How is your self esteem?

• The key to healthy self esteem is becoming aware of our personal strengths and accepting ourselves as worthy persons despite any real weaknesses we have.
• This also means learning that low self esteem is partly self imposed regardless of original causes - we maintain our own low self esteem by misperceiving our basic worth relative to others.
• This is because the more we criticize ourselves the worse we feel.
  Finding fault with everything around us is no more helpful except in providing a bit of immediate relief.
• The good news is that we can change how we view ourselves - without changing our basic personalities.
• We can also spend more time doing useful things and less time sitting around thinking about ourselves. This builds self esteem.
• Talking to other people helps us see that we are not the only ones with problems. This means focusing on them, not dwelling on ourselves, a good diversion.
  Everyone has something they don't like about themselves or feels bad about no matter how hard it may be to see it in them.
• So, there is nothing unique about us in this regard, hence we have every right to be as happy as anyone else.
• Helping others and being a good listener is one way to develop a sense of being good at something and a greater sense of self worth.
• Listening and being nice to others is one of the easiest things to change about ourselves, something everyone can do and it is one of the best ways of starting to feel better about ourselves.
• The key point is to do things that get in the way of dwelling on ourselves - being busy gets us out of ourselves, especially if what we are doing gives us a sense of achievement.