5 Best Strategies to Improve Low Self-Esteem 

Last Updated on June 7, 2022 by Tracey McGrath

What is Self-Esteem?

Oxford Languages defines self-esteem as “confidence in one’s own worth or abilities; self-respect.”  

It greatly affects how we perceive our worthiness to exist in this world.  Low self-esteem can contribute to anxiety, depression, and increased alcohol abuse. It can also affect our relationship quality as well as work performance.¹

Causes of Low Self Esteem

Self-esteem develops over the course of our entire lives. It depends on our experiences and the people we interact with most.  But our early years of life are extremely important in terms of setting us up for low self-esteem. The way people interact or talk to you as a child has a tremendous impact on self-esteem. Abuse in any form can cause low self-esteem. Trouble in school with grades or bullying are also common causes.²  

However, this isn’t a time to blame or play the victim.  It’s about becoming aware of situations or other people’s beliefs and behaviors. Their beliefs and behaviors affect yours. Once you’re aware you are empowered to change.³

How to Improve Self-esteem?

I struggled with low self-esteem for years. And I know it is possible to improve.  It takes some practice and consistency.  And others agree that self-esteem can improve. The Mayo Clinic states that you can boost self-esteem just by becoming more aware of your thoughts.⁴

Self-esteem vs Self-love?

Self-love is defined as “regard for one’s own well-being and happiness” by Oxford Languages. Self-esteem is often tied to our abilities or something we achieve.  Whereas self-love is mostly about loving ourselves regardless of what we have achieved.  They are very closely related but distinctly different. 

Let’s start by learning how to improve low self-esteem.   

Top 5 tips on How to Improve Self-esteem

1. Forgiveness
2. EFT Tapping
3. Meditation
4. Therapeutic Art
5. Being mindful of your words

Forgiveness

How can forgiveness help improve your self-esteem?  Forgiveness is the practice of letting go.  When we let go we set ourselves free.  Even though it may seem like forgiveness isn’t related to self-esteem, it is.  Especially if you’re not forgiving yourself.  

There are lots of memories, events, words, and situations that we can choose to forgive.  But the ones that affect your self-esteem the most are the times that you feel you made a mistake, messed up, said the wrong thing, or hurt someone.  

“Forgiveness is for yourself because it frees you. It lets you out of that prison you put yourself in.”

– Louise Hay

Forgive yourself.  The past is over.  You cannot change it. And by holding onto your mistakes you are only hurting yourself.  

Start by writing down any memories you have of times you believe you screwed up, did something “wrong” or hurt someone.  

I especially love the practice of Ho’oponopono. I learned this beautiful practice from Denise Duffield-Thomas in her Money Bootcamp course. 

You look at each of the lines you wrote and say aloud or to yourself “I forgive you, I’m sorry, Thank you and I love you.”  Go through each line and repeat those phrases. 

By mindfully focusing on each event and repeating those phrases you are releasing that memory.  You are releasing yourself from the burden of guilt.  

https://graceandlightness.com/hooponopono-hawaiian-prayer-for-forgiveness/

EFT Tapping

I love using EFT tapping as a way to promote self-love and improve self-esteem.  It is such a simple and easy tool!  It’s proven to help reduce anxiety, which is why I started using it initially.⁵  

It consists of tapping on certain acupressure points and repeating a short phrase (or script).  The scripts are usually structured like “Even though I ______, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.” 

Yours could be “Even though I get scared to make phone calls, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.” or “Even though I didn’t exercise today, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.”  

For more information on EFT tapping, check out my article EFT Tapping: How to Relieve Anxiety. Or for an in-depth look grab a copy of my e-book, The Ultimate Guide to EFT, to find out even more! 

Meditation

Meditation is a great practice to help improve self-esteem and self-acceptance.  It is proven to help reduce anxiety and depression as well as improve memory and focus.⁶

Mindfulness meditation is the practice of noticing your thoughts and letting them go.  The practice of being mindful of your thoughts allows you to separate from them.  This practice puts you in control.  Your thoughts are constantly coming in.  Our brains love to think and that’s its job.  So, we want it to do its job but not all of those thoughts are helpful or worthy of our attention.    

Meditation allows space to disconnect from negative thoughts.⁸  You begin to realize that you are not your thoughts or your behaviors.  You are a unique being with natural talents and abilities. Your experiences are solely yours. Your thoughts are just that, thoughts. 

If you’re curious about how to start a meditation practice check out my article on How to Start Your Meditation Practice.

Grab a FREE guided meditation to get started today!

Therapeutic Art

Therapeutic art is one of my absolute favorite ways to increase self-esteem and reduce judgment.  We all know as kids we scribbled fanatically on pieces of paper without a care as to what it was going to look like.  Then somewhere along the way we got worried about what we were creating, what we were capable of creating.  

