It is important to build self esteem because self esteem is one of the most important parts of the equation in losing weight. Self esteem means believing in yourself and your ability to not give up even during weight loss plateaus.

If you need help losing weight, more self esteem can give you the power and courage to succeed. You love yourself enough to pick up where you left off after having a slip in your diet plan instead of throwing in the towel. You love your process and the person you are in the process; for this reason, you stick with it no matter what.

As you lose weight, some of that self esteem goes into how you look. You love how much weight you’ve lost, even if it’s only been ten pounds out of a total of a hundred you need to lose. You begin to love how clothes fit and even being able to buy new clothes because of your weight loss.

Self esteem, even when you don’t weigh what you want to weigh, is vital to your weight loss progression. That is why we are going to work with you on how to develop rock solid self-esteem. Those with high self-esteem are much more likely to succeed than those who don’t. Once you increase your self-worth, you’ll be able to call upon it in times of need.

Self esteem is so important to your weight loss process that it is important to take the time to learn how you can change it to be more positive than it is today. It clearly isn’t an overnight proposition and it takes a great deal of effort on your part to achieve the kinds of changes you’ll want to have. 

Tips to Build Self Esteem

Here are some ways to build self esteem for help losing weight:

• The first thing you need to do is to listen to your inner voice and write down those things you say to yourself. Pay attention to phrases like, “I always have bad days.” “It’s my fault my partner left me.” “I’m not good at anything.” These are things we say to ourselves that create bad feelings within us and make us feel bad about who we are. If you write them down, you’ve committed them to memory and you can analyze exactly where they come from.

• Take a hard look at the phrases you say to yourself and think back to times in your life when others, usually our parents or siblings, said these things to us. It is almost a guarantee that something similar was said to you at a time in your life when you didn’t have the ability to decide for yourself who you were or what you were capable of. Back then, you were a sponge, soaking up what people said and taking them in as part of yourself.

• Knowing that these phrases were simply mean things said by people who didn’t know the impact they would have on you, change the phrases to say something like this: “I’m having a bad day today but I’m not a bad person.” “My relationship fell apart because he or she didn’t put enough into the relationship.” “I’m not good at this thing but I’m good at plenty of other things.”

Rephrasing these statements maintain your self esteem and don’t automatically make you into a bad or inept person. Gradually change your inner voice so that you accept those things about yourself that you’d rather change but don’t generalize the statements to include the totality of you. Recognize that you are a good person with some faults, just like everyone else.
 

• Think of what you do in life and project them outwards, pretending you’re looking at them from a distant perspective. You don’t generally generalize what others do or say and believe they are no good at anything if they make a mistake, do you?

Give yourself the same treatment and cut yourself some slack so that you recognize that, like others, you can make mistakes or fail to hold up to your own ideal at times but that ultimately, you are a good person. It’s only when you’re in your own body looking at yourself from within that you cut yourself down and fail to see the ordinary, fallible, but good person that you are.

• Listen carefully to when someone says something good about you, even if it’s your boss who says, “Good job” when you do something right. Individuals with a low self esteem are quick to take in negative feedback but simply ignore or work around positive feedback.

Take the time and energy to dwell on positive feedback about yourself. Write down the positive feedback you get from others and recognize that they were meant for you for a reason. The negative feedback, if any, involves feedback on just a portion of who you are or could be the remnants of another person’s bad day and may have nothing to do with you.

• Treat yourself as though you have a positive self esteem. Go tanning or treat yourself to a facial or a massage. These are things that people with a positive self esteem do for themselves and it is okay for you to act “as if” you had a positive self esteem. Treating yourself well trains your mind and body to accept positive things and to embrace yourself with kindness. Being kind to your body is often something that those with a poor self esteem find foreign to them.

Even if it is foreign to you, try it anyway. Even getting your hair done can do much for your self esteem. At any of these activities, settle yourself into being pampered and treated the way you deserve to be treated. Eventually, you will come to expect to be treated well and your self esteem will be enhanced as a result.

• Do something you’ve always wanted to do but thought you’d be bad at. It could be taking up photography classes, pottery classes, weight loss activities, running a 5k race or any similar activity. Put all your effort into doing your best at whatever you choose because, after all, a person with a positive self esteem tries hard and expects success.

  Be patient with yourself because these things are likely to be new to you and give yourself some time to be good at it. This is another “as if” situation. Not only will you likely to meet other nice people but you will stand a good chance at succeeding at something you’ve always wanted to do. This will naturally raise your self esteem and you will no longer be longing to do something.

Pick two or three things you’ve always wanted to do and allow yourself to be successful and more than one thing. Remember these successes when you get stuck on a project at work and the old feelings of “I’m not good enough” begin to creep in.

Your self esteem, positive or negative, is the cloak you wear around yourself and belongs solely to you. You are the person it takes to change a negative self esteem into a positive one. It takes the willingness to take risks and careful listening to the world around you. Sometimes you have to pretend to have good self esteem. That’s okay. Eventually it will become real for you and your life will forever be changed.

Finding your own personal self esteem is a mission you must take on in order to be successful at losing weight, getting a good job, and being in healthy relationships. Taking on this mission isn’t easy but it truly is the only way to have the happy life you thought eluded you.