‘How do I stop hating myself?’ Self-hate is something in line with very low self-esteem and when seriously low, it can cause dramatic consequences. Not only how people treat themselves but how they treat or act towards others around them. If more people loved themselves there would be a lot less hate in the world. You can probably think of some very recent examples in the media of humans attacking or killing other humans. This stems from self-hate, which is then projected on to other people. These kinds of acts drive me to want to help people more to increase their self-esteem; if people loved themselves more, this could promote a healthier chain reaction throughout the world.

Where does self-hate come from?
It comes from beliefs about oneself. Beliefs that are often not true. We think that they may be facts but really, they are generalisations or blowing something out of proportion. These beliefs are often formed from earlier experiences in childhood but can be reinforced throughout life.
By default, the brain is generally negative; it is constantly looking out for dangers from which to protect us. The brain looks at insecurities to avoid us doing something that might put us in danger. This can hold us back from doing a lot of things.

You need to think of how you are talking to yourself, like talking to the 3 year old version of you. Imagine what a 3 year old would feel like if you spoke to them with a lot of words full of hatred. This 3 year old is always inside of you, it’s your inner child and with you all the time.

HOWEVER

If you do not like yourself, YOU have the power to change this! It may be challenging to change your way of thinking but it is possible. YOU just have to put in the work. Self love requires self discipline. When I say discipline I mean sticking to doing things that help you, not punishing yourself.

For me the question “I am going to be me for the rest of my life, why not learn to love and grow that person?” rather than being miserable, really helped change my thinking.

So what can you do to change your beliefs? How to practice self love and care

A love letter

Although writing yourself a love letter may be hard and seem cheesey at first, start small. It will help you to see the good in you. When you repeat this again and again, this will be a skill that you can improve and the brain will then be able to pick out the great in you. This is the importance of self love.

Affirmations

These are a good way to change the subconscious. To create an effective affirmation make sure it is true, present and powerful though. There is much debate into what a good affirmation is but from my experience, I believe that listening to role models saying something like: ‘I am a millionaire’ or ‘I am extremely confident’ when you are not, is not effective. The brain will pick up on lies like that. Use something like: ‘ I am working to love and grow myself as much as possible’.

Journaling

A good journaling session can be as effective as therapy, I’ve found. What it does is create a very detailed level of self awareness. When we become self aware, we can understand what the reasons behind the self hate. Then by asking good and positive questions such as ‘ what is good about me?’ or ‘How can I improve that area about me’ ,your brain will look for an answer.

Schedule in self- care time

I’ve been guilty of this in the past and continue to work on it. You must (MUST, not should) have time to relax. The brain and the body need it. Think of the inner child; if you made a child burn out from working all the time, how would they feel? They wouldn’t have the necessary element of play in their life.

Exercise and nutrition

I talk about these a lot when I talk about mental health, but I can’t state the value of getting these right. The way you treat your body and mind is extremely important to how you feel. If you are shoving rubbish into them all the time, you are telling yourself that that is what you are worth. If you look after yourself, you are showing self love. It’s not to say that you can’t have a rest day or give yourself treats but really think about what you are eating and about your exercise.

Conclusion

Self-hate comes from negative beliefs that come from our experiences. You have the power to change them; it just takes a bit of work. Really increasing self-awareness, talking to yourself in a consistently positive way, as well as looking after yourself, are all acts of self love. Keep taking actions to increase self love and the self hate will reduce.

The video can be found HERE

The podcast can be found HERE

Jonny Pardoe © June 2020

http://example.com
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Treat self esteem just like a muscle in the gym. You won’t improve it unless you work at it. You probably have heard the phrase ‘Don’t skip leg day’ in the gym. If you haven’t… what it means is that some guys will work purely on their upper body and not on their legs. The result? They come out with massive or muscular upper bodies but thin or ‘chicken’ legs. In particular, self esteem for men seems to be something a lot of us neglect (me included, in the past).

The same is true with self esteem.If you are not constantly working on it, then you will not increase it. Simple. Mine became so low at points that I became so fed up with it, that I decided to do something about it. I dived into book after book, course after course but where I started to reap rewards, was when I started applying consistent habits to my life. My self esteem is by no means perfect now but it is so much higher than it used to be and most of the time I feel great about myself. Of course, I will have knock backs from the inevitable challenges of life, but then I know the habits which will help me to get back on top.

What I am going to share with you today

• What is self esteem
• Simple ways to boost self esteem with some powerful habits

So what is self esteem?

I thought I would cover this as there are so many definitions out there: self esteem, confidence, worth, acceptance etc. You’ll find a whole range of results in different books and search engines. From personal experience and my best sources, these are my definitions:

Self confidence = how you feel about yourself in a given situation or skill

Self worth / acceptance = how you feel about yourself now in life

Self concept = the idea of what value you bring to life and what you are capable of

Self esteem = a combination of self worth/ acceptance and concept

Therefore, to increase self esteem, it’s important to have a great opinion of yourself but accept who you are now. Positive thinking alone will NOT work. If someone ever says ‘think positive’, to be totally honest, it’s not very good advice. You can’t think your way into better self esteem; you have to be applying regular actions that improve your self esteem. You need to apply the right habits.

