Confidence is key to enduring success, and building self-esteem is crucial. When you believe in yourself, you are open to making things happen and receiving worthwhile opportunities. Life can be drastically different when you have low-self esteem, coloring life with an emotional murkiness that makes it hard to believe in and actualize your potential.
Oftentimes, low self-esteem can be exacerbated by mental health disorders such as anxiety. As you begin to process your anxiety, you may find that some of the fear and doubt can be attributed to a lack of confidence.
With time, you can learn how to nourish yourself and build up your confidence. As you raise your self-esteem, you can empower yourself to take on any challenge, daring to live your best life each day.
What Is Anxiety?
Like stress, having occasional bouts of anxiety before a big performance or event is part of a typical healthy human experience. If you feel anxious most days, it can be helpful to seek some support in learning how to address and manage whatever may be causing this persistent anxiety.
Left untreated, anxiety can become distracting and put you at risk for increased risk of mental health challenges, addiction, and other complications. Chronic anxiety is a mental health disorder that can vary in levels of intensity. Specific forms of anxiety include:
- Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Panic disorders
- Social anxiety
Anxiety is generally defined by a persistent feeling of worry, fear, or dread with no apparent cause. There are several notable symptoms of anxiety, including:
- Irritability
- Restlessness and insomnia
- Fatigue
- Difficulty with focus, concentration, and task-completion
- Physical aches and tension in areas such as the neck, jaw, hips, back, and shoulders
- Intrusive and distracting thoughts
It may seem simple to diagnose your symptoms, but it can be helpful to get professional support with assessing your mental health, just to make sure that you get the right support for your unique situation. Many of these symptoms can overlap with other mental health disorders or physical ailments, making it wise to get professional support.
What Is Self-Esteem?
A person’s self-esteem is based on their positive or negative sense of self. Your self-esteem may be high or low, depending on a variety of personal factors.
Some of the things that can affect your self-esteem include:
- Having healthy and genuine connections
- A sense of accomplishment or success
- A sense of community
- A sense of purpose
- Social interactions (being bullied, being popular, being a leader, etc.)
- How you speak to yourself (is your inner voice empowering or negative?)
- Having critical coaches, teachers, or relatives
Many things can affect a person’s self-esteem. The quality and presence of these basic needs can affect how you think and feel about yourself and the world. However, low self-esteem is often characterized by having a persistent negative, judgemental, and lowly sense of self.
Low Self-Esteem
Low self-esteem can make your life seem duller or more hopeless than it truly is. This poor self-image can show up as:
- Negative self-talk
- Relationship complications and conflict
- Downplaying positive qualities
- Low performance in work or school
- Lack of self-care (taking care of your body, doing fun and fulfilling things, going out with friends, etc.)
- Higher risk for addiction, depression, and other mental health disorders
Overall, having low self-esteem is common. However, if a lack of confidence begins to impact your life negatively, it can be helpful to seek some support in building yourself up.
High Self-Esteem
When you develop high self-esteem, it is easier to put yourself out there and get the most out of life. A person with high self-esteem will often:
- Believe in themselves
- Feel proud of themselves
- Treat themselves kindly
- Uses mostly positive self-talk
- Be accountable
- Compete with themselves rather than with others
When you struggle with your self-esteem, it can feel difficult to express yourself and go after the things that may take you out of your comfort zone.
Tips for Building Self-Esteem
Anxiety has a way of distorting your perception, making it easier to underestimate your worth and your abilities. Depending on your confidence levels, anxiety can potentially affect your self-esteem.
Building your confidence is the key to raising your self-esteem. When you do things that are empowering and meaningful to you, you nourish and strengthen yourself. By filling your own cup, you guarantee that you are ready to take on each day with courage and determination.
What fills you up? Some things that may help you build your confidence include:
- Learning something new and sticking with it
- Accomplishing a goal
- Developing and maintaining good relationships
- Keeping promises to yourself
- Taking care of your mind, body, and spirit
- Advocating for yourself and honoring your own boundaries
- Making time for fun
- Helping others
- Improving your self-talk with affirmations
As you improve your sense of self, you will begin to see how much you are truly capable; you may even dare to dream big. By prioritizing yourself and challenging yourself to be your best each day, you will build yourself up to be all that you can be.
Anxiety can impact how you think and feel each day, affecting your freedom to explore and express yourself fully. Building up your self-esteem can strengthen your mind against the falsehoods that anxiety presents. Fortunately, there are many tools and resources available to help you navigate anxiety and all of the symptoms that may come with it. When you find the coping skills that work for you, your anxiety will start to lose its grip on you, making it easier to branch out and move forward. Our team at Mindfuli is available to offer high-quality virtual support for your mental health needs. Contact us today at (866) 973-4415 for one of our members to assist you with the enrollment process.
