How to boost your self-confidence?

Doubting your abilities? You might need to read this…

photo credit: adamr/freedigitalphotos.net

I chose to write this post because of my friend John (name changed), who’s from Harare, Zimbabwe. After I revealed to him that I’m a psychologist, he asked me: how can I boost my self esteem? He also exposed to me that he’s recently broken up with his girlfriend, and feeling quite lonely and disconsolate after the trauma that has furthermore shattered his self-esteem. He now wants to build it back. Good, I appreciate it. I think a lot of guys have the same problems like John after going through such unsettling episodes—dwindling self-esteem, self-doubt, lack of self-reliance to name a few,  and there’s really little help available for the victims to cope up with it, probably because they tend to keep it within themselves. (John, if you’re reading this post right now, I’d like to tell you that it’s all dedicated to you, and it’s really my pleasure to help you out of your problems with the knowledge and understanding of human nature I’ve acquired through learning and personal experiences)

This is definitely not the first time people have asked me how to boost self-esteem. It’s much of a routine thing for me, and I’m really surprised to find out how many people endure this kind of distressing life episodes. I was once talking to a high-school girl on face book who’d been dating a guy for about a month. She felt that her boyfriend is really cool and sexy. He was rich, had a good social standing, and was really an awesome guy—but for some reasons unknown to the girl—he tend to suffer from horrible self-esteem. She mentioned that in the first few days of their courtship, he was very sweet and romantic, and awesome in bed too, but slowly she started to scrutinize changes in him—changes that have now overblown into much of a paranoia, pessimism, and perfectionism sort of thing!

If you’re one of those people who believe they’re not worthy enough, it’s time for you to change the frame of your mind, and revolutionize the way you think and perceive. Everyone is born with good and bad qualities. What you need to do is be acquainted with your positive and negative traits and stand up to it. Learn to trust in your abilities, and take yourself back to all the problems you have played against and subjugated. Cherish it as your achievement. Understand that you can never be the best, but you can always make yourselves better.  Embark on a new journey and substantiate to the world that you CAN rather than you can’t. Appreciate your achievements not considering how small they are, and make a note of them.

Recently, I attended a lecture on ‘Effective thinking skills’ by Swarnalatha Iyer, a clinical psychologist and life coach in India, who suggested a great way of boosting one’s self-esteem. Her methodology is helping me defy my own unconstructiveness and turn flaws it into positive traits. Here’s what she recommended:

 Take a sheet of paper and draw two columns—one with the heading ‘positive’ and the other, ‘Negative’. Make a list of all your positive and negative assets, skills, physical and social resources, talents, flaws and anything else that makes you feel good or bad about yourself. Now, sort out your positive and negative traits from the list and catalog them in respective columns. Having finished, read out the positive things five times each to yourself.

So you’re now left with the negatives. Ask yourself this question for each negative point you have written: Can you change it and if yes then how? If you can change it, work on it; if you can’t, then accept it. Though it’s difficult to accept your flaws during first few days of this routine, but once you master this skill, your life will change dramatically. You’ll find your negativities receding, and your life getting filled with optimism. Ultimately, it will boost your self-esteem to such an extent that you will find life in your own control!