There is Always Room for Improvement: Reflecting Upon My Self-Esteem

By Alex G.

I strongly stand by the affirmation, “don’t look back, there is nothing there for you,” and I am proud of my firm ability to look forward to positivity, empowerment, hope, passion, and enthusiasm. This affirmation made a colossal difference in beginning the process of improving my self-esteem.

It has been a few years now since I have been working on becoming the best version of myself in all aspects of my life. I have known myself as a confident person. However, I also knew that there is always room for improvement.

Among a number of things I needed to work on, the primary one was to reevaluate my communication style in order to take my self-esteem to the next level and improve the image of who I am. I’ve felt like my communication skills weren’t at the necessary level and it made me self-conscious. I realized that investing in me would boost up my level of confidence and escalate my personality to a higher intensity.

Investing in me goes way beyond the monetary value. I refer instead to investing in time such as spending time talking to people who could teach me a thing or two. Also, this would include investing in resources such as reading books or going to trainings with the potential of contributing to my personal improvement.

Somewhere along the way I experienced feelings of not being good enough, not belonging where I was, not being capable of doing certain things that affected my level of self-esteem as well as my self-worth. There were times when I was feeling like a fake and the “impostor phenomenon” proved my feelings were right. The impostor phenomenon, in my case, was the tendency to disregard outward signs of success and to consider myself an impostor, a fake, a fraud — someone who doesn’t really deserve to be considered successful.

I have to admit, I had moments where I was inclined to think that I was a failure. However, I knew that I was empowered to change how I felt and that it was on me to decide if I want to be a failure or a success. As easy as it sounds, making this decision is tough and dedicating yourself to working one-on-one is not easy.

I began the process of amplifying my self-esteem over the past years and I did it in many different ways. It was a blend of escalating in my work environment, going back to school, and traveling all at the same time.  I needed to work on my self-esteem because I didn’t always value myself then the way I do now.

Self-esteem is like a mirror to your personality that determines the level of value you perceive in yourself. People who think highly of themselves tend to have higher levels of self-esteem, and people who view themselves negatively are prone to have lower levels of self-esteem. I highly value myself now; therefore I have a high level of self-esteem. This is true.

However, I have also found that this idea doesn’t always apply to me. Sometimes it works against me; often times I would be overly confident about certain outcomes, so I wouldn’t consider looking at situations from different perspectives. This doesn’t affect the level of my self-esteem, I am still as confident as I used to be, yet it makes me feel somewhat naïve, and I am not pleased with that.

Among all the things I did in order to improve how I see myself, one thing that contributed greatly to a gradual boost in my self-esteem was to fill my living space with self-affirming statements. This definitely helped lift my perception of my self-esteem and my self-worth to a whole new dimension, yet it didn’t happen overnight; it was a long process of analyzing and understanding my own thoughts. I had sticky notes everywhere: on my bathroom mirror, on my walls, on my computer, on my phone — everywhere.

Here are some of the statements:

1. I highly respect myself – I love myself.
2. I feel I have a lot to be proud of.
3. I know I am a person of worth.
4. I am able to do things better than most people.
5. All in all, I know I am a success.
6. No matter what, I always take a positive attitude toward myself.

I may have not chosen the perfect way to improve my self-esteem, but I knew that being able to read self-affirming statements would have a great impact on me, and I was prepared for it. As a matter of fact, I still have the wall behind my laptop where I sit very often filled up with sticky notes. I also wrote down a bunch of different messages taken from different sources.

Some of them are taken from a book titled The Secret that helped me understand some of the things that were happening to me at different times during my life. Every time I feel like questioning certain aspects of my personality and how much I value myself, I take look at my self-affirming statements, and they help me get back on track. Of course these affirmations get changed, refreshed and replaced by others as time goes by. After a while, I feel like some of them don’t apply to me anymore because I have either grown up or outgrown the mentality I used to have.

Defining who I was, who I am, and who I want to be was a tough process, yet at the same time a good one for me because it left me feeling joyful, free, eager, proud, optimistic, energized, pleased, and passionate; and experiencing these emotions only builds me up and up.  Beginning with filling my wall with sticky notes, along with many other different techniques employed over the years, I have come a long way in achieving a much better version of who I used to be. I keep reminding myself that I should never stop, and that as much as I am pleased with my self-esteem now there is always room for improvement.

Reflection has opened up my mind to some behaviors and actions that I could re-evaluate, modify or replace all together, and I strongly encourage anyone to take action regardless of how confident they feel. I did it and I am still doing it. I can positively affirm that any investment in your own lovely self will only benefit you.

Alex G. is an exceptional risk taker. Her life is ruled by passion and positivity and she believes that everything she does needs to be fun and fulfilling. She lives and plays in Carbondale, CO, and is continuously looking for opportunities to improve.