Step 1
Identify & acknowledge your strengths and use them to your advantage.
Why?
There are many people out there who focus on identifying their weaknesses and then try to fix them or improve them. They then forget about all the strengths that already exist in them.
How?
Think about your achievements and what strengths you used to get there.
Think about the things that come naturally to you.
Step 2
Remind yourself that you are more than your weight.
Why?
Remind yourself that your loved ones love you for more than your weight. find a way to be happy and love yourself, right now, at any weight. enjoy the journey rather than postponing happiness until you have reached your goal.
Step 3
Remember that there is no failure, only feedback.
It's important to remember this because if you viewed something that didn't go according to your plans as failure then you are more likely to lose confidence and have your self-esteem take a hit which may then influence you to give up before you achieve your goal. Failure stops us in our tracks whereas considering the outcome as feedback, and an experience to learn from, empowers us to correct the behaviour and continue striving to achieve the goal. Feedback helps us to stay on track and helps us to overcome any barriers. Feedback also helps us to measure how far we have come and how far we have to go.
If we constantly remind ourselves that there is no failure only feedback, then one day we will just stop 'failing'. Imagine what you could do if you knew you couldn't fail??
If you knew you couldn't fail, then you would no doubt have more confidence and motivation to start taking action toward your goal. Many people procrastinate, or give up on their goals for fear of failing. A mindset switch would help these people to explore, grow and take action, and eventually achieve their goal.
What is this phrase?
'There is no failure, only feedback' is a presupposition from NLP which stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Presuppositions are beliefs underlying a system and aren't necessarily true, but if people act 'as if' they are true, they can produce good results.
How?
When you realise you didn't get the outcome you had planned for, be aware of your self-talk. Are you giving yourself unresourceful labels such as 'failure'? If you are, consciously make an effort to give yourself new labels.
Ask yourself good quality questions such as 'How can I learn from this?', 'How can I do it differently next time?', 'What do I need to do more of and what do I need to do less of?', 'Who do I need to be to get a different outcome next time?', 'What resources do I need to access to make it happen next time?'.
Step 4
Take responsibility for your self-esteem and confidence
Why?
It's important to take responsibility for your self-esteem and confidence because no one else will. You can choose to continue having a low self-esteem and a lack of confidence for as long as you like. It's not until you choose to take charge of this that you will see results in your life. There may be some people who had the luxury of having supportive parents, friends, teachers and siblings who all encouraged them and instilled positive, empowering beliefs. However, a large majority of individuals had people of influence in their lives who intentionally or not, instilled limiting beliefs that wore downtheirr confidence. This is all in the past. We don't benefit at all from blaming others for the health of our self-esteem. If we do continue to blame others, then we are making ourselves the victim which is a very disempowering and hopeless role to play. It's time to take responsibility for creating a healthy self-esteem and increasing our confidence from our own influence.
If we don't take responsibility for our own self-esteem then we will constantly be struggling with our goals and will never realise our full potential.
Ask yourself, "What will my life be like if I continue to view myself as I have done until now? What will my life be like if I continue holding onto my limiting beliefs and the disempowering labels that others or I have given me?"
What do I mean by taking responsibility for your self-esteem and confidence?
Believing in yourself is a choice. It is an attitude you develop over time. Although it helps if you had positive and supportive parents, the fact is that most of us had run-of-the-mill parents who inadvertently passed on to us the same limiting beliefs and negative conditioning they grew up with.
How?
- Just as it's suggested in step 2 – listen to your inner dialogue, your mini-me and record the things you tell yourself that don't do you any good. Keep a notebook of what you are saying to yourself. You may need to write down phrases such as, 'I'm not good at anything', 'I can never follow through with anything', 'I couldn't do that', 'It's always my fault', 'He won't like me'.
- Once they are down on paper, consider where they have come from and when you first decided to believe them. What have you been gaining from holding onto these beliefs? Think back to when you were young and remember it was someone else who said those things to you. It is unlikely that you came up with these beliefs all on your own when you were so young. Back then you were a sponge, just taking in everthing that everyone said about you and what you were capable of. Unlike now, you didn't have the ability to create your beliefs about what you could and couldn't do.
- Once you have written some of the phrases that destroy your self-esteem, rewrite them and take on an alternate belief. 'There are plenty of things that I'm great at'. 'The past doesn't equal the future, so I will make sure that I follow through on the next thing I set my mind to,''I can do that if I dedicate myself to it'.
Step 5
Learn to accept and enjoy compliments
Why?
