The 07 Habits To Improve Your Self-Esteem
By: Rod Katsumata
Tags: Life Lessons, Life, Self Esteem, Habits, Relationships

The 07 Habits To Improve Your Self-Esteem

Why some people have a healthy sense of self-worth and others not?

What separates people with high self-esteem from those with low self-esteem?

How come some are so shy while others show so much confidence?

After years of studying, applying what I learn about self-development, and my own coaching practice, my conclusion is simple and not so easy answer: habits. Ultimately, we are the results of the habits we have (or lack).

What we do, or don’t, repeatedly, will define our state and the perception we have about ourselves and this will spread to all areas of our life.

Before we go to the 07 habits, allow me to invite you for a moment of reflection:

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

What are you (not) doing every day, consistently, and how this contribute, or not, to your self-esteem?

If you never spent time thinking about this before, grab a paper and pen, and practice this simple and powerful exercise of awareness.

List at least 05 habits that you keep repeating consistently, every day, and what are the consequences. And also make a list of the 05 habits that you keep on not doing, and what happens because of that.

Yes, you read right. Habits work both ways.

You may have the habit of not doing exercise, not reading, not learning. And you keep this habit every day. And, because of that, your health, knowledge, and skills may be suffering and limited, among other side effects.

Now that you are more conscious about your habits, let’s move to what to do next to improve your self-esteem and overcome your shyness.

The only rule here is simple: do it and will work. And by its nature, habit requires repetition. So, don’t give up too easy too soon. Give yourself a few days or a couple of weeks, if you must, to create the routine.

Be aware that all changes, at first, create resistance.

One more detail that matters is: I am not listing all “uniques”, or the most powerful, miraculous, marvelous, or fancy habits. They are just the ones that I select that I know that works. Keep in mind you may find other people suggesting different ones. There is always room for improvement. That’s not an exhaustive list. That’s not its purpose.

Shall we continue?

By the way, there is no rank or order of importance or efficiency here. It’s just the order that came to my mind and feels natural flow. Try all and see which one works best for you.

Image by ijeab from freepik

01 Exercise

Long story short, exercise will improve your mood, your wellbeing, and release dopamine.

You can watch this video below for more info about that. Highlight to 10:45 “Exercise alleviates depression & anxiety”.

There are tons of videos on YouTube, like the previous one, and articles you can find on Google explaining in detail all sorts of benefits and why you should move more.

If you are serious about improving your confidence, consider adding some physical activity to your daily routine. You don’t need to go crazy on that and set long goals, like one full hour workout training. You can reach this goal with a small amount of 04 minutes of intense training per day.

How To Apply This Into Your Life?

The activity or sport that you going to practice and the intensity are totally up to you.

Just pay attention to a few signals that will indicate if you are exercising or just “moving around”. And that is what makes the difference between walking without purpose and benefit inside of your house, and walking as an exercise even if you practice at the garage of your building.

Three signals that you are exercising: your breathing tends to be more intense, your heartbeat will beat faster, and you will sweat at some point.

If you are not in the mood for a long time practicing, go for high-intensity interval training, such as Tabata Workout. You can find repertoires with only 04 minutes. Or you can create your own set of your favorite movements.

02 Do Something That Makes You Feel Uncomfortable On Purpose

Tim Ferriss, the bestselling author, investor, and entrepreneur, recommend people to lie down on sidewalks in the busy street as one way to improve their confidence.

Highlight to 02:50 when he says “the worst things that you think would happen never actually happen”.

What is the reason for that?

Because every successful person did something uncomfortable to achieve their dreams and goals.

More than often, the worst scenarios only happen in our minds.

And it’s quite common the most successful people keep in their agenda a space to do something uncomfortable on purpose, to make sure they are in a continuous growing process and don’t back down.

How To Apply This Into Your Life?

I will share one thing that I learn and is simple to apply.

Whenever you are in a social situation and you get the trigger of avoiding doing something that you would genuinely like to do and you are too scared to try for any reason, that’s exactly why you have to do it now!

I remember when I was single, living in Auckland, New Zealand, and I was walking on Queen Street, dressing really sloppy, and I saw this really charming Japanese girl, dressing like a princess, so charming she was. My first thought was “I wish I could be dressing better, so I could go and talk to her”.

I walked a few steps, then like I was struck by lightning, I had an insight and told myself: That is exactly the reason that I need to go back now and talk to her.

And that it was what I did. I went back, stop her on Queen Street, introduce myself, spoke to her, ask her number, and then I follow back to my track.

The goal wasn’t getting her number, making her like me, or get a date, nothing like that. The outcome was to prove to myself, and myself only, that no matter how bad I was dressing I could start a conversation with people, despite the outcome. I had the power to initiate conversations. I didn’t allow my clothes to decide whether I can do something or not.

03 Focus On The Things You Can Control

People that have good self-esteem set their focus on outcomes they can control.

When you set a goal out of your control, such as trying to make people like you, love you, be impressed by you, you are giving away your power. You are transferring your power to someone else.

