Low self-esteem can feel like being stuck in a cycle of negative self-talk—rehashing mistakes, beating yourself up, and never feeling good enough. In this post, I’ll share 6 powerful practices to rebuild your self-worth and finally quiet that inner critic. These practical steps go beyond affirmations. They’ll help you align with your values, strengthen your self-talk, and grow a deep sense of self-worth that lasts.
6 Practices to Rebuild True Self-Worth
Getting stuck in a cycle of low self-esteem is like trying to stay upright on a bicycle that’s going nowhere. You beat yourself up over your mistakes, you rehash something you said over and over. That sneaky little inner critic keeps telling you how stupid and worthless you are. Or you desperately strive to avoid mistakes, take care of others and seek external approval. Maybe you’ve tried affirmations and they just don’t help that much.
Today I’m going to teach you 6 practices to rebuild your sense of self-worth. Half of these tips will help you improve your self-talk and repair how you see yourself. The other three will require introspection and intention to build integrity to your purpose and meaning. These three deeper practices make the biggest impact and #5 is where I see people really start to light up. We’re going to challenge that negativity bias and replace seeking outside approval by instead fueling your deep inner sense of purpose.
#1 - Clarify Your Values to Strengthen Self-Esteem
Deep and lasting self esteem doesn’t come from saying nice things to ourselves, it comes from doing things that are esteemable, and seeing ourselves clearly when we do. It comes when you keep the promises that you make to yourself, when you come to trust that your life has a purpose, and you take courageous and intentional action towards being that person.
Just like how it’s hard to balance a bicycle when you’re not moving forward, it’s impossible to love, or even like yourself when you aren’t living with purpose and direction.
Can you visualize what that would look like, when you feel sure that you are a valuable human, and your life path is lining up with your mission? You might think you can’t, but let me show you that the next thing you can do today to improve your self-esteem is to get clear on what you want your life to be about.
If you value kindness, but you constantly yell at your husband, then no amount of positive self-talk is going to restore your self-esteem. If you value kindness, and you work hard to learn better ways to communicate, and you start to see that relationship grow stronger and closer- then you’re naturally going to start to like yourself more. Deep lasting self-esteem comes from purpose and integrity more than positive affirmations.
So the first step to building that deep sense of self-trust is to clarify your values. What kind of person do you want to be?
What do you really care about? Kindness, connection, music? Self-improvement, charity, learning? When your time comes to die, and you look back with satisfaction on your life, how will you have spent it?
If you don’t know what you want your life to be about, then you can’t align yourself with it.
It’s like you’re riding your bike, but you have no direction. But when you have direction, and purpose and you start moving forward, it feels easier to balance.
For me, I value adding light and love to the world, education and self-improvement, loving and serving others, and challenging myself to improve.
The awesome thing about values, and bicycles, is that they don’t have to be AT their destination to be balanced, they just need to be MOVING forward. Values are a direction, something we’re working on in the present moment, not something we have to achieve. But when you know the direction you want to go, and start moving towards it, you won’t feel so shaky and insecure.
Defining your life’s direction might sound overwhelming, but I’ve got you. On my website I have a free and simple Values Clarification workbook/exercise which will take 10 or 20 minutes of your time. When you’ve identified and written your values, you can also give them more power by creating a vision board. Then, each day spend 5 minutes visualizing your life with these values. When you can visualize improved relationships, the results of your efforts, or the other ways these values could manifest in your life, then you’ll know how to bring them about. Spend 5 minutes every day envisioning your life lived in alignment with your values, and you’ll find that as you go out and live, you’ll know what to do to make them a reality.
Now you might start feeling really bad about yourself here. You might think, “I value good relationships, but I’m really lonely,” or, “I value hard work, but I can’t get a job!” We are going to constantly redirect our attention away from our regrets and ask, “What’s one small action I can take in the right direction today?” We shift our attention to valued action: “I’m going to learn a new job skill,” or, “I’m going to text a friend.” Taking those actions gets us moving, and helps us like ourselves more.
You have to shift your regrets into action.
#2 New Rule: Flip Negative Self-Talk Into Growth
Before I tell you the second practice, let me set it up for you.
So, the foundation of healthy self-esteem is integrity to your values, but one thing I see with people who are trying hard but still feel terrible about themselves is that they fuel low self-esteem with a bad habit of self-criticism.
