My Issues with Self-Esteem

Today, I am going to be speaking to you guys all about self-esteem. I have struggled with self-esteem since I was a young girl. I can remember being at school and feeling desperate to be older because surely, I would be more confident with increased self-esteem. If only I could turn back time and tell little Danielle that wasn’t going to happen.

 

 

If anything, my self-esteem has taken an even greater beating since I have got older. That is why, I began to speak to my councillor about it. I wanted to reach a point in my life where I was happy, confident and outgoing. Everything that I have failed to do before. So, I thought that in this post, I would share with you guys how I increased my levels of self-esteem.

 

Analyse myself.

The starting point for me really was analysing where I was. I knew the things that made me feel uncomfortable. I had to spend some time really looking at myself and trying to figure out how these feelings initially came about. For me, I think this was the hardest part, but it really did propel me into the right direction. It is a similar practice that I have to do with my OCD and anxiety. I have to allocate time to sitting, thinking and trying to develop a solution in my head. If not, I can spiral and get stuck in a negative loop/

 

Make a note of where I want to get to.

Even though people may think this is a little hippy like, I love visualisation. So, I took some time going over the things that make me uncomfortable. Whether it is going out for a meal on my own. Celebrating my own accomplishments. Generating a conversation with people. Whatever it is, I had to think of all of those things and develop an end point. Where will I be and what will happen, when I feel like I have overcome my self-esteem issues. For me, this really came down to pushing myself out of my comfort zone and developing a level of believing in myself.

 

Spoke to somebody about how I was feeling.

I am fortunate in the fact that not only do I have a fantastic support system, I have professional help. Because of my OCD, I heavily rely on talking therapies. I approached them and detailed my issues around self-esteem, and they were very excited to work with me on it. They have me techniques, coping mechanisms and they set me certain challenges. There was nothing revolutionary in what they were saying, but it affirmed that it was the right thing for me with a medical professional backing it up. Then, we also spoke about it the whole way through.

 

Began to put myself in uncomfortable situations.

Once I had identified the things that made me feel uncomfortable, I had to begin pushing myself. For me, that meant reaching out to people and initiating conversations. I took myself out for dinner. I asked my husband to go out and socialise. Also, I set a plan where I have one occasion outside of the house every single week. I also began to share my personal accomplishments with those around me. For a long time, I wanted the world to swallow me up because I was mortified, uncomfortable and I felt unworthy. However, I really needed to do it and get myself out there.

 

Used positive affirmation.

Some people don’t necessarily agree with affirmations of believe in their power. However, as I mentioned, I am an old hippy. I love to visualise where I want to be and provide myself with positive affirmations. I have a notebook where I document where I am, how I am feeling, and I provide myself with a short line on my affirmations to give myself the praise the I deserve for pushing myself. By vocalising positive affirmations, it really helps me on the next part of my journey. However, I am aware that manifestation and affirmations are not for everybody.

 

Learned to accept compliments and give myself praise.

One of my biggest downfalls where I still struggle is giving myself praise. I don’t do it in regard to work because I simply think that I am doing my j job. The same really applies for my freelance and blogging ventures. When my work was first published in Vogue, I didn’t tell a soul because I didn’t want the attention and potential questions around the partnership. In relation to celebrating my accomplishments, I still have quite a way to go. But, I am trying to very slowly get more confident by telling a small group of people.

 

I hope that you guys enjoyed this blog post. Self-esteem is something that we all need. We all need to be our own cheerleaders. I am not going to lie; it has not been easy to do this. I have really had to unpick myself and then put it back together again. I wouldn’t say that right now I am where I want to be, but I am certainly heading in the right direction. As always, I would love to hear from you guys in the comments below. Something that I found really useful when trying to get to a good place was leaning on other people and listening to their experiences. I am going to continue to work on myself and I implore you to do the same if you think that you have room to improve your self-esteem. Please do leave me a comment below and let’s get a conversation going!