Self esteem plays a large part in dating and relationships. Self esteem is simply the way you see and feel about yourself. If you have a low self esteem you don't have a high opinion of yourself. You generally harbor negative thoughts about you and you do not feel that you measure up to other people. This negative internal negative feeling can impact you in all areas of your life, including dating and relationships.
People who suffer from low self esteem believe it is a silent illness. They don't think others can see their suffering. They internalize these feelings and in the process begin to believe solidly in the negative thoughts.
The problem is that low self esteem is generally very visible to other people; some obvious symptoms of low self esteem are; lack of confidence, feeling unworthy usually seen in slouching, covering oneself up, not speaking unless directly spoken to, and allowing others to control them. If you have two people that are similar in looks, age, height and weight, but one has a low self esteem and one is confident you will easily see the differences between the two.
Both men and women can suffer from low self esteem, this condition does not discriminate between the sexes. Skinny, overweight, pretty, mousy there are no physical characteristics that this condition targets. It lives inside a persons perception of themselves. In their minds and is born of past influences that cause a person to think negatively of themselves.
This condition can eat away at the core of who a person is and can replace low self esteem with a new condition called self loathing. As a person travels down the bumpy lonely road of low self esteem they will continue to get worse. Their relationships deteriorate and the choices in partners get more controlling and possibly abusive. People have been known to slip into depression and sometimes have suicidal tendencies. These factors are long term effects but reasons to start working on building your self esteem and confidence today.
Here are some great ways to help build up a person's self esteem. If your self esteem is so low that it is causing you push people away from your life completely and sink into chronic or acute depression; you will want to consider seeking professional help. These exercises will help you improve your dating by improving your own self esteem.
Try journaling daily:
Start a journal on your computer or in a notebook. Start by simply writing down the thoughts of your day. Once you finish writing out your day, set the journal down and sleep on it. In the morning read what you wrote. If you find that you wrote a lot of negativity about yourself, you will know that you have some work to do on your self esteem. Do this for a week. Don't change anything just write and read what you wrote. You should start to see a pattern.
Perhaps you don't like the way you look, or you feel you are overweight or to skinny, you might even discover you don't like certain friends or colleagues that cause you to feel negative about yourself. Once you see the trend put a plan together to fix this.
Write this plan out in your journal (give it it's own page and book mark this page so you can easily flip back to it every day.) Now when you write in your journal continue to write about your feelings of your day but put a section at the bottom of the page for you to write what you did to fix your issue. You may just write created plan, or went on a jog this morning, perhaps you ate carrots and cottage cheese for lunch instead of the regular burger. Continue to read your journal entries every morning. You will start to see a change in your writing, perhaps more positive. You will be fixing your self esteem through work and dedication.
Try daily meditation:
Find some time during the day (15-30 minutes) to meditate. This can be used with your journaling or without. Choose a simple form (deep thought, pray, tai chi, yoga) whatever method you choose decide to stick with this for one month, every day. During this meditation focus on positive attributes about you. You can also focus on positive changes you want to make but you MUST keep the focus positive.
Try writing a goal book:
Every day write three things you like about yourself and one thing you dislike. Couple this with your journaling. Writing three things you like reinforces positive in your mind. If you find you are writing the same thing down you dislike everyday, work on fixing it.
There are many different ways to work on fixing low self esteem. If you have another way that worked for you please comment below. If you try the homework assignments please comment and let our readers know they worked for you. If you like this article or others written by this author please subscribe to her so you can get updates on new work when they are published. If you have any questions please email her here.
A final note: If you are struggling with low self esteem and can not seem to pull yourself up from it please seek professional help. There are many different counselors across the world that are trained to help you work through these issues.