Building a Strong Self-Concept and Bolstering Self-Esteem
A constant improvement to your self-concept and a gradual increase in your self-esteem will play a major role in self-actualization, self improvement, and lifelong self fulfillment. Self-esteem is quite simply how you feel about yourself and ultimately, your behavior will mirror those feelings. If you wish to pursue self development of and nature or just achieve some sort of goal it's usually a good idea to start with boosting your self-esteem and re-framing the way you see yourself.
The self-concept is basically a collection of your perceptions of who you are: your capacities, traits, strengths and weaknesses. If the way you see yourself is not an picture of strength and abundance, then your self-esteem will suffer
A healthy and strong self-concept will allow you to seek new opportunities and challenges both personally and professionally while a weak self-concept will make you less willing to move from your comfort zone and you will miss opportunities in life, love, and success. In many ways self-esteem and self-confidence is self-fulfilling prophecy. Those with a positive view of themselves will constantly reinforce that image with new achievements while those with a negative self-image will find new reasons to fail in order to ensure the survival of the negative self-image. If you feel that your overall self-esteem and confidence needs a boost, then you probably need to find a way to boost your self-concept.
One way to create a better image of your self is through daily affirmations of positive self-talk or autosuggestion. It is important to emphasize to yourself both positive statements and positive mental pictures. Do this several times every day until it becomes a habit and you do not need to force yourself to imagine good things happening to you.
Another thing you can do is to examine the things in your life that you can and cannot control. Change and act on the things that are in your control and fully accept the things that are out of your control. You can control your eating and exercise habits but you cannot change your body type. You can control your personal hygiene and appearance but you cannot control whether others find you attractive. You can control how you feel about yourself but you cannot control how others feel about you. Simply making a list of things you can and cannot control can be very liberating and may completely change your paradigm of your place in the world.
Become a positive person! When you ponder an important decision or a particular change in your life, think of all the things that could go right. Emphasize the positive even when bad things happen. Recognize that mistakes are opportunities to learn and that most mistakes are not tragedies but rather simple problems that need to be solved. Success is often the end result of numerous failed attempts to get something right.
Finally, accept responsibility for yourself. Finding self-confidence requires accepting responsibility for your own happiness and recognizing that you are a product not only of your DNA and your surroundings, but of the choices you've made. Release the past and do not dwell on others who have contributed to your low self-esteem. That was yesterday and from now on, only YOU are responsible for the person you will be tomorrow.
