A Self-Esteem Activity Including Ways to Enhance Your Confidence

Self Esteem Activity

How is your self-esteem?  Review the following statements, then indicate if they are True or False for you. After finishing, go back and check over your answers. Answer all of the questions to get a true picture of yourself.

This personal exercise is to help you to better understand your self-esteem. There are no right or wrong answers, this is just a way for you to gauge where you are and where you can relieve yourself of beliefs and unresolved issues holding you back from being who you truly are.

1. I don’t feel adequate when I handle new situations.  True False
2. I accept criticism without getting upset.  True False
3. I accept myself unconditionally. True False
4. I don’t exaggerate, pretend or lie. True False
5. I am not afraid to express my feelings. True False
6. I don’t feel resentful when I lose. True False
7. I don’t worry about what other’s think about me. True False
8. I don’t feel a victim. True False
9. I accept my body as it is. True False
10. I don’t need other people’s opinion to feel good about myself. True False
11. I can stand up for myself without being aggressive. True False
12. I don’t feel like a failure. True False
13. I don’t feel guilty when I say “no”. True False
14. I have good relationship with other people, I have no fear of abandonment. True False
15. I don’t begrudge other people’s success. True False

Total Score 12-15 = You have a deep sense of worth, self-respect and live a balanced life.

Total Score 8-11 = You are on the right path, keep it up.

Total Score 7 -5 = You have a tendency toward self-criticism and to put yourself down. You’re afraid to take risks and make mistakes. You lack confidence.

Total Score < 4 = You are concerned with other people’s opinions and you may lack assertiveness. Your tendency is to ignore your needs because you want to please others. You might have self-destructive habits. You lack confidence, hide your true feelings and have problems establishing intimacy in relationships.

How Self-Esteem Can Affect Your Life

I struggled with self-esteem issues for years, trying to live up to an image of perfection that wasn’t who I was or honoring the beauty of my uniqueness. In all the years that I had a cynical view of myself, the relationships I had reflected how I treated myself. Since then I’ve spent some time concentrating on myself and things have improved notably. Raising your self-esteem isn’t easy when you’re drowning in comparisons and an accumulation of beliefs that you’re not good enough just as you are, but when you take the steps to dig into your shadows and rise above all of that, it is a magnificent feeling.

Advantages for a High Self-Esteem from Me and Henry Ford Allegiance Health

1. Your expectations are more in line with reality, and as a result, you’re less critical of yourself and others
2. You’re better able to handle stress (and avoid the unhealthy side effects that come with it)
3. You’re less likely to develop an eating disorder
4. You’re not as likely to battle feelings of worthlessness, guilt or shame
5. You’re more likely to be assertive about expressing what you want, need or think
6. You can build strong, honest relationships (and are less likely to stay in unhealthy ones)
7. You have greater confidence in your ability to make good decisions.
8. You bounce back more easily when it comes to life’s inevitable setbacks
9. You’re more able to forgive yourself and others
10. You will have a clearer sense of your values, worth, and integrity
11. You will be less self-focused and more able to reach out to others 
12. When you have a healthy self-esteem you will know yourself; be able to assess who you truly are, what your gifts are and ways to share them
13. You will naturally love and accept yourself as you are, knowing that you can improve and develop any aspect of yourself that you choose

Secrets to Creating a Healthy Self Esteem and How to Apply Them

Live Consciously. Pay close attention to how you feel and the thoughts that come into your mind. Be aware of the view you hold of yourself and how it affects the way you act whether alone or with others.

Learn from Inaccurate Judgments.  I personally don’t believe in mistakes, we only know what we know. It is okay to say, “I was wrong or made an assumption”, own it and learn from it. We do the best we can with what we know, when we know better, we do better. You’ve discovered something about yourself and you will go forward a better person.

Listen To Other’s Point Of View without Judgment. It is easy to get caught up in our own opinion, even if it’s negative. Asking for and listening to other points of view can help you to realize your own truth and what you have intuitively known all along. It also helps you to realize that when someone offers their opinion it is based on their perception and life experiences. A good way to express your opinion in a non confrontational way, “from my personal experience or based on what I’ve learned.”

Take Care Of Yourself Physically, Emotionally and Spiritually. Taking care of yourself should be focused on your physical, intellectual and spiritual well-being to create new behaviors. We all have choices, it is up to us to take responsibility for our over-all well-being. 

Take Responsibility for Your Life. Not owning up to our actions keeps us stuck, feeling miserable and unhappy.  Wayne Dyer said, “No matter how much I protest, I am totally responsible for everything that happens to me in my life”. Keeping this in mind will help you to create a different way of seeing things and being.

Speak and Act from Your Own Convictions. Be authentic and true to who you are and your values. Speak up and empower yourself to take control of your life. I guarantee you will feel better about yourself.

