Building Self-Esteem
Self-esteem helps us be successful in life. Here are 6 ways to build your self-esteem.
When we think about self-esteem, many different things may come to mind about what self-esteem is: self-confidence, self-respect, pride, dignity, self-love. But often times, we also have different emotions that arise with the thoughts.
If we have high self-esteem maybe we feel proud, successful, valued, or courageous. However, if we have low self-esteem, the feels aren’t so fun to feel: disgust, anger, discomfort, or maybe even worthlessness.
If you fall into the second category, fear not! Many people feel this way, and, in her book titled all about love, bell hooks reassures us that we can learn to love ourselves:
“The wounded heart learns self-love by first overcoming low self-esteem.”
So, how exactly do we get there? Well, according to Nathaniel Branden, there are 6 pillars of self-esteem that we can use to accomplish self-love:
1. Live Consciously
When Branden says "live consciously," what he's really referring to is becoming aware of the forces that shape your life without you realizing it. This step takes a considerable amount of self-reflection and personal awareness to accomplish.
Not everyone has a natural talent or inclination to be self-reflective, so this is where it can be useful to seek the help of a counselor. Many counselors are trained in helping clients naturally become more aware of their thoughts, feelings, values, and ideas about the world. Additionally, counselors have an outsider perspective that can help you see the bigger picture.
2. Self-Acceptance
As we become aware of the world, we can start to see how many of the messages we receive from an early age teach us that we’re not good enough. The thing is we’re only “not good enough” if we choose to accept the message that we aren’t good enough. But when we choose not to believe in the lie, we can choose self-acceptance instead.
Self-acceptance is no easy feat to accomplish, and it is a continual journey with virtually no end. Again, this is where collaborating with a counselor can be really useful for learning and practicing positive affirmations, identifying negative thinking patterns that get in the way of our goals, and healing past hurts, relationships, or strongly held beliefs that keep us in a state of disapproval.
When it comes to the process of building or maintaining our self-esteem, most of us get stuck at this early stage.
3. Self-Responsibility
Once we have a more positive relationship with ourselves through self-acceptance, this creates room for us to openly embrace our needs and wants in life. And when we have needs and wants in life, we also must accept that it is our responsibility to make them happen.
Although we may express our needs and wants to others in our lives, our needs and wants may only be a priority for ourselves. This means we could potentially be waiting for a VERY long time (potentially forever) for something important to us, but which is not very important to our loved ones, if we don’t accept the duty to ensure our needs are met.
In essence, self-acceptance is about saying, “it’s okay that I have needs” and self-responsibility is about saying, “I will make sure my needs are met.” This also, then, helps reveal what is important and worth fighting for in our lives which leads into step 4: asserting ourselves.
4. Self-Assertiveness
Self-assertiveness is the willingness to respect yourself and stand up for what you need or want. This step is all about action.
For many people, this is probably one of the easier steps. If you’ve truly accepted that your needs and wants are valid and you truly feel motivated to meet your own needs, advocating for and asserting yourself will likely come very naturally because it is a necessity for maintaining self-acceptance.
If this step feels difficult or scary to implement, you may need to revisit steps 1-3. Sometimes the very thought of asserting yourself may feel intimidating or impossible when there’s still some unresolved beliefs about the world or relationship dynamics that weren’t addressed in step 1.
5. Personal Integrity
The next step, personal integrity, is all about demonstrating consistency and commitment to your values, morals, and the things that give you meaning in life. If we are living in a state of consistency and are committed to making life meaningful, we are more likely to feel fully alive and satisfied with ourselves.
6. Live Purposefully
Lastly, Branden gives us a step that summarizes the whole process for us to help us live with purpose. In order to do this, he suggests that we do the following:
Create goals that are consistent with our personal integrity
Identify actions that will help us achieve our goals (it helps to literally write them down!)
Ensure your behaviors will help you complete the actions and goals you just identified
Evaluate whether the actions and behaviors you did actually moved you closer to your goals
Although Branden doesn’t include this, I would add another piece to this: “revise as needed.” Life doesn’t always go as planned and sometimes circumstances change which requires us to be adaptable.
So, there you have it! While it seems simple enough, keep in mind that these steps can be hard to take, so always give yourself some grace and compassion. If you want to learn more about any of these steps, I’ll be writing more in my Building Self-Esteem blog series so stay tuned!
More in this series:
Part Three: Self-Responsibility (coming soon)
Part Four: Self-Assertiveness (coming soon)
Part Five: Personal Integrity (coming soon)
Part Six: Live Purposefully (coming soon)
Sources:
Branden, N. (1995). Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. Bantam.
hooks, b. (2018). all about love. William Morrow Paperbacks.
Dr. Ashley Burks is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Counselor Educator who provides online and in-person counseling to Indiana residents. She is passionate about LGBTQ+ mental health, sexual mental and physical health, and first responder families‘ mental health. Ashley’s approach is all about promoting wellness through simplicity, building connection, and down-to-earth solutions from a trauma-informed lens.
