This is such an important topic!
The distinction between self-esteem and self-confidence (which I’ll be talking about in a few days) is this: self-confidence is how you feel about your abilities, your competencies and your capacity to do something. Self-esteem is how you feel about YOURSELF – about who you are as a person.
How you feel about yourself as a person depends on what you believe. A belief isn’t objectively ‘correct’ or something ‘absolutely true’ – simply something that your brain holds as ‘absolutely true’. What you believe is fundamentally influenced by what you talk to yourself about inside your head. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between what’s real – what’s really happening out there in the real world – and your internal thoughts, images, words etc. It simply responds as if they were real. Of course, the logical part of you knows the difference, but not the unconscious part. So, what you’re telling yourself about yourself is crucial to what you believe about who you are, and therefore the sum of your self-esteem.
The beginning of a solution to start improving low self-esteem is to find something POSITIVE about yourself and who you are, and make it something you already BELIEVE is absolutely true. And I advise going with the smallest possible thing – as long as you genuinely believe it about yourself. It’s much better to go small and believable, then go lofty and ideal, as these kinds of things will be rejected by your brain. And make it about YOU – even if it has to be about your appearance. If you have a poor body-image and each time you look in the mirror you’re telling yourself you’re fat and that no-one would want you, then find something about your body/appearance that you absolutely and positively like that’s already rooted in your belief system. It can be as small as “I really like the colour of my eyes”. And then focus on that when you look in the mirror or think about your body.
There’s a neurological reason why finding an existing positive belief really works to turn this around, which I go into in much more detail in the upcoming eCourse – Inner Critic to Inner Coach.
For now – try this quick self-talk solution, and tell me how it works for you. Any questions please get in touch!
Charlotte x