Having self-esteem issues sucks. It’s that simple. I struggled with self-esteem issues for most of my childhood. Every time I felt good about myself a little voice in my head would say, “yeah sure, right buddy. What reason do you have to be so full of yourself. It’s just a front.”

I listened to that voice for a very long time. It put me down every chance it got. Then I learned that I could retrain that little voice to say positive things. That’s when it all changed.

It didn’t want to change willingly and every once in a while some of those old comments come up again but the work was definitely worth it.

The first suggestion I have for you is stop wishing that you’d like it to change and just change it. Wishing for something means that it is always in your future and not in your present. Think about how you would act and the things that you would do if you felt great about yourself and just do them. This helps bring those feelings to the present through something called Neuro Associative Conditioning (I won’t get into all of the technical bits – just trust me it works really well). An easy way for me to show this to you is sit up in your chair in the exact position you would if you were the happiest person on the planet. By assuming that posture your mood should have shifted toward the positive (unless you were already the happiest person on the planet). The opposite is also true – sit like you are really unhappy and see how your mood shifts.

The next way to shift your thinking towards the positive is think about how you’d like to feel, then close your eyes and imagine you are feeling that way right now. When you open your eyes you should feel pretty good. Keep those feelings in mind as often as possible and keep them in the present – don’t put them back in the future.

A third tool to change your self-esteem is every time your little voice says something negative about you or anyone else say these words: “Thank you for sharing. When you have something positive to say then I’ll listen”. This phrase has made an ENORMOUS impact in my life. It has given me control over how I feel about myself. It is a clear and decisive statement that says you acknowledge that this voice has something to say but you are not going to agree with it because it is not constructive.

The last suggestion I have for you is to buy our self-esteem book. This isn’t meant to be a shameless plug. The tips, tools and information that we have put together makes for great quick resources to not only help you build your child’s self-esteem but yours as well.

Now I have to be perfectly honest with all of you. I still struggle with self-esteem issues once in a while. These tools that I gave you in this blog help greatly but consistently positive self-esteem is a work in progress. Everyone has bad days. The trick is to not let the bad days turn into weeks or longer. If you or your child has a bad day remember, one day doesn’t have to be based on the one before it. It’s your choice and there is a whole brand new day to start over with tomorrow.

If you’d like to share what happened feel free to use our chat section or mail me directly at: blogguy@leadteachandinspire.com

Until next month!

 

Stuart