Building Self Esteem:
Why It's Important

Building self esteem is key if you are to live the life that you want. If you feel bad about yourself, you’ll never move forward and your situation will never change. If you feel good about yourself, the opportunities for a great life are limitless.

The following areas of your life can reveal a lot to you in terms of how well you think of yourself.

• Your environment
• How well you respect your time
• How you talk to yourself

You can start building your self esteem by working on any one of these areas. Even baby steps are better than no steps.

Your environment: hostile or friendly?

If your work environment is hostile, quitting isn't the only answer. A simple action like stop having lunch in the lunchroom where there are other negative people will help in building your self esteem. If you're having lunch with very negative people, and entertaining their complaining, they'll continue to dump their negativity onto you. Once you stop being the presence of them (even for an hour a day), you’ll immediately start to feel better. Your lunch may even taste better.

There's a simple reason for this: if you carry around other people’s negativity, it will be easier to focus on things that are negative in your life. You need to start focusing on the good things in your life-only then will you start to move into the life you want. It's much easier to stay positive when you surround yourself by other positive people.

We know this may be a little awkward at first. Both of us stopped having lunch in the staffroom at the school we worked at because it felt toxic. It may seem extreme calling it that, but that was the only word we felt accurately described the feeling that came over us whenever we went in there.

They complained about their students, their spouses, their weight and so on and so on. If we offered a solution, they would shrug off our suggestions. It became obvious that they liked to complain. We didn't. And we stopped going in the lunch room.

Did they say we were anti-social, stuck up and optomists (as though that were a dirty word)? Yes, yes and yes, but we felt better immediately. It also gave us the space to work on our affirmations and get to work on what we really wanted to do.

We didn't realize it at the time, but not being around our their negativity was a great way to build our self esteem and self confidence because we felt so much better without being in their company.

How well you respect your time: The art of saying no

Building self esteem involves respecting your time. We’re always surprised at how many people are terrified of the easiest and most liberating boundary—saying, “no.” Whether it’s to a birthday party, having lunch with a certain group at work, or donating to a bridal shower at work, people often prefer to lie and say they’re sick, on a diet or begrudgingly donate their money for fear that they might offend. Do yourselves a huge favor and start saying no to what you really don’t want.

You won’t need to pretend to be in an emergency room ever again. You have permission to set boundaries. Next time someone asks you to do something you don’t want to do, say, “I can’t make it.” That’s it. Do not give any reasons. If you keep giving out excuses, you’ll keep being invited. After all, the person doing the inviting might actually believe you wanted to be with them. Get into this habit. You will automatically improve the quality of your life overnight. Be prepared that some people will not be happy with your newfound independence.

How do you talk to yourself: friend or foe?

It’s one thing to sever ties with people who aren’t nice to us, but what if you’re that person that’s not being nice to yourself? There’s only one solution and that is to change how you talk to yourself. Stop making self deprecating jokes. It'll negatively impact on your progress of building self esteem.

Use kind words when talking to yourself, about yourself. You can start by using the positive affirmations we’ve come up with to get you started.

Even small changes are good when working towards building self esteem.

Remember, guard your time, space and energy.

See more exercises in our building self esteem article.

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