How I Improved My Self-Esteem

Like most people, I still blush when praised for the work I’ve done. It’s the last remnant from before my transformation.

Thing is, I was always way too modest to give myself much credit. It wasn’t until my mid-20’s that I started wondering why, and doing some research. I learned that this modesty affected my level of self-esteem. In order to feel better about myself, more confident and capable, I needed to love myself more — and give myself more credit. I needed to be stronger, stand tall, and be genuinely confident.

But how?

The ensuing transformation I pushed myself through has dramatically changed my life and lowered my anxiety. Self-esteem is an upward or downward spiral. What you do affects the way you feel. How you feel affects the things you do. The things you do affect what you and others think of you, which in turn, affects how you feel about yourself.

Here are the six actionable steps that were critical to getting on the right path:

Getting Rid Of The Weeds

One of the biggest realizations I had during my transformation was that I cared too much about the opinions of others. I would dwell on the rare person who was mean to me when I should have been focusing on all the positive people around me. I always wanted to know WHY?

I’ll never have a real answer to that question, so why worry about it?

I’ve since learned that the healthiest response to this is to cut those people out of my life and to recognize that I’ll never have a real answer to that question, so why worry about it? Maybe I remind them of someone they dislike, or a girl that snubbed them in high school, or the guy they like said something flattering about me, or they’re just plain crazy. Who knows and who cares?? There are billions of people in the world, and there’s no longer space for the nasty ones on my radar.

Here’s what I did: I made a decision to focus on the positive people and forget the negative ones. First, I distanced myself from people who had been consistently critical of me. I’m not talking about friends who are genuinely trying to help and give constructive advice, but the ones who feel the consistent need to voice their opinion about things I can’t (or shouldn’t need to) change, even though it’s not helpful.

By cutting the negative people out of my life, I was able to gain a better perspective of who I was. I was my own worst critic and didn’t need more people trying to bring me down. Secondly, I made an effort to surround myself with people who inspired me and immersed myself in good audiobooks, inspirational articles, affirmations of my self-worth, and things that gave me hope.

Take Credit Where Credit is Due

I grew up in Canada where modesty is ingrained in the culture. And modesty –in moderation– is a good thing, for sure. But for many people, being way-overly-modest is a reflection of their low self-esteem. Don’t get me wrong: people who boast and have a big ego also do so out of insecurity. It’s just a different way of manifesting it. It’s the people who can take a compliment gracefully and confidently talk about their accomplishments when asked, without over-stating or bragging, that have the most healthy self-esteem.

To break the cycle of modesty, I started with writing a list of the things I’d accomplished and the things about my personality that I was proud of. I would re-read it daily, and re-write it weekly. This engrained it into my head and when others complimented me on these things, I no longer felt the need to minimize their compliment by saying something self-deprecating. Instead, I simply say Thank You and catalog the complement in the “I must be doing something right” column in my brain.

Learn to Say No

I used to feel obligated to go out of my way to help friends and to say Yes to everything they asked of me. This lead to me consistently being taken advantage of and feeling hurt, which lowered my self-esteem. Because I was so overly generous, even friends who normally wouldn’t ‘use’ me, ended up making me feel used, and it damaged our friendship. I learned the hard way that when a friendship is out of balance, it often spoils.

So the lesson is this: Don’t be a people pleaser. Recognize that you have enough value as a friend without giving them any extra benefits. And if you do nice things for a friend and it’s not reciprocated, then stop doing those things and see how your friend reacts. Givers, like me, can’t be friends with Takers or it’ll eventually suck you dry and drain your self-esteem. You need to put yourself first and be comfortable saying no.

Don’t be a people pleaser.

Dwelling On Problems Is Not Healthy

My husband helps me see situations in a better light, and when I’m going through a tough time he’s quick to point out that things aren’t nearly as bad as they appear to be. He helps me to focus on the positive and stop dwelling on the negative. If you dwell on the things that have gone wrong in your life, you’ll be stuck under a gray cloud.

When a tabloid journalist I’d never met wrote a bizarre article speculating about my personality, completely fictionalized, my mentor, Richard Branson, gave me good advice. He told me to forget about it, move on, and not to respond. If you move past the negative in your life and try to find the silver lining in every situation, then you’ll soon realize that other people can’t damage your self esteem.

Meditation and Affirmations Are Key

Meditation and affirmations are proven methods of self-improvement because of their ability to rewire our brains, raise the level of feel-good hormones, and push our brains to form new clusters of “positive thought” neurons.

Meditation can give you the ability to step back from situations and see both the situation and yourself in an objective way, giving you much more perspective and helping you to react more calmly. It also enables us to meet, greet, and make friends with ourselves. I know it sounds silly, but once you start meditating you’ll see what I mean. Meditation allows us to get to know who we really are and to accept and embrace ourselves just as we are. We soon find that our doubts, insecurities or fears are really only superficial. This allows us to replace those things with a deeper place of trust, dignity and self-worth.

I like to start my daily meditation with affirmations. It has helped me to rewire my brain to be more confident and break out of negative thinking. Basically, whatever you tell yourself will become true in your own mind, which will also make it far more likely that other people will believe is, and it will manifest in your life.

What You Eat Influences Your Emotions

Modern science has proven that the microbiome in your gut (that’s the pounds of living bacteria in your gut that influences most functions in your body) have a huge effect on our emotions, energy, irritability, and even brain fog. Integrative doctors are now recommending a vegan diet instead of antidepressants. I know, it sounds like science-fiction — but it works!

Not sure where to start? There are lots of vegan cookbooks, but the one that made me feel great is called Eating Clean, by blogger Amie Valpone. I followed the Eating Clean detox diet for three months, combined with the following three tips, and felt like a new, much healthier and happier person at the end of it.

What do you do to boost your self-esteem?