5 Self-Esteem Boosters to Improve Your Confidence | Jack Canfield

Research has shown that two out of three people in America, and I think it's true for around the world, have low self esteem. Now I often say at my live events, look to the right, look to your left, one of you is okay, two of you are in trouble. And when your self esteem and your self confidence are low, it can cause you to settle for unfulfilling and even abusive relationships. It can cause you to not take the necessary risks that are required to achieve your dreams. And it can cause you to not ask for what you truly want you and to settle for much less than you deserve in life. So today I'd like to share with you some ways to boost your self esteem and build your self confidence. For starters, let me tell you that I did not always have self esteem. My biological father was a heavy drinker and I was often the victim of his raging anger when he drunk until my mother finally divorced him when I was six. Now it was very hard to please my father who was a perfectionist. And so I grew up often thinking that I was not enough. I was not good enough. However, after many years of therapy and attending lots of workshops, I was able to build a high level of self esteem. Because what I learned was that it was not that I wasn't good enough, it was that the thought I had or the belief I had that I wasn't good enough. And as I learned when I was in a doctoral program in psychological education at the University of Massachusetts, we almost all have a core belief that we're not enough in some way. You can simply fill in the blank, see which one fits for you. I'm not smart enough. I'm not pretty or handsome enough. I'm not athletic enough, I'm not articulate enough. I'm not lovable or worthy of love enough. I'm not competent enough, rich enough, skilled enough, talented enough, funny enough, and on it goes. Simply put, I am not blank enough. And you can fill in your own blank. We all have something to fill that blank in with. Now Dr. Nathaniel Brannan, one of the pioneers in the area of building self esteem, says that high self esteem is a function of feeling lovable, competent and significant. Now, lovable is a function of your own beliefs about your intrinsic worth and lovability. Competent means that you believe you can handle whatever life throws at you, that you can create results that you want in life and you can deal with any challenges and setbacks that you may confront. Now, significant means that you experience that your life matters. That in some way that who you are and what you do matters to others, makes a difference in their lives. So let's look at some of the ways to increase our experience of being lovable, capable and significant. And thus your self esteem. Now this can become a three day seminar because there are so many ways to do this. But let's focus on just a few basics that you can begin to apply today. First, let's look at how to increase your experience of being lovable. Now, to max out your lovable quotient, you would need to believe that every part of you is perfect just the way you are. That doesn't mean you can't grow and improve, but that you're okay where you are right now, that all of your feelings are okay. To fully express that it's okay to be angry, to be scared, to cry, to be confused, to not know, to want more, to be tired, to feel overwhelmed, to feel lost, feel as well as to feel proud, enthusiastic, hopeful, excited, joyful, happy, appreciative and so on. The full range of your human emotions. Now for sure, you can learn how to stop creating more pain and more sadness and more anger in your life. But you first have to accept where you are. Now, women can be angry and men can learn to cry. Many of us have been conditioned out of that by being told that women should be more ladylike and men shouldn't be sissies. And when we accept that, we shut parts of ourselves down as unacceptable. And my invitation is to take the risk to share something you feel strongly about that you've been afraid to share with someone this week. You know, we had a client in our coach club that was living down in Argentina. He is a person who is really committed to growth. He's doing very well in his life in many ways, but he really, really was unhappy in his relationship and he couldn't admit it to himself and he couldn't admit it to anyone else. He felt like he was a bad person if he would leave his wife. And so during the coaching club I counseled him and said, what you have to do is you simply have to acknowledge that it's not working. You acknowledge that you don't believe it'll ever work. And the first thing you have to do is you have to call a lawyer and begin the process. And he was very uncomfortable with that. But he did it. And I got an email the next day and he said, I feel so much lighter, I feel so much freer, I feel so much more like I can create the life I want now. And so the first thing you have to do is acknowledge whatever feelings you have and then be willing to work in the expression of those and to take the actions that come out of that. Now, another way to increase your lovable score, as it were, is to reach out and include yourself in the lives of others. Now I know it can be challenging with many of us in lockdown, but with your cell phone and facetime or Skype or Zoom or other technologies out there, you can reach out to your friends, family members and online support groups to include yourself, be yourself and get the reassurance that you need that you are loved just the way you are. Now my wife Inga is a good example of this. She has weekly calls with her sister and one of her nieces and her three year old son, several calls a week with her best friend, monthly calls with her brother, monthly calls with two women's support groups she's in, and a weekly family FaceTime call with her and me and my oldest son and his partner and and my 7 year old grandson. As a result, Inga feels very included, loved and lovable. And just recently she told me that she took a big risk to tell one of her support groups that she had been meeting with for over a year that she was not happy with the way the group was going. Now it turns out that several other people were feeling the same way, but they hadn't told anybody and they all agreed to change the format of the group. And her expressing her true feelings contributed to the growth of that group. Now another way to work on feeling lovable is to take the time to love yourself, to nurture yourself. Whether that means taking a long bubble bath while listening to your favorite music, or meditating, or spending an afternoon reading a book by your favorite author, doing your nails, asking your partner to give you a massage or cook dinner for you, just getting up from the computer and going for a walk, a short walk, a long walk, whatever, doing some yoga exercises, spending time on your favorite hobby, or just sitting in the sun doing nothing. Take time to do what you want. It's really an important part of self nurturing. Now let's look at the area of competence. One of the exercises I do in my self esteem workshops is to have everyone make a list of 100 successes they've had in their life. And I know that sounds like a lot, but when you add in things like graduating middle school, graduating high school, learning to drive, getting my driver's license, getting, getting my first job, successfully moving from Indiana to California, getting into the fraternity or the sorority of my choice in college, learning to speak Spanish, raising two great children, or maybe just getting