Simple exercises to reinforce the Parts of Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is the great pending subject of all. Even from those who believe they have good self-esteem. He personal growth, evolve, mature, always involves touching a part of self-esteem transversally.

Also, in all books or internet searches there is always talk of loving oneself, accepting oneself, liking oneself, but we don't know how to do that.

There are many ways to work on self-esteem and it is something very personal for each one, but in this article we will explain some of the exercises that can help you promote self-esteem by intervening in its parts.

What are the parts of self-esteem?

First of all, we are going to differentiate three parts or levels of self-esteem.

1. Selfconcept

It is the concept we have of ourselves, that is, it is the set of positive and negative qualities with which we describe ourselves. We usually have this idea of ​​ourselves worked on in many cases, and we are capable of saying good things to ourselves. But it happens in a very common way, that we have not stopped to describe ourselves, so many times we know that we have good things, but we remain as "blank" when it comes to verbalizing it.

It is also very common that, after a certain age, we stop receiving reinforcement from good things, and it happens to us that society teaches us a sense of humility that we unconsciously take to the extreme, and it turns out that it causes us guilt, discomfort and discomfort to say things to ourselves hello good. We always tend to minimize this exercise, because society teaches us "that you have to be humble." There is a very fine line between this and devaluing our capabilities.

• Related article: "Self-concept: what is it and how is it formed?"

2. Self-efficacy

It's the next level a little deeper, based on the confidence we have in ourselves. It manifests itself a lot in the feeling of "not being capable" of some activity, situation to face. It comes up a lot through “I can't” language.

It may happen that the person feels that he is capable of many things, but we all have moments in our lives or specific situations where We feel insecurity and that lack of confidence that we can overcome or achieve what is expected of us or what we set for ourselves themselves. That is why it is important to work on it.

3. Self-esteem

This is the deepest part of the whole concept of self-esteem; refers to the deep, internal feeling/emotion of worth and self-love.

It is feeling that despite the mistakes, the limitations, the defects, I am valid / or, I am lovable, I am enough. It is being able to feel "I am deserving of love, and valuable enough only for who I am and not so much for what I have, or what I can do". This feeling always needs to be consciously worked on.

• You may be interested in: "Emotional management: 10 keys to master your emotions"

Exercises to work self-esteem from its parts

Once the three parts of self-esteem have been explained, we can carry out concrete and conscious exercises to reinforce each of the parts of self-esteem.

This job is always a background job, doing small tasks seasonally, day by day or week by week, by seasons, rather than doing many exercises at the same time, in a short time. Because all learning takes time for the mind to assimilate what has been learned.

1. To promote self-concept

simply make a list with positive and negative qualitiesRealize how hard it is for you to find more than positive qualities, from there you will be making an effort to discover more about yourself, to find examples that describe your positive qualities.

Also when making the two lists, you can discover that you have more negative qualities than positive ones, with this what you will have to try is to find examples every day where you see that perform many positive qualities that you do not give importance to such as smiling and being polite, listening to your friend, asking how your partner's day has been, going shopping.

There are things that you take for granted that are "normal" and, instead, have a value. It is not necessary to value them as extraordinary, simply to recognize that they are. Likewise, with the negative qualities, it consists of telling the defects with a less dramatic or negative language than the one in which I tell myself.

• Related article: "Unlearn what does not work in your Self-esteem"

2. To build self confidence

First of all, it is important to locate those "I can't or I'm not able" messages.

Once located, a simple but quite effective task is to change that sentence to "it's hard for me, it's very difficult for me". With this idea, you can get out of the deadlock and start visualizing the task in smaller steps.

Setting goals with easier, more progressive broken steps can help you cope with situations. Of course, it's important to greatly reinforce the feeling of satisfaction each time you take those small steps and move forward.

3. To promote self love

Many exercises are related to each other and when you work on some parts of self-esteem, the internal feeling of self-love improves; but if you have already worked on the two previous parts over time, you will notice that this deeper part is more difficult to promote because you do not have a bad self-esteem in day to day, but it appears more evidently in specific situations, especially in what has to do with the most important ties (family, partner or friends).

That is why when it comes to self-love exercises, it is important to have a good connection with your emotions, become aware of what deep emotions you are feeling, and from there, regulate those negative emotions and encourage other more positive emotions.

An example of this would be that you connect with the present moment when you do some leisure activity, when you are with other people, and you stop to tell yourself consciously "I'm fine, what a good time I'm enjoying, how I like this". It seems to be of no use, but somehow what you get by doing this multiple times is encouraging deeper feeling of inner satisfaction, of connection with the people around you and with yourself same.

Somehow, by changing the internal dialogue, you generate positive feelings, you give value to your person, your situation, your environment.

In summary, self-esteem is a very broad concept that has many edges, which makes it difficult to work on it in a concrete way; That is why it is important to know how to divide it into parts, and above all to know that it is a deep, medium-long-term job. But with very small gestures, you can get to feeling better little by little.