Extensive studies show that less than 15% of us have a sufficiently healthy level of self-esteem that allows us to live happy, prosperous, abundant, and harmonious lives.

The source of our low self-esteem is different for every person. Some of the common causes of deficient self-esteem levels are unproductive interpretations of well-intentioned educational experiences that we received during our childhood. While the damage may have occurred long ago for most of us, we continue to live an unproductive pattern in alignment with the faulty beliefs and associations that we made during the process whereby our self-esteem became diminished.

Remedy #1 for overcoming low self-esteem:

Opt out of the paradigm of perfectionism The endless series of corrections and criticisms we’ve experienced throughout our lives has resulted in our need to seek perfection. The desire to be perfect combined with daily reminders that we are not is the number 1 source of low self-esteem! Reflect upon these questions for a moment: how often have you attained perfection in the past? How likely is it that you will ever be perfect? The answer in both cases is “almost never!” So if you demand perfection from yourself, you will disappoint yourself 99.9% of the time. This will set you up for a sense of diminished self-worth and a low self-image with subsequent low self-esteem.

In order to shift for us the paradigm of perfection, we first need to realize that we don’t need to be perfect at all. Being perfect is unattainable: nobody is perfect. It is much healthier and more satisfying to seek excellence instead. We can instead give up our obsession to attain perfection and do the best we can, knowing that life will train us daily with an unending series of opportunities to improve. Doing so will both dramatically reduce our stress levels and provide us with more time and energy to improve our performance and thus more likely be excellent in our actions. Stopping this attachment to perfection will be the single biggest step in overcoming low self-esteem and upgrading the quality of our lives in every possible way.

Remedy #2 for overcoming low self-esteem:

Learn to focus on the positive Because so many of us tend to always strive for perfection, we tend to focus on what’s not working for us. This is a negative focus. Focusing on what’s not going well in your life will result in feelings of low self-esteem! Instead learn to focus on what is working well. Ask yourself “What have I done well today?” and “What’s missing for me that if put into place would support my excellence tomorrow?” The old adage is true: We tend to become what we think about most.

Focusing on the positive can be achieved by asking ourselves questions that will assist us with realizing our positive intentions. Instead of asking yourself: “Why do I have low self-esteem?” ask: “What can I do to improve my self-esteem?” Instead of asking: “What’s not working perfectly in my life?” ask yourself: “What do I need to do to improve my life?”

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