Self-Esteem: How To Have It

Do you think you’re lovable? Beautiful?

How much weight do you give such ideas? Meaning, how seriously do you believe it?

If you view yourself in a negative light, think about where that idea came from. No child is born who looks in the mirror and recoils in horror at what she sees. Human instincts don’t make us hate ourselves.

Whatever negative ideas you have about yourself weren’t there when you were born. They aren’t ingrained in your DNA.

Those ideas came from someone other than you. It doesn’t matter specifically who the ideas came from. It’s probably best that you don’t even know or at least don’t use the knowledge to add to the pile of arguments against yourself.

Realistically, it was probably an early childhood influence who you had and maybe still have infinite faith in. There is no sense in blaming the person who first proposed the negative ideas to you any more than there is sense in blaming me (whomever I am) for proposing a different idea.

The secret is to cut through the idea itself and decide how much importance you want to give it in your life. You can even come up with brand new ideas about yourself and take those seriously if you want to.

Be very careful, however, that your new idea has to do with ONLY YOURSELF. The idea that you can outrun an Olympian is an idea about another person – the Olympian. The idea that you can punch through a brick wall is an idea about the brick wall.

But the idea that you are beautiful in some certain special way is about only yourself. Maybe you are the only one who has the enlightened perspective to be able to see your own beauty. That makes you even more special and rare.

At the end of the day, only you get the final say about what you believe about yourself. This can be the hardest thing to remember, especially if you have a bunch of loud-mouthed people trying to tell you otherwise in the heat of the moment.

Give yourself a cheat sheet to help you remember that your self-esteem is whatever you say it is, despite old ideas coming up constantly from your childhood experiences.

Take a clipping from the bottom of this page or write one (if the clippings are all gone) which says:

  WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE  

Keep it with you. Pull it out whenever you have doubts. Pause to read it. Let it sink in. It will take a while to transform yourself, but in due time and with continuous daily reminders, you will achieve a personal “METAMORPHŒSIS”.

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

WHATEVER I BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF IS TRUE

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