Self-Assurance and Presence
Self-assurance is made up of self-confidence and self-esteem. All are similar, but with crucial differences. You can be very confident in your skills and in certain areas of your life, while still suffering from low self-worth.
Self-Esteem
“Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand brake on.” Maxwell Maltz
Self-esteem is about how you feel about yourself and value your worth. It helps establish how you think, feel, and act. People with self-esteem also do not feel the need to accumulate accolades or material possessions. They are content with knowing their value and their worth outside of their self-confidence.
Surrounding yourself with people who are extremely positive helps build your self-esteem and your belief in yourself. Your self-esteem gives you the push you need to learn more, seek new opportunities and network with others.
Want to increase your self-esteem? Here are things to do daily:
- Improve your self-talk. Start your day with positive affirmations and learn to refocus your thoughts to something constructive.
- Surround yourself with positive people. Don’t let negative people control the way you think about your life or your business. Remember, every negative person has a problem for every solution. Move on!
- Start a journal. Start a journal to share your thoughts and challenges. Also be sure to focus on writing about ways that you have been succeeding. When you are having a down day, go back to those entries and repeat the same habits of that day.
- Get over your perfectionism. Perfectionism stops us from moving forward and completing projects. It paralyzes us because we are so afraid of not being able to live up to a high standard. Instead, understand that there is no such thing as perfect and learn to know when something is good enough.
- Handle mistakes and failures in a more positive way. I like to use this example a lot when I talk about setting goals and it’s using a GPS. Say you’re driving and you take a wrong turn. Your GPS doesn’t say “you’re a loser, go home.” It re-calculates and gets you back on track. When you take a wrong turn in life or in your business, re-calculate.
- Love others. When you spend time being more kind and loving to others, you start to learn to treat yourself a little kinder too. Be encouraging to others, do a good deed or even just be a great listener to someone.
- Build your self-confidence. When you begin building your confidence in multiple areas you start to see yourself as a more successful person. Becoming confident in your skills allows you to continue to see your value as a person and build your self-worth.