Self-esteem is based on actually liking yourself for who you are and what you can do. It is not about being conceited or thinking too well of yourself. Self-esteem has everything to do with how you compare yourself to others, and it should not always be in a negative way. There will always be someone in the world who is better than you and someone who is worse than you at something.

It's not about being the best. It's about doing your best. It's about finding a balance between having confidence and self-doubt. It's about knowing when to share your accomplishments with others, and when you should be humble.

Those who have good self-esteem are able to forgive themselves for their mistakes, but are also able to rejoice when they accomplish something. Rather than seeing a problem as insurmountable, when you possess good self-esteem you are able to evaluate a problem and focus on what needs to be done to fix it, but you can see all the good things that happen on the way.

If you suffer from low self esteem, one of the most important things you must start to do is to stop putting yourself down. You have to change the way you view yourself. Your standards need to be reasonable. You have to be kind and gentle with yourself. Your old behavior was self-defeating. You must change so that your new behavior will be empowering and inspiring to both you and others.

The truth is that most people feel the effects of low self-esteem from time to time during their lives. Low self-esteem becomes a problem when we allow our feelings of low self-esteem to rule our lives.

The important thing is, and this may come as a surprise to some people, everyone has the ability to change how they respond to any situation.

It might be hard when you feel that all you get all day long is a lot of criticism and very little in terms of positive feedback. This can lead to a habit of never celebrating when you do something well.

Part of the problem is down to how we are taught to behave, and how we are conditioned by society. We're told we should be humble about our accomplishments and not boast when we do something well. We concentrate on problems in our places of work and let all the things that run smoothly go unnoticed. We downplay some of the things that we really should celebrate.

The good news is that you can change the course of low self-esteem at any point in your life.

This is the first and most important lesson to learn when it comes to self-esteem. You have total control over how you view yourself and the life you are living. If you don't like some of what you see, you can begin to take small steps to change it. Each small step and minor change helps to change the direction of your life.

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