In this course, you will learn about the concept of 'what you focus on is what you get'. For example, if you focus on looking like an idiot in front of someone, then you will then start behaving like an idiot (even if you don't want to) and you will get what you focussed on. It is the same for this step. People who have a low self-esteem seek out evidence that supports their belief that they are not worth much and anything else that opposes this view is either ignored or not even seen. When a person with low self-esteem is given a compliment, this goes against their current disempowering belief system so they do not accept it, don't believe it or just ignore it. So one way to start taking responsibility for increasing your self-esteem is to learn to accept and even enjoy compliments. I know that may seem difficult to even comprehend, that you could enjoy a compliment, but it is possible. The more you can accept and enjoy a compliment, the more you are focussing on the positive aspects rather than the negative. This doesn't mean that you will be cocky or arrogant if you accept a compliment. It may feel a little unusual at first, but it is really important if you want to start to improve your self-esteem.
How?
So how on earth do you accept a compliment? To start with, just say 'thank you'. Instead of trying to argue with the person who gave you the compliment, smile and say 'thank you'. You may be used to saying things like 'this old thing?!' 'I bought this on sale and I'm not really sure if it looks ok'. 'You are just saying that to be nice'. So I repeat, just smile and politely say 'thank you'. You don't even need to feel as though you have to respond with a compliment back to the person. You can do that another time. Just accept your compliment and move on.
Once you have accepted it, think about that compliment and enjoy it. Think about what you have done to deserve that compliment. Acknowledge yourself. Think about what steps you took to get what the compliment was about. For example, if someone at work compliments you on a job well done, go through the steps you took to finish that job. If someone says you look great, think about the exercise you did to get that toned body or the effort you put into grooming yourself. Maybe it didn't take any effort at all, it's just a part of you naturally, so be grateful and appreciate what you have naturally.
Step 6
Make self-care a priority
Why?
When we make self-care a priority, it is a reminder to ourselves that we deserve and need to take care of ourselves and not just everyone around us. One of my favourite ways of explaining this is the airplane crash scenario. When a plane is about to crash, the adult needs to put the oxygen masks over their face first, before they can put it on their children. The adult can't look after the children if they aren't safe and well first. It is the same concept in everyday life. What good are we to others, if we are not fit, healthy and looked after first? When you make self-care a priority, gradually you will expect to be treated well and with respect which will in-turn improve your self-esteem. One way to improve your self-care is to make sure that you get enough sleep. Dr Amen states in his book 'Change your brain, change your body' that not only is sleep important for your general self-care but it can also affect your weight. If you get less than six hours of sleep a night your brain function lowers and causes your brain to release hormones that increase your appetite and cravings for high-sugar snacks. On top of this, the lack of sleep prematurely ages your skin! So I think that's probably enough motivation to make sure you get enough sleep.
What do I mean by self-care?
Self-care can be described in many different ways. It could mean eating nutritious food and getting enough exercise. It could mean taking time for yourself to be with your thoughts. It could mean[not sure what is happening here but it wouldn't let me bring the lines up???]setting aside time to for yourself to watch your favourite TV show. Maybe it's getting a massage to feel totally relaxed. Perhaps it's getting up early to meditate and clear your mind. There are so many ways to 'care' for yourself and you need to figure out what your body and mind needs.
How?
- When you are planning your day or week, actually schedule in your self-care activity/ies. When it comes time for that activity, make sure you stick to the plan and do not prioritise other activities instead.
- Try a self-care activity that you have previously felt guilty doing, such as getting a massage or a facial. When you go, remind yourself that you deserve it and allow yourself to enjoy it.
- Make sure you are spending some time developing yourself and not just the people around you. Is there a course you want to do or a class you want to take?
- If you have a busy schedule that is filled with looking after others, get the people around you to take over some of the chores so that you can attend to your self-care. I don't mean to forget about your loved ones and your responsibilities, just re-organise how things get done so that you make it clear to people around you that you are valuable and deserve to look after yourself just as much as they deserve being looked after. It may take them a bit of getting used to, but when you start to treat yourself with care and respect, others will follow.
Step 7
Treat yourself with the same amount of love and respect as you do your closest friends and family.
Why?
If we treated our friends and family the way we treat ourselves, we wouldn't have many friends and family left! Would you say the things that you say to yourself to your loved ones? I doubt it. Would you tell them that 'they couldn't do it' or 'they look fat in that top'? Would you tell them that they are failures and they shouldn't even try? Would you prevent them from taking care of themselves or stop them from taking time out when they were stressed? Again, I doubt it! So, if we started to treat ourselves the way that we treat our loved ones, then our self-esteem would sky-rocket!
How?
The way we do this is to be more aware of what we are telling ourselves and what we allow ourselves to do. If you hear yourself dish out negative self-talk, ask yourself if you would say that to your loved ones? If not, think of what you would say and repeat that to yourself.
If you find yourself not prioritising your self-care, think of what it would do if you consciously stopped your loved ones from taking care of themselves.
