Building and maintaing self esteem can be enhanced by remembering to focus on several key activities. Try some of these out and see how they work:
- You are what you think: Pay attention to the self-talk you say to yourself. If your thoughts start getting negative then turn them off and say something positive. The technique is known as “thought-stopping” and there is a satirical video done by TV psychologist Bob Newhart in which he demonstrates this technique .
- Use affirmations: While most of us are quick to give ourselves criticism, we are slow to acknowledge our successes. Give yourself a little bit of the credit you deserve for a job well done and hold that positive thought in your mind. Consider writing down your successful affirmation and posting it in a place where you can see it during the day.
- Avoid negative people: Stay away from Debbie Downer. People who promote negative ideas will help you generate them in yourself and around your organization and after hearing negative thoughts and ideas, they will begin to infect your thinking as well
- Focus on your strengths: There are things that you do better than others and there are things that others do better than you. Avoid the comparisons and instead understand your strengths and how they work best for you. I recommend the book “StrengthFinders 2.0” as an excellent tool for beginning to understand your strengths. In my workshops individuals and teams make amazing discoveries about how to leverage their strengths.
- Be proactive As a leader, your job is to plow the field ahead of your team so that they can do their job more easily. Nothing builds self esteem like winning and focusing on what you can do as a leader to make other’s successful will help them gain and help you feel like a million bucks.
