Life Hack for Developing Self-Esteem

One of the reasons why it's important to develop healthy self-esteem is because it helps you connect better with other people. Basically, you won't see others as being better than you. So you'll learn to express your affection for them in a way that doesn't seem like you're worshipping them (this would also be annoying or uncomfortable for a lot of people!) You will be able to call them out when they make mistakes as well. 

A lot of people may lose interest in being friends with you if you express affection in a way that feels stifling to them. This doesn't mean that they don't think you're cool or interesting, but they may feel overwhelmed by you. You need to remember you're inherently worthy. Your worth isn't based on your productivity, "coolness," etc. If you are simply existing without harming anyone, you deserve a certain level of respect and consideration. You certainly do not need to act self-sacrificing for anyone in order to get them to like you. 

So now that we've been over why it's important to have a healthy self-esteem, here's my life hack for how you do it:

You need to change your internal narrative to be less negative by talking to yourself the way you would to a close friend. A close friend who you have a healthy, stable, mutually beneficial relationship with. Or alternatively, talk to yourself the way they talk to you and try to internalize their voice. The negative voice you have in your head right now possibly reflects the voice of people who bullied, abused, neglected you or hurt you in some other way.

Some things that my close frens do for me:

-Shower me with love and affection even when I have not done anything for them that directly benefits them 

-Call out harmful behaviors and actions in a way that criticizes the action itself, not me as a person. They don't judge to the conclusion that I'm a horrible person!!

-Encourage me to stay motivated and focused 

-Celebrate small and big wins

So I can internalize these things by talking nicely to myself in my head but also calling myself out and being real with myself when I'm doing something sus.

This will overall lead to a more positive and less doompilled narrative.

This hack is very effective. However the limitation is that you do need to have friends in order for this to work. Good friends who you feel connected to. Because self-love doesn't occur in a vacuum and you kind of do need to know what it's like to be treated well by friends who love you so that you can treat yourself that way. I don't know how you'd be able to do it the other way around, so it's important not to shut yourself out from making friends.

However, if you are having trouble making friends to begin with, I will probably write another post on that soon. It can be tricky because you need to learn when a friendship isn't working and you might need to cut that person off, but also when you might be catastrophizing a fixable issue and you shouldn't sabotage the friendship by ending it without assessing the situation properly. But more on that later. For now, I hope you'll consider what I said about the life hack.