Have a Sense of Purpose & Direction. What do you want and where is your life going?  It is necessary to develop a sense of direction and focus on what you want to create a healthy self-esteem. 

Meditate Daily. Whether you take a walk in nature or meditate in a quiet and serene environment, take time to be still. This practice is vital to your mental and physical well-being and self-confidence.

Visualization – Use your ability to visualize your ideal situation, work, home, family, health, etc. See it in your mind as you would if it were real and the way your life would look, ideally. Visualizing is a great way to help create the life you want and stay focused in a positive way.

Forgive. Forgiving is never for anyone but yourself. Not forgiving is like carrying a heavy load without any relief, it is difficult and painful to move forward with your life. Forgiving is putting all of your baggage behind you and lightening your load. 

Avoid ‘should’ statements. If you find that your thoughts are concentrated on shoulds, it is time to let go of them, and the unreasonable rules you’ve held for yourself. Instead embrace new ways to enhance your life and the unique person that you are.

Focus on the positive. Think about the good parts of your life. Remind yourself of things that have gone well. This is a way to help steer you away from the tendency to be negative about yourself and your abilities.

Encourage yourself. Give yourself credit for making positive changes. Whether the changes are in your relationships, your lifestyle or within you, give yourself a pat on the back for taking the necessary steps to view yourself in a healthier and honest way.

  I decided to by happy for the rest of my life because it is good for my health, Voltaire

Thank you for taking time to stop by. I appreciate any ideas or thoughts you have about self-esteem or any questions that you have.

 

Negative Self-Talk – 8 Ways to Silence Your Critical Inner Voice

It’s not what you say out of your mouth that determines your life, it is that whisper to yourself that has the most power. Robert T. Kiyosuki

Where does negative self-talk comes from? 

Negative self talk slowly works its way into our mind from the people around us, too much attention on the media and the negativity in the world around us. The more we hear it, the more we think it. Negative thoughts are constantly swirling around in mind, they never stop. We create those gloomy thoughts, we can replace them with more practical and optimistic thoughts, if we just stop, listen and shift.  Our mental and emotional health can only improve if we take the time to pay attention to what we say to ourselves.

If we tell ourselves we are fat and will always be overweight, we do everything to ensure that happens. If we tell ourselves we have a hard life with no way out, then we create that life.  If we tell ourselves we are unlovable, not worthy of happiness, stupid or clumsy, not only are we what we think, but everyone around us will see only what we project ourselves to be.

From WebMD, The more you focus on negative events or shortcomings, the harder it is to put them behind you. Research shows that happy people put bad days behind them. http://www.webmd.com/balance/express-yourself-13/negative-self-talk

8 Ways to Turn Down the Volume on Negative-Self-Talk

Once you begin to retrain your brain, you will catch yourself and use one of the many ways you learn to replace it.  Here are a few I’ve found successful:

1. Instead of focusing on what you don’t like about yourself, find things that you do like, say you have pretty eyes or nice hands, you get the picture.
2. When you catch yourself criticizing something you’ve done or said, ask yourself this, “Would I say this to my friends or family and is it really true?”
3. Take stock of the people in your life who are negative, can you create a boundary to limit your time with them or are you better off finding new people to surround yourself with?
4. We all have the habit of calling ourselves names or lashing out at ourselves when we make a mistake. Try thinking, I always do the best I can or I have good abilities and I know I will do better next time.
5. Meditation is a way of calming yourself and helping to take your mind to a state of pure relaxation.  It helps to give your brain a rest which helps you to pay more attention to what you say to yourself.
6. Celebrate your progress, no matter how small the achievement is instead of finding fault with yourself.
7. Stop that harsh inner critic when you assume the worst, start assuming the best outcome and let it go.
8. Stop allowing what others think about the way you are, look, dress or act define you. Instead empower yourself by caring more about what you think of yourself and the way you are.

Set-backs and failures are a part of life, everyone experiences them even the most successful people have stories to tell.  The key is to turn our inner critic into our inner friend so we can enjoy our life and thrive.

Thank you for your time, Namaste.

Self-Sabotage – When part of who you are acts in conflict with another part of you

Self-sabotage is not always apparent, it can show up as disease, stress, anger, depression, etc. The discovery of it and healing it is life changing. From my experience, you may gain feelings of self-empowerment, feel good about yourself, release toxic situations and people from your life, care more about what you think than what others do and finally know what harmony and inner peace feels like.

When you’re in conflict with yourself and desperately trying to push through whatever your faced with just know that you’re not alone. Self-sabotage is a common, little discussed, persistent problem many of us are dealing with.  You will know in your heart when you’ve had enough and you’re sick and tired of feeling out of control of your life.

There are overt forms of dependency and self-abuse such as alcohol, drugs, food, etc.  Then there are more subtle forms of dependency such as denial of self-love, lousy relationships, being solitary, anger, lashing out, etc. I realized this just recently when I had an epiphany that I was conditionalizing the love for myself based on my performance and my inability to be more spiritual than what I thought I was.  The truth is I am always spiritual and always doing the best I can, as we all are, we just have to realize our worth and just be.

