Think Rebuilding your self-esteem is impossible? Don’t believe everything you think… by Dorothy Tanahill-Moran
SD impacts every part of a person’s life, and anyone with SD can suffer from lack of confidence making it an important issue to discuss. It is important to check in with yourself to see if there are any situations that possibly trigger low self-esteem.
Self-esteem is confidence and satisfaction with yourself. It reflects your overall subjective emotional evaluation of your own worth. It is self-judgment and an attitude about yourself.
Dorothy Tannahill-Moran believes that you should wear your SD as a badge of honor because it makes you interesting. What causes your self-esteem to suffer can include good-meaning family, co-workers, difficult situations, etc. The simplest of encounters can put a knick in the shine that we have.
It is not how you saw yourself, but something has changed and now you’re trying to come to grips with this so you can come out the other side feeling good about yourself. What can cause it:
• Negative thought patterns
• Daily functioning challenges like a drive-through
• Discrimination or harassment as a result of your voice
• When exclusion takes place
This a worthy topic to address because when you don’t feel good about yourself, it can lead to a spiraling effect including depression. You are a worthwhile project. How you feel about yourself comes out in your behaviors, your choices, how you think or problem solve. It may also negatively impact your work and can make people treat you differently. It can create barriers that would not have existed before. It limits motivation, your self-care, and makes you less resilient to change and stress. Bottom line, this is often the difference between success and potential failure.
In your toolkit for self-esteem and self-care there are a number of items you can use when you need them:
- Eliminate the inner critic. “I’m too fat, I am ugly” can quickly become a habit and influences how others see you. It is worthy to become aware of your inner critic. Speak to yourself like a person that you love. To change this, become conscious when you are criticizing, change it to the positive statement and restate it with something that is constructive. You have to continue to do this until it becomes a habit.
- Avoid comparing yourself to others. There is always going to be human beings out there that will have more than you do, be better at something, etc. There is no point in comparing yourself. When looking at others, find role models that inspire you. This provides the opportunity toward growth.
- Avoid living in the past. By living in the past you’re failing to acknowledge what’s great about what’s happening today. You are also impacting the people in your life because they cannot participate in the past.
It may be that you’re creating unrealistic standards for those in your life. Find what’s great about right now. Focus on what you are grateful for now. Keep a journal. - Look inward to understand your emotional intelligence. Create goals to check in on yourself. Inspire yourself to create a plan for self-improvement.
- Learn to be assertive. We may have to advocate for ourselves and is important for all sorts of life skills as well as at work. You and your opinions are just as important as anyone else’s. Practice asserting yourself and to help, use these starters to insert your opinion into a discussion.
a. My opinion is…
b. I have something I’d like to add…
c. I disagree because… - Do kind things for others. When you stop focusing on yourself, you have replaced your agenda with something else, and you will feel pretty good about yourself.
- Access your failures and figure out how you can do things differently. Don’t dwell on the failure and more importantly apologize only if you messed up. Do not apologize for being who you are, for example “I’m sorry I cannot project my voice”. This is self-deprecating.
- Don’t be a perfectionist. Life is about resilience and your ability to navigate through life’s ups and downs effectively.
- Have a sense of humor about yourself.
- Be tolerant of yourself It will likely provide an increase in your tolerance of others.
- Spend time in the presence of those who support you, accept you and love you.
- Communicate about your voice first so that people can stop thinking about the voice and focus on your message..
Remember confidence comes naturally with your success, but success only
comes to those who are confident.