Published:
09/13/2011 06:33pm
What does self-esteem really mean to you?
I deserve only good things, so nothing bad can happen to me!
These days, we hear the term self-esteem every day. We relate to it and most of us know what it means because we've heard about it since we were kids. At least one of our teachers tried to explain what it means and how we can develop very good self-esteem. They told us that self-esteem is one of the most important things to have if we want to be happy. We are grownups now; if we go back to our school years, we realize that maybe we didn't understand the concept behind the term self-esteem, because our lives don't reflect a realistic respect for ourselves.
What does self-esteem really mean? If we focused on these two words, the first word is self, which means your own reflective consciousness; in other words, it means my OWN person. The second word is esteem, which means respect and admiration. If we put together the two words, it means "my own respect and admiration." But the term self-esteem is much more than that. Self-esteem is how much you value yourself and how important you think you are. It is how much confidence and capability you think you have. It is feeling good and comfortable doing what you want to do. It is the ability to feel good and have fun. It is giving yourself permission to enjoy your life and to feel and embrace all your emotions, including fear, frustration, anger, and others. Your self-esteem is a complete detailed picture of you, it is your self-image. How do you see yourself? What do you think about yourself? What do you feel about yourself? That is your self-esteem!
If you want to know more about your self, answering these questions may help you. It is very important that you have a piece of paper and a pen to answer them.
How much do you love yourself? Loving yourself means that you accept yourself completely. See yourself without any judgment or recrimination. Accept all the good qualities (of course you have them!) and work on the ones you want to improve. Nobody is perfect, but everybody has positive qualities, you just need to look inside you. Ask people who know and appreciate you to help you find your strengths. Make a list of all the qualities you have and read it every day. And make another list with the things you want to improve and work on that every day.
How much do you believe in yourself? Every person believes in themselves, what do you believe about you? Write down everything you believe about yourself, positive and negative. Then, on another piece of paper, write on the left side all the positive beliefs and on the right side the negative ones. The negative ones are limited beliefs that you need to change, things like "I don't deserve to be happy," "I don't like my body," "People don't like me,"... and others that are stopping your happiness. You need to replace your limited beliefs with empowering beliefs because they are a very important part of your self-esteem.
How much do you respect yourself? If you notice that other people don't respect you it is because you don't respect yourself. The most important thing is your own respect. The way you treat yourself others will treat you. You deserve only good things and you are capable to get them as soon as you believe and respect yourself. Be aware of the words you say to you. What is your self-talk every day, do you use empowering or disempowering words?
How much do you admire and value yourself? You are the most important person in this world! Create an ideal-ME with a specific vision and work on it every day. You are very valuable; this world wouldn't be the same without you. You are in this world for a reason and you have an important mission. It is your responsibility to find and accomplish it. Congratulate yourself for every little (big) accomplishment every day.
How much do you accept yourself? Accepting yourself is very different from resignation and not doing anything to improve your life. Accepting yourself means being happy and able to enjoy every day of your life, but at the same time it requires you to be honest with yourself an
