The Enemy of Self Esteem

Self-Confidence is the ability of an individual to believe in his or her abilities. When one has self-confidence, it normally results in having great self-esteem. Self-esteem is the "worth" that a person places on their self. It is the measurement of their own value as a person,

The respect in which one holds oneself is based on ones belief of what and who they are as a human being. This greatly affects one's feelings about self, life, relationships, and even determines their actions in a day-to-day context.

The growth of self-confidence starts with self-examination.

Every person should routinely examine the thoughts they think. Discover if you are thinking correctly or poorly. What do you say to yourself? Do you admire yourself for the wonderful things you do, or do you punish yourself for every little thing that did not go perfect?

If you are condemning yourself every chance you get, then you are destroying your own self-esteem, and this in turn destroys your self-confidence. You need to catch yourself in the act of being critical of yourself, and change those thoughts to something better.

Fear thought is an illness

The cause of those thoughts is fear, this is the enemy of self-confidence and self-esteem. The fear of rejection, the fear of failure, the fear of humiliation, the fear of loss, these fears are the leading cause of low self-esteem. Most of them are self-inflicted.

Fear thought is an illness that can be identified, and corrected. Fear is the enemy that hinders self-confidence. Fear thought arises from corrupt mental habits, where the mind dwells on bad thoughts, inefficiency, failure, disaster and doom. This power of your thoughts over your mind will become great, when freely allowed, adversely affecting your life.

This illness will destroy your self-confidence and with it your self-esteem. Fear thought is your greatest enemy, but it is one that with a little practice can be brought under control and reversed. The first step is to catch yourself when you are doing it.

Catching yourself in the act

The next time you are letting your thoughts wander, take a look at them, what are you thinking about. In the same manner, the next time you are having self-talk, what are you saying to yourself? We all talk to ourselves, while we may not like to admit it as it seems every shrink in the world will try to pounce on us and make us a client, we do talk to ourselves.

Listen to what you are saying to yourself, if it is critical like "you can never do that" or "nobody really likes you" stop yourself and ask what the heck are you talking about, and why? If you are being critical of yourself ask yourself what is that supposed to accomplish, and why?

When you are thinking of things, and the thoughts turn ugly, catch yourself in the act and ask yourself why are you thinking like that. What good does it do you to think bad thoughts and then worry if they will really happen? This is catching yourself in the act of destroying your self-esteem.

Changing your fear thought to something better

Ignorance is the prime cause of fear, that when one is not aware of their true nature anything unknown or unfamiliar will cause fear. This fear becomes fear thought, and in turn harms your self-confidence and lowers your self-esteem.

When you catch yourself in the act of fear thought, change the thought to joy thought. For example: Instead of worrying that the plane will crash, think of fun you will have building sand castles on the beach. Instead of worrying that other people may think your bathing suit is ugly, think how much you will enjoy swimming. Change the thought to something positive, every time.

After a while this will become automatic, you will get a nagging thought and will switch to an enjoyable thought. Then almost as if overnight, your self-confidence will soar and your self-esteem will blossom.

Be Blessed.

You can find more about it at my Blog:True Happiness