Be your own valentine: How to boost your self-esteem in 3 steps

Feb 16, 2022
Nowadays, you often find #selflove posts on Insta to boost your self-esteem and self-confidence. Although these posts are great, we must recognize that true self-esteem is not as easy to achieve as one might think (just reading these posts is not enough) and that platforms like Insta can, in reality , contribute to destroying it.
Truly loving yourself, accepting yourself completely, actually requires work and regularity because you have to break bad habits with which you have sometimes lived since adolescence. In this article we will give you 3 concrete tips to love yourself more, tell yourself more often and be more confident and serene.

Step 1: Spend time with yourself

When you want to develop a quality relationship with someone, you generally spend time with that person and get to know them better. You can't plan to know and love someone if you never listen to them and never make time for them. This also applies to ourselves. We spend a lot of time trying to escape our thoughts, we spend hours watching real ones on Insta or Tiktok videos. Is this not a translation of a continual need for companionship which is therefore replaced by an overconsumption of screens?

So the first step is to start spending quality time with yourself .

A very simple way to get to know yourself is to write down your thoughts or anxieties. This technique called journaling can be as simple as just writing down whatever comes to mind in the morning or evening depending on what you prefer. By putting your thoughts down on paper you learn to distance yourself from them and analyze them better too.

Other techniques include walking meditation , which involves going for a walk while being hyper-aware of the nature around us. Or find time to meditate 10 to 20 minutes a day. Ideally you need to find something that works with your current lifestyle routine , to facilitate the integration of the new habit.

Whatever technique you prefer, the main thing is to get started now. You will see that your ideas are beautiful, that your fears are justified, that nature is beautiful and you too are part of this universe.

Step 2: Learn to know and love your body

Our love of ourselves is sometimes greatly dependent on our relationship with the body . We live in a society of comparison and society also dictates to us a model set up as a reference for beauty. Thin, tall, slim, slender, chest developed but not too much, blonde with blue eyes... And today's society uses images and video to reinforce its dictates and make us feel inadequate.

But it's important to remember that being beautiful isn't about your measurements or having baby skin. Being beautiful is first and foremost being comfortable in your skin and in your body .

A technique that can help is to visualize a person you love very much. It could be, for example, a sister or a friend. Then close your eyes and visualize this person in front of you. Picture to yourself all the qualities and beautiful things that you think about this person. Finally think about yourself and turn all those positive feelings towards yourself. Because yes, you have the right (and even the duty) to give yourself as much love as you give to your friends and loved ones .

The secret here is to do this exercise often enough, because when it comes to profound changes, repetition is often the key. At the beginning, you should therefore do this at least once a day, for example just after meditation.

Step 3: Positive affirmations and regression

One thing that fuels our lack of self-esteem is the way we talk to ourselves. The opinion we have of ourselves and which we reinforce every day with “you are so stupid”, “you are stupid”, “you are good for nothing”, “you are horrible”, “you are really stupid”, “you’re so ugly, you look like nothing”…

We've all done it one day and even several times during the day, repeating negative and hostile phrases to ourselves that we wouldn't dare say to the person we hate the most.

Studies have revealed that most women judge their physique in a very negative way and find this perfectly normal. These thoughts and criticisms are the worst for your self-esteem. Because the brain believes what it hears. So here are two psychology exercises that you can try:

First identify the recurring negative thoughts that you often repeat to yourself. At first just pay attention to them without judging yourself for having them “Hey, I just thought I’m stupid”. Then imagine the child, the little girl or the little boy, that you were at 5 years old and imagine that you tell them these same thoughts “You are stupid”.

There you will realize that something is wrong, you will be shocked by the injustice and the unfoundedness of this judgment. And in fact you are the same person as this 5 year old little girl . And gradually, the shock will awaken something in you that will make you no longer use these words against yourself.

Then we can try to say very positive things to ourselves EVERY DAY .

Sometimes it can seem childish but recently I tried a very simple exercise, you stand in front of the mirror alone and connect with yourself with your gaze. You repeat a sentence that makes you feel good and which is the opposite of negative sentences in auto repeat mode

For example: “You are beautiful”, “You are capable”, “You are intelligent”...

The first time we say this or that phrase we won't necessarily believe it but we stay in front of the mirror for 5 minutes, really staring into our eyes. After a while you will see that your brain will have no choice but to agree with you and a little smile will appear on your face . Because in reality you are beautiful, you are intelligent and you are capable.

In general, take the time to write sweet words to yourself on post-it notes in your office or on an alarm on your phone because words are incredibly powerful.

To go further on the subject, I suggest some podcasts to listen to on the subject:

For your part, are there any techniques that you have tested that are effective for loving and accepting yourself? Tell us in comments ;)

And above all, never forget: you are capable of incredible things, you are beautiful, you are enough, you are worthy of being loved, you are worthy of accomplishing your dreams and that every day .

From Olie Neela to you with a lot of love xx
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