How to Improve your Self-Esteem even if you don't like Positive Affirmations

[Music] I used to always be super critical  of myself and I hated positive affirmations I couldn't buy them they just sounded fake and  stupid. Honestly, they made me feel worse. Now, other stuff did help me be kinder to myself and  build up my self-esteem but I just never liked positive affirmations.

Now that has changed for  me now. Like, now, I actually like them but I like know so many people who feel the same way and  a ton of my clients also have felt the same way. They hate positive affirmations So today we're  going to talk about what you can do to improve your self-esteem even if you hate positive [Music]  affirmations.

Okay so for those of you who follow me, you know that I like to climb and last summer  for my friend's 40th birthday, I went climbing with my favorite people. We've been climbing together  for like 14 years and somehow during that time I got older and I had four kids inside of me who  are now outside of me. So we go to the Crag and I hop on a route that I used to do and I flail. 

I cannot even get up the start and the negative selft talk begins. I'm so old. I'm so weak.

I'm so  bad. This route is so hard. This limestone is is too slippery.

Now, I recognize these lines pretty  quickly. I got into a bad habit of beating myself up when I was a teenager and it took years to undo  but in my 20s and 30s I did a lot of work on my self-esteem. But once in a while, these old thoughts  come up again.

So, I'm going to teach you some things that have helped me replace negative self-talk with something healthier. Now, negative self- talk is really common for people with anxiety or  depression and it's probably one of the leading causes for low self-esteem. I've heard clients say, I'm such a loser.

I can't do anything right. It's all my fault this happened. I can't handle this.

Why am I such an emotional wreck? I'm so stupid. Nobody likes me.

I should be better at this by now. Right? This negative self-talk just seems to come really easy for many of us but if I were to just  try to say something like positive to myself like, I'm the best climber.

I'm a great climber. I'm so  strong. I'm so fit.

I'm so young. I would feel like super stupid. Like, I just can't buy it.

So, for me  and for many of my clients, it just didn't work at the time to replace the negative self-talk  with positive affirmations. Now, the old me in this situation maybe have gotten really frustrated and  and down and depressed. But I think I'm learning a bit as I go on in life.

So, I'm going to teach you  five strategies that have helped me improve how I talk to myself which has improved how I feel about  myself and how I feel in general. Okay, so here's the first one. The first step is to question all  of this negative self- talk.

So, when I hear someone use exaggerated language like, all or nothing  language, they're going to be using an extreme word, like, I'm the worst. I never do anything right. I'm a complete failure.

Then I know they're not seeing clearly and I can see this in myself as  well. So, I'm serious about this. If you can't say a single nice thing about yourself, you're not  seeing yourself clearly.

You have a blinder on that is subconsciously blocking out all the good  things about you. So, can we be honest here? If you had a friend in the exact same situation and you  would speak differently to them than you would to yourself, like, you have to admit you aren't being  fully honest.

But for ourselves we too often we let our emotions shape our perception. Your negative  self-talk might feel true but it isn't actually true. That's called emotional reasoning, right?

You feel scared so you believe everyone hates me. But your only evidence is a feeling not  reality. Why do we do this to ourselves?

Perhaps we want to believe that we're bad because this  belief protects us in some way. If I'm just bad at math then maybe that belief protects me from  trying hard. Hoping that you might not actually be a terrible human being requires you to keep trying  to be a little vulnerable, to take accountability.

So all this negative self-talk is crappy armor.   You've got to be willing to question your thoughts. This is this is going to open up some space to let  something more helpful or more honest to come in.

So, questioning your negative self-talk can help you  soften it a little bit. Okay. So that's the first one.

Catch yourself lying. Catch yourself distorting  things. If you wouldn't say it to a friend, you have to be honest with yourself and be like I'm I'm  trying to protect myself with negative self-talk and it backfires it's crappy armor.

Okay. Number  two, instead of trying to say something super duper positive, try to shift to more neutral language. So, I couldn't have believed it when I said I'm an amazing climber and I'm definitely going to  climb this route perfectly.

