A staggering number of Americans grapple with self-esteem issues. Furthermore, problems with one’s self-esteem can run the gamut from mildly inconvenient to outright debilitating. That being the case, maintaining healthy self-esteem should be among everyone’s foremost priorities.
Fortunately, heightened self-esteem is a far more feasible goal than many of us have come to believe. So, if your self-esteem could use a good boost, consider the following options.
Extricate Yourself from Toxic Relationships
It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that toxic relationships can act as an enormous detriment to healthy self-esteem. For example, if you maintain friendships or romantic relationships with people who consistently make you feel bad about yourself, there’s little wonder as to why your self-esteem is currently on the wane. Of course, this isn’t to say that toxic relationships are limited to friends and romantic partners. Relationships with family members, professional colleagues, and employers can also help facilitate poor self-esteem.
Once you’ve come to identify a relationship as toxic, it’s in the best interest of your self-esteem that you extricate yourself from it. Granted, if you’ve become emotionally or financially dependent on the party, this may strike you as easier said than done. Additionally, if you truly feel that a relationship is worth salvaging, make your feelings known to the other party. Should they prove amenable to working with you and addressing their negative behavior, there may be room for reconciliation. However, if they react in a characteristically toxic manner, seek to minimize your feelings or refuse to work on themselves in any way, this is a relationship that isn’t worth your time or energy.
Become Comfortable with Saying No
It’s easy to see why so many of us engage in people-pleasing. After all, wanting to be liked, loved and valued is only human, and we believe that we’re unworthy of such feelings if we don’t make every conceivable effort to accommodate the people around us. Needless to say, if you’ve gotten into the habit of never saying no, refusing a request is liable to strike you as an impossible prospect.
While the general rationale for people-pleasing is understandable, there are a number of downsides to living your life in this manner. For starters, people-pleasing is often unnecessary, since the people in our lives should value us regardless of whether or not we constantly go above and beyond the call of duty. Secondly, people who expect you to go out of your way for them in perpetuity generally aren’t the kind of people who will make your life better. Thirdly, people-pleasing can result in significant self-esteem issues, as it essentially creates the impression your needs are secondary – if indeed they matter at all.
With this in mind, it’s imperative that you become comfortable with saying no. Whether you’re dealing with friends, family members, bosses or coworkers, you don’t exist to serve, and your needs are just as important as anyone else’s. Learning how to say no will enable you to take back some degree of control and help you feel empowered, both of which can do wonders for your self-esteem.
Seek to Help Others
Although people-pleasing should be avoided, this doesn’t mean that you should never seek to help others. In fact, showing kindness to people in need, making active efforts to assist the less fortunate, and taking part in formal charity work can effectively boost floundering self-esteem. Fortunately, no matter where you happen to be based, you should have no problem finding opportunities to pay it forward. You’d be hard-pressed to find a city or township in which food drives, donation centers and mentoring opportunities are difficult to come across. Additionally, if you’re interested in helping people with medical issues, consider working with Vitalant Blood Donation.
Whereas high self-esteem can propel you to greater heights, low self-esteem can leave you feeling worthless and afraid. While it’s true that everyone grapples with low self-esteem at one time or another, self-esteem that’s stuck in a perpetual state of decline should be addressed posthaste. The longer you allow your self-esteem to plummet, the more work you’ll have to put into lifting it back up. Luckily, giving your self-esteem a boost doesn’t have to be an uphill climb – especially if you have the previously discussed pointers in your corner.
