American surgeon and author Mawell Maltz said “Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand brake on.” Everything you do is a push and an effort and life just doesn’t flow the way you know it should.

Self-esteem refers to the value we put on ourselves, our self-worth or self-respect. Low self-esteem results in a lack of confidence and feeling that you don’t have certain abilities (even though you do). It can cause people to freeze, leaving them stuck in their current circumstances, unable to move forward and achieve their life goals. In some cases, it can lead to depression. Once your self-esteem increases, you’ll feel as though your opinions are worthy of being expressed, you won’t feel out of place in social situations, you’ll have more faith in your ability to achieve your goals and you’ll feel more enthusiastic and less hesitant to participate in life generally.

People may have low self-esteem as a result of an unstable childhood, feeling isolated within their community, past traumas, loss of tight bonds through either death or break-ups, financial stress, loss of employment, ongoing illness or pain or failure to achieve certain goals.

Whatever the cause might be for you, I promise, you can overcome it. Here’s 7 tips to conquering low self-esteem:

1. Acknowledge that you can change if you really want to. Realise that it may take some time and energy to make the changes and if you think it’s worth it, make the commitment to change now. If you’re not sure whether you’re ready, ask yourself what might happen if you don’t make the effort and the new experiences you’ll have in life if you do.

2. Once you’re able to make that commitment to yourself, take some practical steps such as looking after your health. Stress tends to reduce our self-esteem because we don’t have as much energy and begin to doubt ourselves. If you can reduce some of the physical and chemical stresses on your body, you’ll begin to have more energy and feel more control over your life. When you begin to care about how you treat your body you’ll start to feel better about yourself too. Maybe you need to drink less, smoke less, sleep more and improve your diet.

3. Next, really become aware of how you talk to yourself. What do you tell yourself when something goes wrong? Most people don’t talk to their enemies the way they talk to themselves! Are you way too harsh on yourself? If you make an unintentional mistake, talk to yourself the way you’d talk to your best friend, or a child who’s made a mistake. Sometimes it can help to chat to yourself in the mirror, just a friendly kind supportive, encouraging chat. You may even choose to write a letter to yourself.

4. Compare yourself with only the past you and the you you’re working at creating, not others and certainly not the ridiculous expectations you have of yourself. Be reasonable!

5. Acknowledge yourself along the way, not just at the end. Plan a mini celebration every time you pull off something you wouldn’t have been able to do in the past. Allow yourself to be proud of your achievements.

6. Make sure you surround yourself with people that have your back and drop the people that drag you down. We are a reflection of the people we spend the most time with. Think about your friends. Do they have low self esteem too? If you really want to keep them in your life, maybe you could bring them along on this journey with you, and if they’re not interested, maybe just spend a little less time with them, otherwise they might tempt you back to your own ways, undoing all the good work you’ve already done and the achievements you’ve already earned.

7. If you find yourself achieving as much as you can on your own, there are great resources out there that will help to shift the emotions of past trauma that might be holding you back. Services like hypnotherapy and EFT, kinesiology or other energy work are great tools.

Things to give thought to this week:

· Find a way to commit to making positive changes by exploring what will be possible once you increase your self-esteem

· Write some health goals and just make one change at a time if that’s all you can manage and be okay with that

· Maybe you could write yourself a love letter or have a mirror chat with yourself, acknowledging all the reasons why you’re awesome and glad to be you

· Who should you spend more time with / less time with?