Battling with low self-esteem and lack of confidence?

Low self-esteem and lack of confidence?
12 ways to calm the mind and give yourself a boost

Do you fight with the thoughts of self-doubt and lack the confidence to move on with your life? Do you say to yourself “How can I take action to eliminate negative feelings?” “How can I get back to feeling confident and start living the life I dream of?”

This blog explains why you feel this way and offers 12 ways to claim back your confidence and self-esteem, banishing negativity and self-doubt once and for all.

We all ask these questions of ourselves from time to time. When you are feeling stressed, insecure and vulnerable and your confidence and self-esteem are at a low, it’s important to take some positive action to manage negativity.

The science of low self-esteem and confidence​

​These feelings are a complicated affair as they stem from many reference points. Psychotherapist Suzanne Lachmann, Psy.D, cites 10 sources for low self-esteem which can be deeply embedded in our conscious minds. These experiences can bring about powerful negative thoughts as the mind seeks out evidence to prove these thoughts to be true, seriously impairing our belief that we can achieve our personal goals.

Daniel G. Amen MD helps us to understand why our brains default to Automatic Negative Thoughts or ANT’s.  Without going into too much detail, ANT’s occur when the Limbic System, where our emotions related to our instincts and memories are thought to be controlled from, becomes overactive, and induce negative thought responses. It’s the brains primitive natural response or defence mechanism when we feel threatened.

While this defence mechanism was once a life saver in our modern day existence it’s often detrimental to our mental health and ability to be self-actualised people, that’s living life to one's full potential.   

Tips for beating low self-esteem and confidence

A key step, is to reset your brain’s default from negative to positive mental behaviours. Employing a Life Coach is also a great way to keeping you motivated and achieving personal goals that you want to achieve.
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Here are my top 12 tips I’ve put together to improve your mental health and grow in confidence.


1.  Positive thinking
Identify negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts.  For example when bad things happen, think what lessons you have learnt from that experience. Try to think of one thing that you can take away from a bad experience and see a way of turning it into positive thinking. For example learning from a mistake or seeing that painful experience has taught you empathy for people who have experienced this.

2.  Set yourself challenges
Start with small challenges that are relatively easy to achieve. Perhaps a personal development goal, fitness, something that makes you feel proud of yourself for achieving. As your confidence grows you take on more challenging goals which require a greater level of confidence to achieve, thus slowly restores your self-esteem.

3.  Practice forgiveness
Don’t let past hurts eat you up inside. Let it go, show compassion and forgive them (or yourself), allowing you to focus on what’s important in the here and now and in your future.

4.  Acknowledge your gratitude
Acknowledge what you’ve got that’s good in your life and show gratitude for it, don’t take them for granted. There’s always someone worse off than you. Write  down 5 things you’re grateful for. This promotes good mental health, as well as an overall sense of wellbeing and happiness.

5.  Helping others
When you can see that others need your help, support them if they need help, not to the point it hurts you to do so or you become intrusive. The act of giving is a powerful thing, leaving you with a sense of raised self-esteem, social connection and happiness.

6.  Spend more time with morale boosters
These are the people that make you feel good about yourself. Spend time with a positive friend or someone who always makes you laugh. Try to dodge the negative sponges who drain you of your energy and happiness; the moaners, pessimists, the glass is half empty type people.

7.  Avoid playing the victim
​Playing the victim and playing the blame game feeds negativity. Remember this is your life to live, so take responsibility for it. It will empower you all the more and your self-esteem and confidence will be boundless.​

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​8.  Practice mindfulness and meditation
Mindfulness exercises and meditation are a great way of calming the mind and reducing anxiety. Practising these regularly will restore your self-awareness by being present in the moment.

​9.  Eating a nutritional, healthy, balanced diet
What you eat really can relieve you of negative thoughts and offer clear benefits to our mental wellbeing. Although research is in its infancy, there’s mounting evidence which suggests what we eat affects the function of our brains. See this article published by Community Food and Health (Scotland), ‘Food, mental health and wellbeing’. A word of advice though, speak to your GP before making any changes to your diet.

10.  A regular exercise regime
I can vouch for this claim for its powers in suppressing negative thinking. Regular exercise hugely supports a positive frame of mind. The NHS urges that we should ‘Get active for mental well-being’.

11.   Reconnect with nature
Experience the outdoors. Take a walk in the woods or a place that makes you feel joy, happiness and fully alive. Immerse yourself in the environment. I like to walk with my dog around the local park near Twickenham in West London or go for a ramble around Richmond Park.
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12.   Earthing yourself
This is the simple act of connecting our bare feet or body to the earth, ideally on a daily basis for around 15 minutes a day. If you want to learn more about earthing I urge you to read the book by Ober, Sinatra and Zucker (2010) Earthing: the most important discovery ever? I’ll also be writing an article about this in one of my future blogs, as well as other life coaching tips, so keep an eye out on my page ‘Julia’s Journal’.
 
You now understand the sources of low self-esteem and confidence, why they occur and some great tips of how to improve your self-esteem and confidence, allowing you the freedom of mind to live the life that enables you to reach your star potential.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas for beating the blues, so please leave your comments after reading this.
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Julia