Stuff, like, world's best boss, makes me want to barf a little bit but I  can get behind these more neutral statements more easily and especially when I struggled more with  my self-esteem. But things like I'm trying hard. I'm getting stronger.

I'm tough. Look at me move uphill  incrementally or it's great to be back here with my friends. So when I was climbing this route, I  literally was like, yeah, look at me trying hard.

This is hilarious but like, I was just instead  of like beating myself up using more neutral statements. The other day I was cooking cinnamon  rolls and I literally I almost said out loud, "I'm a terrible cook! " And honestly, cooking's not my  forte but instead I caught myself and I said, "Woo!

I'm learning how to cook cinnamon rolls! " it was my  first time cooking them really, dairyfree at least because my kid has dairyfree allergies. Okay.

I'm  off on a tangent. Okay. When I'm being honest with myself, I can see that those neutral statements  are true.

So, I'm learning to cook cinnamon rolls. Absolutely true! Way more helpful than saying, "I'm  a terrible cook!

" Right? It's more honest and more truthful to say, "This is challenging but I'm  trying my best. " Okay now, I get it.

You can't go from like super negative self-talk to super positive  affirmations. You can't go from being a couch potato to being a marathoner in one day. You can't  go from beating the crap out of yourself mentally to being super duper confident and positive.

But  this is a skill you can learn little by little. So, let's break down these first two steps with some  examples. Let's use an example like I'm the worst person ever.

Okay. Let's challenge this thinking. Is it true?

Are you actually the worst person ever? I mean I can think of a few people who might be  worse. You're probably exaggerating here.

So let's be more honest and let's reframe to neutral. I did  some things right and I made some mistakes or how about this one. I'm a terrible friend!

Are you  really a terrible friend? You can challenge this thinking by looking for exceptions. There was that  one time you were a great listener for Martha or the other time you helped out Fred.

Now we aren't  doing this to justify bad behavior but rather to see more clearly and honestly because you cannot  make real progress by holding on to a lie. So, you've got to acknowledge both sides of yourself  that you do some good and you make some mistakes and when you can do that you're going to build  some traction. Okay.

Number three. Let's get clear on the person you want to be so that you can know  if you're building up a good purposeful life. Now, I worked for a pizza restaurant for about 4 years  to save for college and at this restaurant we were supposed to pay 50% of the cost of the food that  we ate.

But sometimes the manager would give us a pizza or sometimes there would be a pizza that  no one picked up. They called in but they didn't pick up and that pizza would surreptitiously be  taken into the dishroom and me and my co-workers would eat it. But also sometimes I would just make  myself a salad and some garlic toast and I would go into the dish room and eat it myself and I  justified what I was doing by saying, "Oh they don't pay me enough!

" Or the manager sometimes lets  us have free food. But one day I was filling out a job application for a different job and it asked,  "Have you ever stolen from your employer? " Check yes or no and in that moment, I knew that I was being  dishonest with myself.

I was stealing and at that moment, any positive self-talk would have been  a form of self-justification, an excuse for me not living up to the kind of person I wanted  to be: honest, upright, trustworthy. So instead of trying to talk myself into liking myself, the  next time I went back to work I asked my boss if I could talk with him and I told him that I'd  been taking food without paying for it. Like, this was so uncomfortable and I definitely cried a  little bit but he was super kind and he said, "Go ahead and pay me back what you think you owe.

" And  I did. I made it right and that felt amazing. Right?

Now, when I realized I had been stealing, if in that  moment, I had beaten myself up with negative self-talk like, oh Emma you're a terrible human being  you are despicable or if I justified myself, Emma, they don't even know how great an employee you are! So, they owe you pizza. Right?

Neither of those ways of talking to myself would have helped me line up  my actions with the kind of person I want to be. I want to be honest, upright, and trustworthy. That  starts with me being honest and clear with myself, which sounds like, I'm trying to be a good person  but I made a mistake.