two kids to 18 without them killing themselves, stopping smoking, losing 20 pounds, paying off my bank loan, getting married, getting out of an abusive relationship, learning to cook, and so on. We've all had a hundred successes. We just take them for granted. And we tend to compare our successes to those of Bill Gates, Tom Hanks, Michelle Obama, Taylor Swift, or Michael Jordan. And as I like to say in my seminars, comparison is the fast track to misery. Now two other quick techniques for building self esteem are keeping a victory log and doing the mirror exercise. And both of these focus on acknowledging your successes. A victory log is just a notebook or a journal where you record all of your successes, both large and small for that day. You do it every day. These don't have to be big. They can include things like I got up on time, I made it to work on time, I ate a healthy breakfast, I didn't eat that chocolate cake that was offered to me, I exercised on the treadmill or I did my Pilates for 30 minutes, I meditated, I repeated my affirmations and visualization exercises, I called five prospective clients, I did a really good coaching session with Alice, I spent quality time with my kids today. Or I read about how to increase my social media presence for 20 minutes. I did that and I did my first Facebook Live today. And so on. You get the idea. Now the mirror exercise, which you can read about in more depth in the Success Principles book, is simply standing in front of your largest mirror before you go to bed at night and speaking to yourself in a very structured, self affirming way. You look deeply into your own eyes and you start by saying your name. So I would start by saying Jack which would call my presence forward. Then you appreciate yourself for things you did in three different categories. Accomplishments, things you achieved, actions you took, and things you completed. And then disciplines you kept like exercise, working out, doing your stretching exercises, meditating your gratitude exercises, visualizing your goals, taking your vitamins, drinking enough water, posting on social media or reading something inspirational. And finally, any temptations you overcame like not having that third glass of wine or eating a sugary dessert or staying up too late, binge watching a series on TV or getting into an argument with your partner or spending too much time playing video games. And then you end by simply saying I love you. You say it to yourself and you hold eye contact with yourself as you let that statement in. Now feeling significant like who you are and your life matters can be bolstered by actually doing something that makes a difference in the lives of others. Perhaps you can spend a few hours a week in some kind of volunteer work. So much help is needed during this time. Right now. In March and April of this year, people were sewing masks out of cotton at home and donating them to friends, family, and people on the front lines, like people working in grocery stores and pharmacies. You could volunteer to work with a local food bank. I just read where a man found out that farmers were destroying some of their crops because they had overproduced and he found a way to get that food and donate it to local food banks to feed the homeless and and the people out of work. People are needing COVID 19 testing People are volunteering to do that. Single parents with jobs need childcare. Lonely people need someone to talk to. People who've lost loved ones need grief support. And there's struggling entrepreneurs who need coaching and business advice that you might have. Now, even just contributing money to local and international organizations that are rescuing dogs and cats, housing refugees, working for social justice, or working for environmental sustainability can give you a greater sense of making a difference, give you a sense of meaning and purpose. So find a way to make a difference in someone else's life. And here's another simple one. Drop out of the enitawful club. And by that I mean make a list of everyone you hang out with in any way, whether it's in person or online, and ask yourself, does this person lift me up or do they bring me down? Do they inspire me or do they expire me? Do I feel better about myself after I've spent time with them? Or do I feel worse about myself and then eliminate contact with those people that bring you down? The complainers, the whiners, the excuse makers, the negative gossips, the pessimists. They're just generally negative people. And surround yourself with positive people who uplift you, believe in you, support you, encourage you, and want the best for you. Now, if you can't find them in your circle of friends and family, find them online on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, watch some TED and TEDx talks, and so on. There are literally thousands of hours of video podcasts and free courses online that can uplift you. For example, you can simply type into your search Bar Top 100 motivational podcasts and you'll come up with some great ones. I have a close friend who listens to two hours of these every day, and she is now one of the happiest and most productive people I know. And this is so much better than watching two hours of negative news on television. And here are a couple more quick techniques that you can do. Learn a new skill or master one you already have. Mastery of any kind builds self esteem and happiness. Whether it's practicing the guitar or learning to type with more than two or three fingers, baking bread or learning a new language, getting better at anything will build your sense of confidence and finally Ask for something you want. Many of us are so afraid of rejection that we don't ask for what we want. I want to challenge you to ask someone for something you want every day for the next seven days. And don't worry about whether they will say yes or no. This is just for practice to get over the fear of asking. Now think about this. If they say no, nothing has been lost. You already don't have it before you ask for it. If you ask and they say no, it didn't get worse. It stayed the same. Nothing lost. Except perhaps your fear of asking and you might get a yes. You could simply say Would you give me a five minute shoulder massage? Would you give me some advice about how I can enroll more people in my coaching program? Would you read the story and give me feedback on how to improve it? Would you be willing to put the kids to bed tonight by yourself so I can rest for 30 minutes? Would you be willing to help my son with these math problems that I don't understand? It doesn't matter how big or small, just ask. Well, okay. I hope this gives you some ideas on how to start to build and maintain your self esteem. There are a lot more that I teach to work, so stay tuned for more in some of my upcoming videos and make sure to pick one or more of the ones I shared with you today and put them into action. Otherwise you just end up with a lot of notes about what to do sitting on your bookshelf and you'll end up with what I refer to as self esteem instead of real self esteem. And let me know what you think in the comments. And thanks again for watching. And if you found this video helpful, please make sure you like it and subscribe to my channel for more videos like this one and for some additional exercises and tools for building your self esteem, including my audio program called maximum confidence 10 steps to extreme Self Esteem. Make sure to visit my website@jackcamphill.com and check out the links in the description below.