Powerful habits to help build self esteem

These are things that I’ve researched and then applied to my own life. I do not talk about things unless I’ve actually tried them firsthand, as I’m not some robot computer quoting theories. I actually want to talk about real life experience.

Weekly goal planning

Setting goals helps you to connect to your own value. Setting goals helps you to understand what you want and to feel a sense of purpose. It’s important to be ambitious but also to set realistic goals, which can be broken down. A big challenging goal can be broken down further.

Now – it can be great for the self concept side to think ambitiously and to set big challenging goals, but if you aim too high and don’t reach them all the time, your self worth / acceptance will decrease. This was one of my biggest challenges with my self esteem. Therefore when challenges come, reevaluate the goals and break them down further. It’s important to review your goals and those tasks that support them, at least weekly, to check that you are on track.

I spend a couple of hours every Sunday morning doing this. There is plenty of guidance on goal setting available but the important thing to do is to set challenging goals which are then broken down so targets are achievable. That way you will get a boost in momentum as you go. If you don’t hit a goal (which has happened to me plenty of times in the past) don’t worry too much. Instead assess the challenge and go again.

Journaling the good and the bad

Understanding and fixing low self esteem starts with understanding what your good and bad habits are. These help to increase your self awareness. When you increase your self awareness you will be able to take actions that are better for you. Personally, this is something that I do every day.

For example: yesterday I felt great when I was fasting but I felt rubbish when I was scrolling on social media for too long in the evening.

Consciously writing it down will allow your mind to adjust your good and bad habits, but first of all, adopt this self awareness habit to acknowledge what makes you feel good or not so good. This is a great start to self improvement and self love.

Exercise

You’ve probably heard about the benefits of exercise, producing endorphins, chemicals which make you feel good. Yes… so this is the next habit to consider. Exercise is a great habit for you. It doesn’t mean that you have to run a marathon a day or exercise two hours a day. 20-30 minutes of exercise is sufficient. Ideally something that makes you break into a sweat. By exercising you are looking after your body, therefore giving a message that you are caring for and loving yourself. This is brilliant for self esteem.

Positive talk in the mirror

Have you experienced those horrible conversations in your head? ‘You’re rubbish’ ‘That was pathetic’ ‘Nobody likes you’ and much more. Well if you constantly speak to yourself like that, guess what? You probably won’t feel great about being you. It’s not enough to try and override it every time it comes up, though. You have to constantly speak to yourself in the right way; that way you train your brain to speak more positively to yourself. For this purpose, I speak to myself in the mirror for a minute, telling myself what I like about me. This can be hard at first but start by picking small things that you like about yourself or good things that you’ve done in the past, Then make this talk a habit.

Spending time alone in silence

This comes back to self awareness. This is about not running from your thoughts but allowing them to be there. When we are alone with our thoughts, it allows us to acknowledge them, understand them and therefore understand what might be needed.

I do this twice a day: one 30 minute run or walk and one 10 minute sitting alone with my thoughts. It is important to note though, that MUSIC OR PODCASTS ARE NOT ALLOWED.

Why? Well although these things can be great for us, and can be useful at other times in the day, for the purpose of this, those things will detract from allowing us space to be alone with our thoughts. Music or podcasts are distractions from our own thoughts. So therefore allow time with yourself with your own thoughts.

How to improve self esteem – Keep working on that self esteem muscle with habits

So the above are some very powerful habits to help work the self esteem muscle, which have worked for me. There are other habits to help overcome low self esteem available but give the above ones a try and see how you get on. They don’t have to be massive habits, some can just be short, practised for a few minutes a day but see what works for you. Give it some time. Journaling how you feel after trying things is a great way to pick up what works for you.

Self esteem is a muscle you just have to work on, even if it’s hard work at times. It’s a muscle not to neglect; why would you want to feel miserable about being you, when you are you? The choice to work on it or not, is yours.

You can find my video of this blog HERE

You can find my podcast of this blog HERE

One final note…

The six pillars of self esteem. Check out this video if you want to boost self esteem even more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhuabY4DmEo&t=4s

Photo by Daniel Apodaca on Unsplash

Jonny Pardoe © April 2020

http://example.com

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Jonny Pardoe

The post Self Esteem Improvement – 5 POWERFUL Habits appeared first on The Self Esteem and Confidence Mindset.

In line with Mental Health Awareness Month in the USA and the upcoming Mental Awareness Week in the UK later in May, I felt that it was the right time to talk about self-love, my own experiences and what I have learnt from it. Self-love is something with which many, many people struggle, and this can especially have a huge impact on mental health. I hope what I write today on self-love provides a useful guide, so that people think in a different way, leading to them having happier, more fulfilling and purposeful lives.

“Not good enough!”

