5 Habits to Protect Your Self-Esteem

On many occasions we undermine our self-esteem without realizing it. But there are simple habits you can practice to avoid destroying your self-esteem. Think of these as some important guidelines for you if you want to lead a happy and fulfilling life.

1. Respect yourself

Respecting yourself is the key to strong self-esteem. But how can we respect ourselves? First, we must recognize our needs and our values and meet them. We can’t always keep ourselves in the background and satisfy the needs of others first. If we do not know how to satisfy ourselves, we probably are doing a bad job of satisfying others.

Express your feelings and do not feel guilty for doing so. Showing your anger toward someone or something (productively) does not make you a bad person. Value all of the facets of yourself that make you proud. Reflect on them frequently.

2. Practice acceptance

Accepting yourself is very important if you want to really live your life. If you do not, in a way you will be living a lie.

Your life has to be original and completely yours. Do not try to be like everyone else. Maybe you compare yourself to others and they appear perfect to you, but are they really? Learn to love your life and to accept yourself. Only then will you be able to live happily and harmoniously.

3. Recognize your mistakes

If you do not recognize your mistakes, you will live your whole life with excuse after excuse. All that this will do is take an enormous amount of energy.

Learn from your mistakes! Look straight into your mistake and any excuses you made and take responsibility for it all. Where did you go wrong? What happened? Do not dodge responsibility with a new slew of excuses. Take advantage of this moment to learn and improve as a person. Mistakes do not make us weak or vulnerable. Quite the opposite! They make us stronger and help us be prepared for future mistakes.

4. Be mindful of self-criticism

Being critical or ourselves is not necessarily bad, but be careful! Sometimes that critical voice that lives in you can destroy you. So you have to destroy it instead.

When our critical voice is negative and discouraging, it holds us back from advancing and we must stop it in its tracks.

You will never get this right . Our critical voice whispers this softly, in the back of our minds. When it appears, think: And how would I know if I will never get it right? Have I tried? Have I failed? Sometimes you have to run into a problem more than once, until you learn. If you want something, work hard to achieve it. Silence that toxic voice.

You are worse than them. No one is better or worse than anyone else – we are all different! It is the best to see how we can complement or help each other work on something. Never compare yourself to others. Learn and work hard and be yourself. You are unique and original, different just like everyone else.

They do not like me. Are you sure? Have you asked them? Maybe you are misunderstanding the signals coming from them. And even if they do not like you, who cares! It is not the end of the world, is it?

5. Don’t rely on outside approval

A very common mistake is to always seek the approval of others. This is just an example of deep insecurity.

Do not try to satisfy others. If you have a different opinion, let it known! Keep in mind that if others do not approve it is because you have consented to it.

Be firm in your decisions and how you act and think. Others will never agree with you on everything, so think on it and be yourself!

Seeking others’ approval, thinking that we are no better than anyone else, making excuses for ourselves nonstop, not saying what we are really thinking…sounds familiar, right? We hope that this will help you to be happier and to get to where you want to be. Just you, and no one else!