And then depending on your environment or teachers, you may have started telling yourself stories. Like the all too common belief, “I’m just not that good at art.”  Or the other common phrase “I can’t even draw a stick figure.”  And sadly gave up art as a form of expression.

I’m not saying that we all are Picasso or Rembrandt secretly.  That level of expertise requires some natural talent and hours and hours of practice.  But art is still a wonderful tool that we can use to express our emotions and creativity.  

I like to think of it like journaling.  Journaling is a form of expression that allows our minds to process and release thoughts.  Check out my article on The Benefits of Journaling for more info!  

You can use therapeutic art in a very similar way.  All you need is some paper and colored pencils, crayons or markers.  I also love using acrylic or tempera paint.

But don’t complicate the process! Sometimes the act of getting out paints can be a barrier to getting started. If you’re up for it, then by all means use the paints! The point is to keep it simple.

Now that you have your supplies, start putting down colors.  Choose the colors you like the best.  The ones that bring you that sense of joy just seeing them.  I like to think of it as “stream of consciousness art”.  You aren’t trying to draw anything but if something appears then great, go with that.  

Just like you wouldn’t show someone your journal entry, you don’t need to show your art to anyone either.  You can even tell yourself that you will burn it (safely, of course) after you’re done, so no one will ever see it.  Sometimes by telling yourself that you will destroy it, you allow yourself to play more freely.  And it’s the process of creation and release that is key here, not the finished product.

For 3 simple art projects check out my article on Therapeutic Art!

Create a Positive Mind

Creating a supportive environment in your mind is the most important part of increasing your self-esteem. By being mindful of your words, thoughts and beliefs you encourage your efforts and value your worth.⁷ 

Start to notice how many times a day you say the word “should”.  Louise Hay in her book “You Can Heal Your Life”, asks that “should” be removed from our vocabulary. I couldn’t agree more! 

As you notice yourself saying should – stop and repeat the exact same phrase but change should to could.  For example, “I should exercise today” to “I could exercise today”.  By changing that one word, you now have an empowered choice without all the unwelcome guilt. 

Notice how different you feel by using could.  What a difference one tiny little change can make?! 

Start to notice other common phrases that you find yourself repeating.  Do you really believe those?  Or are they someone else’s beliefs?  For example, you may have been telling yourself for years that you’re unlucky. 

But are you?  Why do you believe that? 

Certainly, by repeating it over and over you are confirming it but try stopping yourself and considering if it’s really true for you.  You could even try rephrasing it to “I am lucky” and see how that feels.  

Our words are powerful.  They contribute to our emotions and can impact our relationships. 

And remember if you say something and then wish you hadn’t it’s not the end of the world.  You are not a “bad” person because you said something wrong.  You can always say “I’m sorry.  I wish I hadn’t said that.”  Or if that’s not an option, go back to the forgiveness exercise above. 

Just because it happened doesn’t mean you have to keep letting it happen over and over again in your mind.  

Sign up below to grab a FREE guide to learn How to Think Positively!

Yes, please!

How to Improve Low Self-esteem

You can make conscious choices that contribute to improving your self-esteem.  Self-esteem is not a fixed trait.  Just because you’ve had poor self-esteem for years does not mean that you cannot change it.  Our thoughts about ourselves can be changed.

If you’ve been thinking negatively about yourself for years, try to think positively about yourself in tiny ways.  When you notice yourself getting down on yourself, stop and say “No thanks. I don’t need that thought today.” 

Just by becoming aware of your thoughts, you will begin to see how much it has affected your self-perception.  And then you can begin to replace the negative thoughts with more supportive ones.        

What’s in the past is done.  But your future is wide open and full of promise. 

You are always in control of your mind, not the other way around.  We choose what we think and what we allow to breed in our minds.  It can be words of hope and positivity instead of ones of guilt, judgment, and blame.    

Try out one or more of the above exercises to see which resonates with you.  They all can help to improve low self-esteem.  And you cannot do any of them “wrong”.  If you find yourself thinking “I can’t do this” or “I’m doing it wrong” come back to this article.  

You are doing it right by showing up and giving it a try.  

Don’t let the simplicity of the exercises make you think they won’t work or you must not be doing it “right”.  They work and you are doing great!

References

1. https://cmhc.utexas.edu/selfesteem.html
2. https://www.cfpsych.org/condition/low-self-esteem/
3. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-upside-things/202011/what-are-the-roots-your-self-esteem
4. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/self-esteem/art-20045374#:~:text=Low%20self%2Desteem%20can%20negatively,based%20on%20cognitive%20behavioral%20therapy.
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6381429/#:~:text=When%20measured%20against%20the%20standards,posttraumatic%20stress%20disorder%20(PTSD)
6. https://www.oprah.com/spirit/boost-your-self-esteem-with-meditation/all
7. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/self-esteem/art-20045374
8. https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/meditation-in-depth

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