“I’m pathetic”

“Come on!”

Recognise some of these terms? It’s very likely you have said such things to yourself. I know that I certainly have!

The voice in our heads

There is a voice in our heads that comes at us when things don’t go the way we want them to, and immediately we feel down. It’s the voice that tells us we need to be doing better and we are not worthy as we are. This is the voice that is very aggressive and domineering.

In fact, it’s not until the last year or so that I’ve begun to get to grips with the skill of self-love.  Like a lot of things that I talk about, self-love requires practice.  Again, it’s like exercising a muscle in the gym, where you learn what to do and then practise. I’ve spent many years reading books but only in the past year, have I been reading specifically about self-love. I still have a long way to go and there are days when it’s harder than others, but when I feel real love for myself, those days are so fulfilling and happy.

The importance of self-love

If I could go back in time and tell my younger self one thing, it would be to really focus on loving myself. When I say self-love, I do not mean trying to appear confident or cocky in front of people, I mean a genuine sense of acceptance, appreciation, respect and value of yourself. It is so important to love yourself as YOU ARE YOU; there’s no escaping that. It’s not like a horrible ‘friend’, who is treating you badly and from whom you just walk away.

On that note, people will often try and seek happiness from others; now, it is important to note that self-love IS NOT SELFISH, it’s about allowing yourself to be who you really want to be. When we seek happiness from an external source, this can be a very dangerous game to play. This is because we can’t control others, but we can control our own thoughts, decisions and actions. Please also note that self-love is not about being alone either, although I have found that it is about being comfortable when you are alone. When you love yourself, you will want to spend time with the right people and give something to others. You will not tolerate people who don’t respect you, as you know you deserve better.

Top tips for self-love:

As I have mentioned, self-love is a skill that you can develop. Don’t try to force it, just try and work towards it and naturally it will come. This is what I’ve found. Here are some top tips that I have found have helped me to increase my self-love:

Praise yourself when you achieve something

When we achieve something, we feel great and can see that progress has been made. As human beings though, we are often so quick to dismiss this. Try, instead, to let the achievement or progress sink in. My suggestion is to note down the good points from each day, on a daily basis, no matter how small you think the achievement may be.

Not dismissing compliments or praise

When someone compliments us, there is often a response from ourselves, such as ‘Yeah but it wasn’t me it was more…’, ‘I didn’t do that great, but thanks’ or ‘Ah, thanks but I don’t think so’

NO!

You are getting a compliment or some praise for a reason! Let that sink in and say thank you.

When things go wrong, comfort yourself as you would a friend

Life will inevitably throw up challenges and setbacks, but don’t put that frustration on to yourself. Chances are that it is not your fault (even if you think it is), and even if it is, don’t worry about it! You can only learn. You are a human being (nobody is perfect).

In these instances, think of how you would comfort an upset friend or an upset child. You wouldn’t shout ‘COME ON, YOU HAVE TO DO BETTER, YOU LOSER!’…. well I hope you wouldn’t, anyway. So why shout these things to yourself? Instead, be kinder and say things, such as ‘Don’t worry about it, it will get better next time. You are doing great as you are’.

Listen to your body and emotions

If your body is screaming out that it is tired, or that you feel frustrated / annoyed / overwhelmed etc, don’t ignore it! It’s a message from yourself to indicate that something isn’t right. By ignoring these calls, you are not looking after yourself or giving yourself any love. When a family member is sick or very tired, you would tell them to rest, so do this for yourself.

Find time to relax and to have fun

This is probably still my greatest challenge; I have to admit! When I do find time for a little bit more ‘me’ time, I find myself feeling happier after all the work I do. Yes, we have to put in effort to achieve our goals and dreams, but you also need to reward yourself. By scheduling in time to chill out, you are rewarding yourself and treating yourself with the self-love that you deserve. You may argue ‘I don’t have time’. I would respond that by saying that there is always time for the most important things ,and one of the most important things you should give yourself is the time to relax.

Love letters!

No, I don’t mean writing to somebody you fancy, I mean writing to yourself. When we put into words how much we love ourselves, we are consciously picking out the great things about ourselves, in turn allowing us to love ourselves that little bit more. If you make a regular habit of writing a short letter to yourself (perhaps as part of your daily journal) then you will be able to identify more great things about yourself and more reasons for self-love.

You need to continue to practise such things, even when you think that you’ve reached a high level of self-love. Like any skill, you need to keep practising in order to both maintain and increase that love for yourself. This is just as the world’s top athletes would do in their field.

In summary

Self-love is one of the most essential things to focus on in life. You are you, so why try and run away from that? Self-love will help you to live a happier life. It’s not something that will happen naturally overnight but with practice, your skills will grow. Find time to really work on self-love as a priority in your life. I wish you all the best self-love and happiness that you can find.

Jonny Pardoe

Jonny Pardoe © May 2019

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The post May 2019: A Guide to Self-Love appeared first on The Self Esteem and Confidence Mindset.