7 Things to BOOST Your Self-Esteem

Your day-to-day life of having a career, family, and dealing with an economic crunch, can take its toll on your self-esteem. It’s not easy having uncertainty on what to do next. There’s hope. Making the conscious decision to improve your state of mind is the first step. How do I build my self-esteem and feeling great while doing it?

Listed below are seven things that will allow your self-esteem to soar! These seven things will allow you the opportunity to develop motivational potential through affirmation and self-reflection in areas such as: communication, positive thinking and goal setting. These are helpful tools for moving toward one’s interests, goals and motivational possibilities.

Social Skills:
Having good social skills are important and lead us to maintain a successful life. Without these skills, we would not understand how to make the right choices, how to act, or how to treat others. When you have good social skills the possibilities are endless as far as being able to succeed academically, at your job and socially. Relationships with others will be strong, and involvement in other activities will flourish. It’s important for us to interact, share and socialize with others.

Listed below are social skills that you should stop and think about and how well you apply these skills to your everyday life:

• Respecting Yourself and Others
• Sharing With Others
• Cooperation
• Friendships
• Having Good Manners
• Listening To Others
• Being Patient and Kind
• Understanding Diversity
• Praise Others
• Positive Mind
• Being Polite
• Can Follow Directions
• Understanding the Process of Communication

Communication:
Learn to identify your style of communication. Which style do you use most? Learn to examine the way you communicate. Take notes in each style. Also, think about whom you feel most comfortable communicating with? Why?

Here is a list of several ways that we can communicate:

• Body Language
• Eye Contact
• Talking
• Dyad Conversations
• Group Conversations
• Tone of Voice
• Facial Expressions
• Silence

Positive Thinking:
Positive thinking is a process of creating thoughts. We create many thoughts within our minds every day. They may be positive thoughts or they may be negative thoughts. Positive thinking is our subconscious and conscious mind working together. Our job is to keep track of what our conscious mind tells our subconscious mind. In order to think positively we need to train our minds to think good thoughts about ourselves, others and things we want to accomplish in life. You are the one in control of your thoughts. Start your day off by thinking three positive thoughts about yourself.

Goals:
Setting a goal requires a lot of planning. It also requires placing it into a specific category or preference. What goal do you want to accomplish first? It is your decision! Keeping a mental image of what your goal is and how you want to see the steps in your goal accomplished is always a great idea. The mind is a powerful tool; we should use it often. Stop and think of one of your goals, now picture it in your mind. What does it look like? What are you proud of? What difficulties do you see?

These are the things needed to be able to set goals; Use a journal and set up these ideas:

• Name Your Goal
• Be Specific
• Be Realistic
• Plan it out: Timeframe, How, When and Where
• Commitment
• Log Your Difficulties and Successes
• Log your goals and visualize them! You will see them become a reality.

Friendship:
Friendship is very special. Do you have special friends that you grew up with? If so, you’re lucky, hold on to them. Understanding and knowing about friendship is imperative. Does your friend share special moments with you, remember your birthday, always there for you, and truly cares about you? Understanding who your true friends are helps one discover the positive people you want in your life and the others you may not.

Driven:
What drives you? Can you recall a moment when you were bored out of your mind and then, suddenly, you found yourself doing something that you really enjoy doing? What causes this? It’s called motivation. It’s something that you just can’t explain. You are driven to do the things that you like to do naturally. Do you have a special gift? What drives you to excel? Think about your motivations and pay attention in what direction they are leading you. You will find you’re driven to accomplish many things you enjoy. Listen to yourself.

The Creative Mind:
Everyone has a creative mind; it depends on whether one decides to use it. Some people are aware that they use their creative mind and others are unaware. What are some ways that we can try to understand if we are using our creative mind? The first way is to not be afraid of it, let it flow naturally and see where it takes you. What do you like to do? Why? Have you ever thought of a new idea or have gotten yourself out of a mess? You used your creative mind. A creative mind works when you find yourself coming up with new ideas and new thoughts about almost anything. It’s up to you whether you decide to grow with it or not. Now sometimes we do things just for fun, but sometimes we truly can become inspired by something and not understand why. Why do we start to do something that we are unsure of? Why do we do different things sometimes? We are using our creative mind.

Having the courage to learn how to recognize and unlock your potential through applying these seven simple steps you will help you take charge of your life and be empowered to take responsibility for your own actions, utilizing self-reflection as you discover more about yourself!

by Michelle Rossi

Michelle Rossi, (White) is a graduate from Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan. She has earned her Bachelor of Science Degree in Elementary Education and a Michigan Teaching Certificate. She is the founder/CEO of the ‘All About Me Program’ that is being utilized throughout many communities. http://www.michellerossiyouareastar.com