I'm going to try and fix it so that I can work towards being more trustworthy.  Now, none of us are going to make right choices all the time. Right?

We're all going to make a mistake. So, how can we still talk to ourselves in a healthy way? You want to get clear on the kind of  person you want to be.

So, I want to be honest and then you strive to be this person but then again  how do you handle that gap? We all have this gap between who we want to be and how we sometimes are.  We're going to use growth instead of perfection as our way of evaluating ourselves and this is going  to change your self-talk and your self-esteem.

So, let's talk about tools for measuring. Both a  yardstick and a compass can be used to navigate somewhere. A yardstick measures distance and a  compass measures direction.

A mental yardstick asks, how far have I come? Have I arrived yet? This  can lead to perfectionism and backsliding into negative self-talk when we see how far we still  have to go.

Perfection is the wrong measure for self-esteem. It leads to us being fearful and rigid.  Instead, we want to use a mental compass instead of a ruler to check if we're on the right track. 

So, a compass points us toward a direction. This is a metaphor for using our values to point  us toward the kind of person we want to be. With a mental compass, when we mess up, we reorient  ourselves toward our valued direction and we keep moving forward.

If I'm working on being honest  loving trustworthy then I'm making progress. It's a growth mindset with a clear direction. So with  a growth mindset, your self-talk will frame your experiences as opportunities to learn rather than  failures.

So for example instead of saying, "I can't do this! " You might say, "I haven't mastered this yet  but I'm getting better at it. " This is all about focusing on progress instead of perfection even  if the results aren't perfect.

So for example instead of saying, "I failed! " You could say, "Oh! I worked hard  on this and I learned something valuable.

" So remember self-esteem doesn't come from plastering  positive self-talk onto a negative lifestyle. True self-esteem comes from choosing the kind of  person that you want to be, seeing yourself clearly, and then really striving to line your actions up  with being that kind of person. Now when you have depression, you're going to see yourself falsely, you're going to believe you're bad when you're actually good.

That's not what I'm talking about.   You have to be honest with yourself and you have to pay attention to small wins. So that's the next  step.

When you make a tiny bit of improvement or you make a good choice, you're going to celebrate  that and I don't mean just like thinking a nice thought about what you did, I want you to make it  strong. I want you to emphasize it. I want you to say it out loud.

Write it down. Tell other people. For example, in my team meeting every week, I ask people to share a win they've had in any aspect  of their life.

Now because your mind naturally pays attention to the negative more than the positive, you've got to exercise this muscle of paying attention to your wins. When you notice your  wins every day, you'll remind yourself that you're moving in the right direction. So I recommend that  you do the Three Good Things Exercise.

Every day write down three good things that you did that day  and this helps you rewire your brain to notice the good that you do. Okay. Here's number five!

We're  going to replace judgment with compassion. So instead of judgment, comparison, or negative self-  talk; you're going to start to treat yourself with compassion. Self-compassion is the act of treating  yourself with grace and love.

Compassion isn't love like, I love cake and I hate broccoli! That's  essentially using the word love to judge which things are good and which things are bad. So when  we treat ourselves with compassion, we are not judging ourselves as good or bad.

Compassion is  feeling with someone even yourself. It's about seeing the struggles as part of what we all go  through as humans. It's recognizing that we're all in this together, which creates a sense of  connection instead of judgment or separation.

It's talking to yourself like you would talk to  a dear friend. Now, as a mom, I need compassion all the time. I remember one time when my oldest  daughter was about five, I was pregnant.

So tired and she was not listening or going to bed and  I got upset and I yelled at her. After she was finally settled, I sat down on the floor in the  dark, with my back against the wall and I was feeling like I was the worst parent in the world. I never wanted to treat kids this way but this wasn't the first time.

I was beginning to sink  into self-hatred and despair. I'd learned about self-compassion but it had never really resonated  with me but this night I gave it a try. So I told myself the truth, which was Emma you do a lot of  good things for your kids.

