Personal Beliefs Necessary For Self-Esteem

You probably already know that self-confidence (self-esteem) is necessary to feel happiness inside and to achieve success out in the world. So, increasing our awareness of ourselves is pretty important as we do our life journey.

Let’s get acquainted with how a self-confident person thinks. Below you’ll see some positive thoughts or beliefs. As you read, ask yourself how many of these are true for you?

1. I believe I have value because I’m human.
2. I believe that I know myself, both my positives and negatives and that I accept them both .
3. I believe that I can meet the daily challenges that come into my life.
4. I believe that because I know my positives and negatives, I can realistically and optimistically see where I fit in my family and in my work, in other words, what my role is and how I can contribute.
5. Because I know my negatives and accept them , I don’t need to be defensive about them.
6. I believe that I can change my negatives if I want to work at it.
7. I believe I can risk trying something new.
8. I believe that failing at something does not mean I’m a failure. It just means I need to try something else or try the same thing again but do it a different way.
9. I believe that it’s important to move forward no matter how I feel. Progress of any kind no matter how small, brings good feelings.
10. I believe I can set realistic goals and enjoy the process of reaching them.
11. I believe that I have positive traits to offer others.

As you can see, these statements are positive ones and that’s great. But, for most of us, it’s not easy to reach adulthood with all positive beliefs. Criticism from others, our desire not to disappoint others, especially our parents, and negative messages from our peers all influence how we feel and think about ourselves. Sometimes the negative messages we hear are so convincing that we actually believe them, even though they may not be true. Then, we form harmful beliefs about ourselves that come out in our behavior.

A good self-awareness exercise: promise yourself that you’ll notice any negative self-criticisms that come up in your mind. That means you’ll be tuning into your thoughts and actually listening to them. This is especially important at those times when you feel down.

Thoughts generate feelings, and in turn, the feelings intensify the thoughts again. If your thoughts are positive, you’ll have positive feelings and behaviors. That’s a good cycle. But, if your thoughts are negative, you’ll have negative feelings and behaviors. That’s trouble.

Get acquainted with yourself. Why? You have the power to change your thinking. You’re entitled to create positive thoughts that are based on the reality of who you really are, not who someone else says you are or who you fear you are.

So, start now being a friend to yourself. Discard your negatives. Discover your positives. And remember: this kind of exercise isn’t always easy; so, be patient with you.

All the best until next time,

Joan

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