A Blog Post Won’t Build Your Self Esteem - and Here’s Why
On any given day, someone in America is searching for ways to build up their self esteem. Truthfully, there are so many searches for “how to build self esteem” that nearly every therapist has a blog post about it on their website. But here’s the deal: there’s not a single blog post out there that will help you build your self esteem…alone.
The catch is: alone.
You can read all of the self help books and blog posts that provide tips on how to build your self esteem but they won’t be the key to building your self confidence and developing your self worth.
How do I know? Because I write blogs for a living. In truth, I’ve written so many blog posts about building your self esteem that I should have the highest self esteem in the world … but I don’t.
What Does Self Esteem Really Do Anyway?
One of the things I love MOST about my job is I get to work with some incredible people and I observe them. I review their habits, ask them a ton of questions, and get to know them. It doesn’t take long before I can gauge how confident they really are. Those who are truly confident in themselves are usually people who view their imperfections as strengths, not weaknesses.
So, what IS self esteem? It’s the foundation on how we build our lives. And, it includes this insane belief in our own potential that keeps us moving forward in life. Have you ever come across an obstacle in your life that made you take a step back to figure out if you need to climb over it, under it, or wait until it moves? Well, self esteem gives you the ability to come up with a plan and get past the roadblock to keep moving forward. Your self esteem gives you the confidence to know you can do just about anything you set your mind to.
How Do You REALLY Build Self Esteem?
That’s a loaded question, isn’t it? Becca will tell you that building self esteem is a six-step process … and she does a great job of going through all of that in the Rise and Thrive group coaching course. But you’re reading a blog post about self esteem so I’ll tell you that admitting you need help is the first step. One single blog post (or four) will tell you how to do that, it’ll give you tips like the following:
Speak kindly to yourself
Accept who you are
Believe in yourself
Respect yourself
Cut yourself some slack because you’re human
Do any of those sound familiar? They should because they’re in just about every blog post around self esteem. But how do you actually DO any of those? The posts you read can’t really tell you HOW to do something. And, truthfully, they can’t teach you HOW to do something because you have to be ready to do the work.
To build self esteem, you need to be ready to put in the hard work and dig deep.
Rise & Thrive or Sabotage Your Confidence?
As someone who spent a lot of years in therapy, one thing that came up frequently was my efforts to undermine myself. That’s right! I gave into self sabotage and that’s what really made me a jealous person. I was tired of watching other people my age with less experience climb the corporate ladder while I was “stuck” with the same job and the same job title for years. While I knew that I knew my shit, I didn’t really believe it. That pattern repeated itself so many times before that, too.
When I was in high school, I got into some fancy colleges but never told my parents because I knew they’d never believe me and then question the validity of it all. I mean, my GPA was in the toilet and it’s a miracle I got into ANY college…but that’s besides the point. I didn’t trust myself and believe in my own abilities.
Until one day, I did. I believed in what I was capable of doing and I trusted myself. Unfortunately, I was already 37 by the time any of that happened.
What changed? My mindset. I shifted from self sabotage and negative self talk (that shit is real) to being kind to myself. I went from “you’re a fraud” to “you’re an expert in this”. And when I started to believe in myself, it gave me the ability to stand up on behalf of other people. Other people noticed, too, like my parents and my kids. But it all started with a choice I made to rise above it all and stop sabotaging myself.
Building Your Self Esteem with a Little Help
Remember that book from Hillary Rodham Clinton, “It Takes a Village”? While the book itself is about needing a support system to raise children, the same can be said for raising and building our self esteem…it takes a village. Your self esteem shouldn’t be tied to having friends or one particular person but having support while you’re going through actions of building self confidence definitely helps. Sometimes we need cheerleaders and other times we need people to hold us accountable - that’s why support groups exist.
Getting some help, support, and even encouragement while you’re on your journey to self discovery. It’ll help empower you to keep going because doing it by yourself is a shitty idea.