You also make mistakes. You feel really bad because you're trying hard. Even if you make mistakes, you are worthy of love.

That's how you treat your daughters. You're a good  mom. You are worthy of love and happiness and good things and as I sat there I felt my despair melt  just a little bit.

Like, it was replaced with this tiny glow of compassion of kindness towards  myself. Now let me ask you a question. Do you think it would be easier for me to be kind toward  my daughter tomorrow if I continued to rage at myself?

Probably not and that's the beautiful  thing about compassion. It's actually helpful. Self-compassion might sound like, I'm learning  and growing that's what matters most.

I don't have to do everything perfectly. It's okay to rest. I'm  allowed to have feelings and these feelings won't last forever.

I'm human and it's okay to have flaws. I am worthy of love and respect just as I am. I'm not alone, everyone struggles at times.

Saying these  things with gentleness and kindness towards ourself, is one way that we practice self-compassion and I  understand this can be really hard to practice if you've been self-critical for a long time. So give  yourself time to get good at self-compassion. Don't try to force yourself to feel self-love before  taking the action of just talking to yourself with compassion.

You've got to start by taking an  action of kindness even if you don't feel like it. So here's a couple of small ways you could get  started. You could start with small neutral acts of self-care.

So this might mean taking care  of your basic needs like washing your face or getting some rest even if you don't feel like  you deserve it. I mean what I'm saying is like, you're treating yourself like someone you care  for and taking these actions can help us start to feel them. Okay, gradual exposure is another one.

So you're going to gradually introduce this idea of self-compassion to yourself. You could start  by reading about self-compassion or watching videos on self-compassion and you don't have to  expect yourself to feel it right away. Another thing we can do is we can love others before we  love ourselves and we can use that approach to treat our inner critic with curiosity, kindness, and  respect.

So acting in love. Serving someone. Helping someone else can help us internalize a greater  sense of compassion.

Also when we're busy hating on ourselves that's kind of self-absorbed so as  we experience compassion towards others, we can perhaps expand our thinking. Expand our hearts  a little bit. Okay, another thing you can do is you can imagine the negative parts of yourself or  like the characters from inside out and this is form of therapy called IFS, Internal Family Systems  and it certainly helps to have a therapist do this with you but you can practice talking to the  negative or hurting parts of yourself with love and kindness.

So for example you could say, "Hello, Debbie Downer! I see you're here. It's okay.

I'll listen to what you have to say but I don't have to  believe it. " Having a conversation with your parts can help you learn where they're coming from and  make space for them in instead of trying to hate them into going away. It really is possible  to untrain your negative self-talk.

In the long run, you can move from questioning the truth of  your negative self-talk to gradually using more neutral or balanced language to building a growth  mindset and a foundation for true self-esteem, noticing the positive and treating yourself with  compassion. These steps are probably going to feel really awkward or inauthentic at first but as you  practice them you're going to gradually get better at talking to yourself with love and kindness. I certainly have.

I actually really like vision boards and positive affirmations now and I feel  more confident than ever. As you keep practicing eventually you'll get to a place where you can  express confidence in yourself, have a healthy sense of self-esteem, and believe in your abilities  to accomplish your goals and be sure that you're living your life purpose. Now if all of this sounds  impossible, don't forget I'm not going to reach the top of my climb in one or even 10 tries  and no one's going to run a marathon after one training session.

Let's just start practicing today. I would love to know how you're going to start. So please share in the comments a neutral, balanced,   a growth mindset or a compassionate statement that you're going to use with yourself today and  tomorrow.

Each little training session you'll get a little stronger and stronger. Okay! Thank you so  much for being here.

Give yourself some positive affirmations just for showing up and listening  all the way to the end of this video and I hope you all take care. Hi there! If you found anything  in this video helpful, I would really appreciate it if you could give it a thumbs up or share it  with someone who could benefit from it today.