We often hear: "You have to love yourself first to love someone else later". But how do you love yourself properly when you tend to criticize yourself? Here are 4 tips to increase your self-esteem .
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1. Be forgiving
Have you noticed how critical and merciless we are about our failures or missteps? We do not skimp on negative comments towards ourselves. And we are ruthless. We want to be perfect, but we are not. It's not the goal, but it's still stronger than us: we're tough on ourselves.
Now for your self-esteem
We try to ask ourselves what we would say to a friend who would experience the same thing as us and who would ask us for advice. Would we treat her that harshly? Surely not. So we give ourselves advice and we don't hesitate to give ourselves a little pat on the back – especially when nobody gives us any – when we accomplish something of which we are proud.
2. Really know yourself
Are you really who you want to be? Do you feel in real harmony with yourselves? Not always… it happens to all of us! There are times that we react with emotions to such an extent that it is disproportionate (and so not us!); other times we swallow the words that we prevent ourselves from saying. Loss of self-control? Be careful, it's harmful. In the long run, we will come to depreciate ourselves, because we no longer recognize ourselves!
Now for your self-esteem
We take the time, in the morning or in the evening, to perform an exercise in automatic writing. We write what we feel, what we think and what we live, without restraint and without embarrassment, because we will not show it to anyone. This exercise, derived from the morning pages of Julia Cameron, author of the book Unleash your creativity , allows us to drop appearances a little and allows us to dig deeper into ourselves.
3. Be patient
We live in a fast-paced world. Nothing is ever fast enough for us and we are only trying to save time. We no longer know how (and why) to wait. We want everything, right away, nothing less! Do we have a goal, a dream or a project? No doubt you feel you are not reaching it fast enough. That's enough! We're not in such a rush!
Now for your self-esteem
We note each of the small steps that lead us to the achievement of our goal. It's not just the fact of doing it all, but also all the little gestures and new habits that we establish in order to succeed afterwards. We therefore write each of our small achievements in view of our big change.
4. Agree micro-time spaces
Our agenda is always busy and we often struggle to do everything in a day, but that's no reason not to give ourselves a little time. Caught in a whirlwind, fulfilling the needs of others always before our own, we can quickly become frustrated. As if we weren't valuable enough to pamper ourselves. The situation is quickly remedied.
Now for your self-esteem
All occasions are good to take a little time – sometimes 10 minutes is enough! – to have fun. We bite into a piece of dark chocolate, we take out a notebook and we draw, we stroll longer than planned during the shopping, stopping at the bookstore to read some magazines, we buy ourselves a small jar of sweet-scented cream, etc. And a formal ban on guilt afterwards. These breaks just for yourself are essential to feel good about yourself!
Still?
We read the book To love is more than living by Jacques Salomé (published by Tredaniel) or we do some nice exercises Little self-esteem exercise book by Rosette Poletti and Barbara Dobbs (published by Jouvence).