A song by the offspring with lyrics attatched so you can sing along if you want.

Self-esteem is merely an opinion of the value you place on yourself. Obviously, your self-esteem can be high, low or anywhere in between. Clearly it is better if your self-esteem, or the value you place upon yourself is high rather than low. High self-esteem enables you to love yourself for who you are yet low self-esteem is associated with low self-worth and perhaps depression. If you raise your self-esteem, it helps you to grow as a person and become more successful.

But what determines the level of your get self-esteem? Well as a child, your self-esteem comes mostly from your parents. If they raised you in a very positive way, praised you for your achievements, and constantly encouraged you to try new things, the chances are you will have the positive outlook on yourself and on life that goes with high self-esteem. Unfortunately, very few parents know how to do this or manage to do it even if they know they should. For example, sometimes you might get told you are ‘stupid’ for doing something or perhaps that you are ‘uncaring’. If you get told this regularly, especially if it happens over a long time, you are less likely to see your positive qualities and might even end up with an angry outlook on the world as it continues to live up to your expectations.

This can also happen with your friends and your peers, because how you feel about yourself is often based upon what you think that other people think about you. If you are able to ignore the negative comments, then this will help enormously because you won’t allow such words affect you.

In the end though, your self-esteem comes from inside you. To help you to understand this, ask yourself some simple questions.

• Do you like who you are?
• Are you happy?
• Do you think you are a good person?

Although you might say no to some of these questions, the chances are that most of the time you will answer is yes – even if sometimes you have doubts about yourself.

To get rid of these doubts, it will help if you first accept yourself – with all your perceived faults – and feel good about who you are. Accept yourself and be happy. Realize that you are not the only one who has the particular problems or issues that you perceive in yourself. By comparing yourself with people who have what you think you want, you are bound to bring sadness and low self-esteem onto yourself. Instead, focus on all your good points – you have many more than you realize – and think about how you are uniquely placed to achieve something that nobody else can. If you don’t know what that is, think about it until you recognize exactly what makes you great and perfect for your life’s tasks.

Remember that you are different from everybody else, not just in terms of your physical attributes, but also in your personally. It’s not just your fingerprints that can never be duplicated by anyone else, it’s everything about you.

Unfortunately, some people have such a low value on themselves that they become depressed and think there is no way out. These people need help or assistance, because it is almost impossible to deal with this on your own. You can can get counselling to improve your self-esteem or you can listen to self-help audios or CDs if that works better for you.

A useful technique that doesn’t cost anything is to write down on a piece of paper fifty things that you like about yourself. You don’t have to do it all in one go, if you can’t manage fifty, keep going for another ten minutes or more and you will probably start to think of some more. However, if you are really struggling, stop and write some more the following day. keep going until you get at least fifty. Once you have your list, cherishing it. Every day, do your best to write down one good thing that you did today, so you can look it up later and remember all the good things you have done. If you can’t think of anything, go out and make a point of doing something good so that you can put it in your list.

Those with low self-esteem are likely to do things that are destructive to themselves or to others, but this is much less likely if you have high self-esteem. If you have a positive outlook about life, you are always optimistic about the future. When you are optimistic, you can probably say what you feel and get anything you want out of life. But remember not to confuse high self-esteem with being overconfident because that is not the same thing at all.

Another benefit of high self esteem is that you will have an easier time handling life’s problems and resisting negative pressures from others. Always remember that high self-esteem is something that we are born with. Your self-worth can change over the years only if you allow it to and so you can always send it back in the opposite direction. Keep it up!