By Brittany Groves,Elm Street School

Establishing high self-esteem is entirely up to those of you that don’t have it, but want it. You shouldn’t rely on the things that people say about you, good or bad. You, yourself need to think it. First of all, make a separate list of the negative and positive things that you think about yourself. It can be about body image, or things physical and psychological. Then, make an explanation next to them, telling why you wrote those things down. Next step is to read the positive things to yourself and make those thoughts strong beliefs about you and not just opinions. And for the negative things, read them to yourself and study them. Think of why you wrote them down. Are you comparing yourself to others around you? Okay, this is where pen and paper come in again. Make questions to ask yourself why you put those negative things down. Ask yourself things like what started to give you the impression of these thoughts about you? Are you basing this on what you think, or what other people think? Are you passing these thoughts as negative things about you by your expectations, or by other peoples’ expectations?

Is somebody actually giving you the impression that your features or behavior are negative? For example on behavior, you keep your thoughts and opinions very high and express them in conversations, but to others, it is annoying because of the arguments you get in continually. That is not negative because speaking what is on your mind is expressing whom you are inside. That is a definite positive. There is nothing wrong with expressing emotion, but you should always listen to other peoples’ thoughts and opinions as well. An example is someone telling you that you need to go on a diet. If you, yourself think you look good and feel good, you don’t need to go on a diet. Don’t let their words effect your actions.