When you do that, is up to them if you are going to look beautiful, if you are a good or not person, if you are enough, how much respect you deserve, and etc.

You don’t want to put yourself in this position. They have their own agenda, and they are too busy with their own lifes, they most likely will not have the kindness and fairness to have your best interests in mind.

Another good point of that is when you make this kind of conscious choice you avoid becoming a manipulative person, full of schemes, techniques, and tricks to get what you want.

If you need to hide behind those resources you can’t be confident. True confidence requires authenticity. You can’t have one without another.

How To Apply This Into Your Life?

Any time you are going to set a goal, focus on the outcome that you can control: your actions.

How many new people did you start a conversation with today? Not necessarily they will keep the conversation going. Still, you have the power to spark the opportunity.

You can’t control if people will buy your products or service. Still, is yours to decide, how many people are you going to call today.

Focus on your actions.

04 Take The Responsibility For Your Life

Your life is yours to create.

Your decisions brought you here.

Do you like it? Good, you must be doing something right. Don’t like it? That’s fine, totally okay, you can change it.

Confident people take responsibility for their actions. They do what needs to be done to achieve their goals.

When comes to the mindset, I like to make a simple distinction: Creator, Victim (status), Victim (behavior).

The creator is the person that sets goals, takes actions, learns from their mistakes, and keeps on moving for the time need until reaching their goals and fulfill their purpose. They understand that there will be setbacks, and they use them for growth.

The victim (status): refers to those that suffer for actions they couldn’t have any control over. Such as natural disasters (tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis), and someone's actions they couldn’t possibly predict (drunk drivers, stray bullets, change of law).

In this specific case, they are victims as results of actions they didn’t initiate, or couldn’t prevent, was beyond their knowledge and resources.

Even they are not the person to blame for that, the consequences can be permanent.

The victim (behavior): is related to those that choose to think, behave, and live in a way where they reinforce their victim condition.

The way they speak, the stories told, body language, everything serves the same objective: justify their condition.

They are not looking for creating anything. In fact is the opposite: the goal is to maintain.

And how to separate one kind of victim from another? How do you know which is which?

Because of their actions.

A story I once heard, can’t say if it is a real one or urban legend, about twin kids that had a criminal father.

After years of the father’s arrestment, a reporter wanted to find out what happened to his kids. And he discovered that one became a good man, with family and noble job, while the other, just like his father, also became a criminal himself.

When the reporter asked why they choose their path, both gave the same answer: with the father I had, how come I could be any different?

It’s up to you if you want to be a victim or a creator.

The confident people create things and experiences, the victims suffer and maintain as they are.

How To Apply This Into Your Life?

This tip I learned from different origins, and is really well explained by T. Harv Eker, in his book “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind”.

For that, you going to need a notebook to use as your journal. And at the end of the day, you going to make 02 questions:

01 What happened today that I like, and how I make it happen?

02 What happened today that I didn’t like, and how I make it happen?

05 Give Good Meanings — Nothing Has a Meaning Until You Give It

Life experiences are creations.

There is no such thing as “one reality”. Every person has a different perception of what is happening, based on their backgrounds, knowledge, personal experiences, religious beliefs, age, sex, skin color, values, morals, ethics, and other filters more.

We create stories all the time, and we can get really attached to them. Look so real, that is hard to see they are all made up.

Take rejection for example. I can’t think of something that scared me most that getting reject by people, friends, family, job applications, and women when I was younger. And I once read that rejection can, in fact, hurt physically.

And what is rejection besides the story that you connect to the result you get?

The topic deserves an article itself, I’ll not go that deep here. Rejection is, among other things, a story we give to the outcome.

I invite someone to go to watch a movie with me, they say no, therefore… [fill the blank]. They don’t like me?! I am too old?! I am too boring?! I am short?!

They might just no be into the same kind of movie I am, and I can’t see that, so what do I do? I attach a bad meaning with myself!

The good news is this works both ways. If you can bond bad stories, you also can deliver, create stories that will help and support you, on-demand.

If it is all made up, make the ones that are healthy for you.

That is what people with self-love do. They create their stories to support their actions and missions.

If what you are telling yourself is damaging your self-image, throw in the rubbish and make a new one!

I used to take things really personally, and I was getting hurt quite often. Until one day I learned this from Daniel Munro and brought me so much relief and lightness.

As a coach, it was really frustrating to set an appointment and then to get a no-show. Sometimes without any sort of notification or explanation.

I felt disrespected. It was outrageous! I got angry, and nothing good ever came from that state and attitude. Not even once that I can remember.

One day, I learned from Daniel Munro, that when this happens to him, he deliberately tells himself: “they have a good reason”. And he explained that those that miss the appointment will believe that they had a valid justification for that.

Since then, I started applying in my own life. And all the stress and weight that used to come with the bad feelings were dissipated. I was light, emotionally healthy, and didn’t have to jeopardize my peace of mind and joy.

How To Apply This Into Your Life?

Be the creator and attach better stories to what happened to your life.

