So many of us have low self-esteem, a super low opinion of ourselves and self-worth that allows us to treat ourselves with disdain and thoughtlessness. Think about it – how many people do you know that treat themselves really well? Who prioritise their self-care, don’t put up with bs, honour their body, mind, heart and soul? And how many people do you know who are stressed, over-tired and treat their car better than they treat themselves?
I was discussing this with a client the other day, and we were talking about how they don’t take great care of themselves because they don’t feel worthy. Hmm. This leads to a beautifully negative pattern of not taking care of yourself because you don’t feel worthy, and not feeling worthy because you’re not taking any care of yourself. So how do you build up your self-worth to the point that you feel you deserve excellent care?
1. Treat yourself better than you treat your car
Look, your car didn’t do anything to be worthy enough of your care. It just is (if you want it to keep running); plus if you’re anything like me, you love your car and want to treat it well! Even by just existing in our lives, our cars have our care and attention – we fill them with fuel, get them serviced and MOT’d, wash them and clean them out ocassionally and pay attention when they’re not right and get them to the right professional to help them out (ideally before they conk out altogether).
So why not give yourself at least the same level of care? Pay attention to what you need to run well and take the action to make that happen. Listen to your body, notice your mind’s health, hear your heart, connect with your soul and give yourself the care you need. If you need a productivity reason, we’re far more capable, happier, energetic and effective when we’re properly cared for. When you’re exhausted, stressed and feeling bad about yourself, life’s just harder!
If you really loved, honoured and cherished yourself, what self-care would you add to your life right now?
And if you’re not great at self-care, or you don’t know what to do, pick up my free ebook on the subject here.
2. What do you love about you?
We spend a lot of time on our faults. I procrastinate too much. I eat far too many chocolate biscuits. I’m messy. I stay up too late. I am not successful/rich/thin/happy/perfect enough. Ugh. Enough. I’m sure you know intimately everything that could conceivably be wrong with you…but what do you love about yourself? What do you cherish about yourself? What attributes are you proud of? What is your best quality?
When you spend a lot of time beating yourself up and criticising yourself, of course your self-worth is going to be low. So take the time to build yourself up and honour yourself for the many wonderful qualities you possess. Enjoy your most endearing features. Revel in the wonders of you. And just in case you think there is nothing good about you, take a look at the people around you – do they have good qualities and things to love about them? Then you do too.
Make a list of 100 things you love about you. (take your time with this – do 10 at a time, or 2 at a time…just keep doing it until you get to 100)
If you need a little help with this, check out this post.
3. What are your achievements?
Again, we focus so much on what we haven’t done, what we’ve missed out on, what we messed up that we forget about all the great things we’ve done, all that we’ve overcome, our triumphs and victories. We all have many more achievements than we think – things we congratulate others for but overlook in ourselves!
No more! It’s time to reclaim your accomplishments, to dust off your old trophies and give yourself a pat on the back for them…all of them. This exercise can be a bit difficult to start with, but let yourself add to the list over time, don’t try and do it all at once (unless you get on a roll, then just run with it). This isn’t just the stuff you put on your resume, it’s the cool things you’ve done, the things you’re proud of yourself for doing – passing your driving test (4th time), learning how to paint, starting a blog, anything at all that you consider an achievement.
Make a list of 100 things you’ve achieved.
4. Collect your compliments
Most people I know suck when it comes to taking compliments. Even praise of an item of clothing gets batted back “oh, this old thing?” Never mind taking a geniune “you are awesome” compliment and receiving it graciously and with open arms. If that’s you, then it’s time to start learning to accept and enjoy compliments. Not doing so is insulting to the complimenter, like throwing a gift back in someone’s face, and I know you’d never do that!
So, take your compliments, accept them as graciously as you can and then write them down or put them on your computer. I used to have a compliments book and a compliments box…but to be honest they just gathered dust, so now I use paint.net to put my compliments on beautiful backgrounds so I can view them as a slideshow (and the best ones are on my desktop slideshow so I see them regularly).
Create a compliments box, book, document or slideshow and keep all the compliments you’re given.
5. Re-read your lists and compliments whenever you need a boost.
Hey, you’ve made all this effort to gather things you love, celebrate your achievements and keep compliments – now use those resources! Even if you’ve only thought of 3 things you love and have achieved and collected 3 compliments, re-read them and remind yourself just how amazing you are on a regular basis.
Improving your self-worth isn’t an impossible exercise – it’s simply a case of turning the lens slightly – instead of focusing on and magnifying your faults, focus on what’s good about you, taking care of you, polishing you, praising you. Don’t wait until your self-worth feels high to start doing these things, do them now and use them to raise your self- worth.
Because you? You’re fabulous. You deserve to be treated better than your car; you deserve to have someone point out how you’re wonderful and all the wonderful things you’ve done; you deserve to cherish every compliment you get. Whether you think so or not, you do deserve all those things…and if you start to give them to yourself, you might just realise I’m right about how fabulous you are!
Bonus tip 6: Take 5 minutes to appreciate yourself every day
I have recently started to do this at the urging of my coach. At first, I resisted like mad! I can appreciate my life, easy. I can appreciate other people, easy. But appreciating myself isn’t something I do…and I’m noticing just how good it feels to really appreciate me, every day. Even on days when I’ve been procrastinating for England, even on days when I’m being a psycho bitch from hell! Every day, because there is always something to appreciate. At first, I thought I’d never come up with new things every day, but I do.
And some days, I repeat myself, because I appreciate my eyes most days…and I appreciate my desire to have happy dances every day…and every day I appreciate a skill I have, like driving or touch-typing or chair dancing. Doing this exercise daily helps you really get how much you do, how much you have, how much you totally take yourself for granted – it’s currently my favourite daily practice and if you try it, I think it will become yours too!
Related posts
