
