In today’s hustling and bustling society, where everything is about speed, efficiency, being perfect and living up to a constructed ideal, we often feel burdened, not good enough and generally bad about ourselves. Suicide rates have increased, and reports of low self-esteem demonstrate that our mental state is constantly getting worse. In this article, we will break down how to take your power back and live a life of happiness by implementing the art of mindfulness into your daily life.
How Can I Improve My Self-Esteem?
A lot of us want to improve our self-esteem, but what is self-esteem really? Self-esteem is the way you measure your own inner worth. So often in this society, we measure it by comparing ourselves to other people and where they are in life, maybe by checking Instagram and TikTok compulsively. The golden key is that you can mentally train yourself to measure your own self-worth in another way, rather than by looking at where other people are in life.
It all starts by doing stuff for yourself, for your own inner world. If we keep doing things for the outer world to obtain worth, value and praise, we will end up with low self-esteem. To live up to society’s expectations you have to hit a certain level of “perfection,” which can be extremely taxing on you.
First of all, start out by changing your inner dialogue; start praising yourself, see yourself as a being who is worthy of love, respect and approval. As you start to change your inner dialogue to a positive one, you’ll start seeing improvements in your attitude toward the world.
“Change your thoughts and you’ll change your world” – Norman Vincent Peale
The next thing you can do is to get out of your head and into your body. Imagine you have a certain amount of energy in your entire body, from head to toe. If your primary focus is on your thoughts and mind, that’s where your energy will go. What you focus on grows. If you start by moving your attention to other areas in your body you will begin to release some of your worries and thus not be so reactive and insecure all the time. This is can be achieved through playing sports and practicing mindfulness.
How Can I Practice Mindfulness?
Mindfulness practice is getting more and more popular (thankfully), due to the amazing benefits and effects it has on anxiety, depression, stress and low self-esteem in general. You can practice mindfulness in many ways. There are tons of YouTube videos, apps and courses online and offline that teach you how to do this.
Imagine you close your eyes and thoughts start to pop up. Instead of giving in to these thoughts, multiplying them and playing out a whole story, you should just observe the thoughts on their surfaces, like clouds entering your mind. Look at them from a distance, and watch them fade away by themselves. It’s about taking a step back from being the thinker to observing the thinker.
Mindfulness is exactly that: withdrawing yourself from this constant dialogue you’re involved in. Normally you think you are the thinker, but the fact is, you actually aren’t. Try to experience who you are beyond the thinker.
For you to really feel the amazing benefits of Mindfulness, you will have to make a habit of practicing it on a daily basis. Even just 10 minutes a day is good, but the longer you do it, the quicker you’ll feel the benefits of it. If you want to make the first step, check out these 40 quotes to start the day. But remember, the real key to mindfulness practice is to make it a lifestyle. This will truly make you a much more confident, vibrant and calm being, with a much higher level of self-worth and self-love.
We wish you all the best on your journey to higher self-esteem. We encourage you to try out mindfulness, so you can see the benefits for yourself. Remember, you are loved and worthy!