I am very familiar with self-sabotage, in my case my crutch only made me fat and a target for a variety of diseases. I ate a lot, when I was upset, when I was angry, when I was sad, when I didn’t know what to do, etc. I always managed to consume enough to shove those feelings of inadequacy away. I’ve lived with self-sabotage for years and I didn’t know it. When eating didn’t work anymore, I choose to see myself as a victim. I judged and blamed myself and the other person for the way my life was. I allowed the problems and problem people to swallow me and my life up. Somehow I always managed to avoid the truth of being in constant conflict with myself .

My solutions finally came when I realized I was worthy of being at peace and enjoying my life.  I did inner work, lived my truth by accepting myself as I was and learning to love myself enough to no longer berate and abuse myself with words I would never say to my friends or family. While I cannot tell you how to solve whatever form of self-sabotage you’ve lived with or how to stop the addiction you’re leaning on to help you through, I do know that it is possible to find your way out, to rise above it and move on with your life.

It takes time and perseverance to conquer this way of being, but I can suggest a few ways you can try.

1. Stop yourself from thinking about whatever you’re faced with and go do something to help you relax
2. In place of trying to “figure” it out, go inside to find out what triggers you
3. Go out into nature to really hear what your instincts are trying to tell you
4. Create a private video blog or journal to get the root of your self-sabotage
5. The actual issues matter less than the why you continually sabotage yourself and why it is dominating your life
6. What you feel matters, allow yourself to feel sad, angry, upset, whatever feelings arise let them, just don’t get swallowed up by them, once you feel it, acknowledge them then move on
7. Talk with someone you trust to help you find the right solution
8. Seek professional help if that is what you know you should do
9. No matter what anyone in your life has experienced, you have the right to choose what you know in your heart is right for you.

 

 

The disclaimer provides that this article is merely information – not advice. If readers need medical advice, they should consult a doctor or other appropriate medical professional. The disclaimer also provides that no warranties are given in relation to the information supplied on the blog site, and that no liability will accrue to the content owner in the event that a user suffers loss as a result of reliance upon the information.

How to Not to Live a Lie

Be yourself as an innocent child trust that the real you is enough and never apologize for who you are LP

When I began my consciousness journey several years ago, I made choices that I made based on the approval of those that I thought knew more than I did or appeared to be more consciously aware then I was.  I spent the next several years reading books, taking lots of classes and being involved with groups and practices that offered something that I thought I needed to make me like them.  I compromised myself and my beliefs because I didn’t think I was good enough, not spiritual enough or wise enough.  The truth is I was all of those things, I just needed to believe I was.

A few ways I’ve found helpful to stop living a lie:

• Love yourself a lot, know that love is really all there is, live your life wrapped in it

• Honor your individuality by being yourself always

• Follow the wisdom of your heart, no matter what everyone else tells you, your heart knows what is right for you

• Maintain your integrity and who you are by surrounding yourself with people who don’t want to change you into someone else

• Live spherically, in other words, live all areas of your life authentically: your work, your personal life, your relationships whatever you do and whoever your with, be yourself

• Listen to your inner voice, trust it and know that it knows best, no matter what others think or say

• Be true to your values and ethics, never compromise them no matter what. Trust me on this one, it is one of the most important steps to stop living a lie

• Trust your choices, even if not every one doesn’t work out as you thought they would, the lessons will be invaluable for your growth.  Even though people in your life may seem to know more or have other ideas for how you should choose, their opinions and advice come from their personal experiences and beliefs

I am a photographer who loves nature.  I’ve been a photographer for years and have gotten really good at what I do. But because of my lack of confidence, I spent years holding back because I was intimidated by photographers who were far more experienced than I am.  Then one day a woman I knew suggested that I enter one of my images in a contest.  I decided to take a leap of faith when I found a site that held many contests along with offering a place to showcase my images.  I was nervous and unsure of myself but I created a profile and took one baby step at a time. Each day I added an image and surprisingly the members, who are all photographers, showed interest in them and started awarding them.  I took the next step which was to enter my images in contests, not to win, but to gain more visibility, it worked better than I imagined.  That was nearly a year ago, now my confidence is soaring, my focus is now on learning from all of the photographers I am connected with instead of being daunted by their experience, I honor it and know that they are helping me to become as good as they are.

If you resonate with any part of my story, then you too can break out of the cycle of disbelief, lack of confidence and conformity by just trusting yourself, trusting that who you are is enough.  We  have been told to believe that we have to become like someone else for so long that we don’t even know who we are anymore.  It took a few years and Universe stepping to push me forward before I finally got it.  It’s okay, you’re okay, you really are.

Thank you for stopping by, feel free to share your insights and stories.