If something that you keeping on telling yourself and others is not serving you, replaced it. Tell yourself a different story.

You can see a good sample of someone that by choice choose to see things differently in this short scene of the movie Don Juan De Marco (1995).

06 Be Curious: Stop With Mind Reading!

When I was new to dating, one of the skills that I got first was “cold reading”. It’s not the same as “mind-reading”, still close to it.

Cold reading is using your observation of the other person's body language and preferences (clothes, colors, perfume, etc.) to guess something true about that, without any previous knowledge other than your observation. When you guess right, it’s fantastic! A good way to impress. When you get it wrong, there are a few ways to compensate for that. Mentalist, con artist, and pick up artist, and other people that are good with manipulation are usually good with that.

Mind reading is in another hand based on the presumption that whatever you think must be true. And you spend a lot of time and energy in your mind guessing your actions and people’s response to everything you say or do, without any kind of evidence that confirm that. If I “x” they “z”. Shy, insecure, and low confident people are great at mind reading.

The common ground here is that neither cold reading nor mind-reading is based on the truth, they are totally focused on guessing.

What a confident person does, when they are not sure, they ask, they get curious, they check.

Confident people are curious. They find ways to confirm their suspicions. And they do in a non-manipulative way. They come clean.

Recently I coached a woman and I challenged her to get 05 “NOs” as her “homework” until the next session.

She had the idea of going to her favorite pizza place and ask for a free pizza. After asking for the free pizza, the waitress took some time thinking and told her that she couldn’t get the pizza for free, and she could get the dessert for free (a piece of cake she really wanted).

My coachee got surprised by the answer! She didn’t expect she could get something for free. And then she freaked out and started running in her mind that because of the covid, lots of restaurants closing, if she accepted that free piece of cake, she would be in fact contributing to that place bankruptcy, and it would be one more fated to close, and people would lose their jobs, all because of her. And she couldn’t live being a selfish bastard and despicable human being by getting that piece of cake for free. Was too much for her to bear.

If she only had allowed herself to be curious and express her thoughts to the waitress, her experience would be different and much better for her.

The point is not getting or not the cake for free, the point here is assuming that her thoughts are true, obvious, real, and all people share the same point of view. Never crossed her mind checking with the waitress if that crazy story would make sense. Which I strongly doubt would be the case.

Believe me, if a restaurant is going to close because of one $5 piece of cake, they are doing things wrong much longer and before that.

It’s not like she was starting the “free piece of cake for everyone!” movement.

Waters under the bridge, I updated her homework.

Now she still has to get the 05 “NOs”, as before, and, in addition, from now on, whatever any stories show up, she has to share it, and check if that makes sense.

How To Apply This Into Your Life?

Simple: don’t read minds!

When a thought crosses your mind, and you don’t have anything that supports that, be curious, and express what is in your mind. Be clear.

A pro tip here is not being judgemental. Rather than point fingers and make accusations, share your impressions, feelings, and perceptions, because that is what it is.

Instead of: you are a liar, you can say “when you speak this or that way, I have the feeling that I can’t trust what you said”.

Instead of: you are dishonest, you can say “I have the thought that you are not being honest with me”.

07 Be Honest!

I can’t think of one person that has healthy self-worth, that is dishonest and has good self-esteem at the same time. They mutually exclude each other.

A good example of that is blackmail. It only works if you have something to hide. Whenever you come clean, the power around the blackmail disappears.

Dishonesty only “makes sense” when you are ashamed of something in you that is true for you, and you are afraid of not being accepted because of that.

In addition to being honest, you also may want to practice self-acceptance. You might not enjoy what is true for you at that moment, and if you still can accept that, will do miracles in favor of your self-esteem.

How To Apply This Into Your Life?

Be honest. Say what you mean, mean what you say.

Quit being a people-pleaser, seeking validation and approval.

A good challenge is, for a whole week, whatever you said you are going to do, you do it, even if there is a price to pay because of that.

Stick to your word.

A psalm of David. 01 Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain? 04 who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind; Psalm 15:01, 04

Try that for a week. See what can you learn from the experience.

Pro tip: every time that you slip on keeping your word, start over from day 01. Try getting 07 days in a row.

Final Thoughts

I had the feeling, especially from the second habit forward, that one was connected with the next one. I felt like a natural flow. I was wondering if you feel the same way. Did you?

And here is me not doing mind-reading, instead, I’m being curious and expressing myself. As I just shared before.

Even the habits are simple, which is not a synonym for easy, they can be tough to practice at first. Much harder when you have a long history of dishonest lifestyle and you will have to break through old patterns.

The rewards are priceless. Guarantee!

All the excitement, pleasure, self-growth, insights, freedom, to say some of the treasures waiting to be discovered by those that dare to step up and go out of their “comfort zone”. It’s worth it.

So what it’s going to be: living of instant rewards and an uncomfortable life, or a little discomfort now and a life worth living?

As you know by now: the quality of your life is directly related to your habits. Pick them wisely.