Changing Self-Esteem

Changing Self-Esteem

Changing Self-Esteem – It’s Not Rocket Science

You feel stuck! You are not living the life you want; you don’t feel comfortable being yourself. You’re capabilities aren’t in alignment with how you want to be. Yes that sucks and there’s good news, changing self-esteem is not rocket science. But if you want to change, it will require you to be different from how you currently are and most of us resist being different from what we are familiar with. This makes changing seem scary, especially when what you want to change is your self-esteem. People get stuck in thought patterns that are self defeating, believing that is how they are and have to be. Yet consider this, if your self-esteem is low, are you really being yourself?

You have a huge say in whether you want to change or not. You have a huge influence in how willing you are to accept yourself as being different or whether you try and hold on to what you know. You control whether or not you have an open mind. Most people are fearful of making changes in themself and fears tend to close the mind down. That can make it a bit of a catch-22.

So as you read the list below, the steps you don’t feel apply to you may be the ones most keeping you stuck. How can you be serious about finding for solutions if you immediately dismiss what you don’t like or agree with. Excuses for rejecting new ideas come from those who are fearful of change or have some misunderstanding on the ideas. What you don’t want to do is stay stuck justifying the things you already know and the dismissing what you don’t.

10 Requirements for Changing Self-Esteem

  1. Find the true source of your negativity. How can you work with what’s really keeping you stuck if your pain remains hidden. How can you stand up for yourself if what keeps you down not addressed?
  2. A method of transforming or releasing past pains into experiences you can learn from, ones that help empower you to make supportive decisions. Those who do not have a means of transforming emotional negativity, become subservient to it, a slave to their own helplessness.
  3. Finding a means of honest communications within yourself. You can’t continually beat yourself up or knock yourself down and think your thought processes are rational or normal. Honest and supportive communications require you to be real with yourself, not demeaning
  4. Changing self-esteem requires that you know what you want and that what you want is achievable. The problem with those with low self-esteem is they know what they want to avoid. Satisfying a feeling or seeking an emotional state is not an outcome, its a way of being. How you want to feel and what you want from your life need to be different outcomes. 
  5. Minimize all or nothing thinking. Very little in life is black and white. Changing self-esteem is not about always being happy or confident. Changing self-esteem is about supporting and empowering yourself in more effective ways.
  6. Leaning on your strengths and minimizing your weaknesses. One way to continually feel bad is to lean on your weaknesses and minimize your strengths.
  7. Change your beliefs. Your beliefs about yourself, about your relationships to yourself and the world outside are not really working for you. Supportively changing self-esteem requires you to create a different reality than the one you currently have been stuck under.
  8. You have to be able to process stress effectively. While no one is immune to stress, there are ways of magnifying insignificant events into masses burdens and minimizing big problems into workable solutions.  Those who know how to do the latter tend to feel better because they trust they can work through life situations
  9. Alter the relationship and perceptions of your senstivities. You may be more sensitive than others in some places, but that doesn’t mean these sensitivities get to control your life. 
  10. Transform the focus of being a victim into one of accomplishments. Low self esteem stays low if the pressures of what isn’t working for the person can’t be restructured

Fully consider these each of these steps. There are many ways of achieving them all. If these don’t make sense to you, find a professional who can help you in changing self-esteem. Life is to short to stay stuck in one mindset or one way of perceiving things.


  1. FrancoD

    Thanks for the list. It is helpful to understand why I haven’t been changin. But I think I’ll have to do some soul searchin to get answers

  2. I really don’t know where to start, I was severely abused emotionally and physically as a child by my mother. My twin brother and I struggled with emotional and physical abuse since the age of 2 until I was at the age of twelve. My brother and I still suffer and deal with the abuse and now I find myself as an adult getting into relationships with emotionally abusive individuals and mentally I can’t deal with the abuse anymore. I have more sleepless days than actual sleep, and I’m throwing up almost daily. I understand it’s very easy to hear remove yourself and leave but it’s not that easy. I’m completely depressed. I’ve expressed with the person that I have a relationship with that they are emotionally abusing me, but I’m told I make them do this if I just do what they say. They also constantly throw up my past as I’ve shared my story regarding my childhood and now it’s constantly used against me.
    How do i get the person to see they are extremely abusive? how to I mentally move pass this? I’m very successful in my career but my personal life is what’s causing me to have the hair loss, weight loss, chest pain and everything else. Please help

    • Carletta
      You are in a place many have been before. Raised in an abusive environment, going in and out of abusive relationships and hoping there is something you can do that will change the nature of others. Underneath this is the idea you must be doing something wrong, after all, you are asking for some guidance so you can do things differently, the right way.
      Leaving a relationship of course is one of the hardest things to do, but you also know staying will be equally difficult. While your partner may have some worthwhile qualities you find endearing, you body, your nervous system is telling you this is not right for you. and I know you don’t want to hear this.
      Abusive people are abusive not because they want to be, not because they are evil, not because they hate you; they are abusive because they themselves are emotionally stuck. They need to be in control because of their own insecurities, because their emotions get the best of them, because they don’t know how to handle differences or accept love. None of these things have anything to do with you and you are not going to change them. Sure they could seek help, but they seldom ever do so. Maybe you could say something nice or do something special that will make they stop being abusive, but it won’t last.
      You are asking how to tame an ocean, how to stop a falling rock from falling, you are asking “how can I get someone else to change because I don’t know how to change myself”
      The only changes any of us can make is to change ourselves, to be supportive of ourselves in a way that allows us to grow. The alternative to this is dig in and be unwavering to our ideas of how things are supposed to be and staying put. Right now, staying put is not a good option for you.
      You don’t mention if you have sought any professional help, working with someone to help you resolve past childhood issues, become more self supportive and get a better understanding of how to assess people. These are things you can do to support you.
      The vomitting and other physical symptoms will alliviate if you change. Hopefully you have checked with a doctor to make sure there are no other reasons for these symptoms.
      Hope this helps

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