And this is a habit. Most people don’t even realize they’re beating themselves up. I’m so stupid, I’m such an idiot, I’m such a screw-up, I’m too sensitive, I’m so fat and ugly, I ruin everything in relationships! The constant name calling is going to knock you off your course. So it’s time for a new rule, new habit.
Replace name calling with a growth mindset. Instead of “I’m so stupid,” say, “I haven’t figured this out yet.”
Replace perfectionism with compassion. “I should have never made that mistake” gets replaced with “Making a mistake is human. I’m going to learn from this and try again.”
To make this exercise extra powerful, I want you to write down the names you call yourself and then write down the helpful lines you’ll replace them with so they’re ready when you need them. When you have your list of go-to negative names, you could ask a therapist, friend or even AI to help you write replacement phrases. You could even put your positive lines on your phone’s lock screen for super quick reference. (Don’t put your negative list there though! You don’t want to reinforce that!)
- “I’m such an idiot.” becomes “I’m still learning.”
- Instead of “I’m such a loser.” use “I’m going to work hard and do my best. Good things will come.”
This is going to feel super awkward at first. It might feel fake or pandering because you’re not used to your new self-talk. But we’re doing mental reps here. It’s like swinging a golf club or tennis racket for the first time, it takes practice to replace bad habits with new mental muscle memory.
#3 Beat Negativity Bias with 3 Good Things
OK, here’s another thing that makes you insecure: mental filtering.
Negative mental filtering is when you ignore all the good things you do and place a ton of attention on your mistakes, flaws, shortcomings and awkwardness. Most people don’t notice that they’re doing it, but let me ask you a question. Let’s say that at work you get nine compliments, like “good job” or “thank you”—and then you also get one piece of criticism. Which one will you think about at night? The criticism. This is negativity bias, your brain naturally focuses on the negative and filters out the positive. For some people this becomes a deep rut where they literally cannot think of anything good about themselves. Let’s instead retrain your brain to start noticing the good. It’s not that it’s not there, it’s that it FEELS like you never do anything right because you’ve trained your brain to ignore the good things that happen. You’re conditioned to look for the bad and punish yourself with that over and over.
To restore balance to the force, do the 3 Good Things exercise for 2 weeks. It’s simple. Each day before you go to bed, write 3 good things you did today. This counterbalances the constant focus on negativity, and trains your brain to look for the good you do. Research shows that this simple exercise for two weeks can lead to a more positive mood for months. We’re talking about a measurable decrease in anxiety and depression.
#4 From Low Self-Esteem to Confidence: Owning Your Unique Talents
OK, so now we’ve got an idea of where we’re going, and we’re learning to protect ourselves from the thing that throws us off course, now we’re going to build up our momentum, we’re going to explore your gifts.
What lights you up? What gets you excited? What’s different and wonderfully weird about you? Are you an extrovert who connects easily with everyone? You don’t have to be. Maybe you’re a poet and you touch emotion with words. Maybe you’re great at making cookies, or you just enjoy sharing home-cooked food (not my gift).
When I worked at a youth camp, I used to compare myself to all the other camp counselors who were so funny and extroverted and engaging and loud. I used to constantly try to hate myself into being more fun—which did not work! But then I found that I’m great at having quiet, deep, one-on-one conversations with people. I’m good at caring and empathizing. I’m thoughtful and I can ask good questions and make people feel safe. I’m not necessarily the most outgoing person, but when I line up my opportunities with my gifts, I end up doing therapy, working in a wilderness therapy camp, and shifting my socializing to small group activities. The thing that I thought was bad about me (being quieter) was actually one of my great strengths.
I think we all need to spend time exploring how our weirdness is one of our strengths. The book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain changed how I saw myself helped me really appreciate my gifts.
So take some time to journal about your unique and weird gifts. To get the ball rolling, maybe ask a friend or loved one to write one or two of the gifts they see in you. When you can see these in writing, they stand as evidence and a starting point to explore how your gifts let you contribute to your world.
#5 Self-Worth Grows When You Share Your Strengths
Once you’ve listed your gifts, think about how you can use them to build connection.
Do you love plants? You could give someone a flower or harvest from your garden.
Are you a bookworm? Post a positive and thoughtful book review online, or recommend your favorite book to a friend.
Nerdy about D&D? Start a club/group/dungeon. (I honestly don’t even know the word.)
Don’t get too hung up on how to use your gifts—just be open to helping. If you look around you, there is always someone in need. Be friendly toward an outcast. Sit with someone who’s having a hard time. Take a meal to a sick friend or elderly relative. Find a place to volunteer. This is more powerful than affirmations. You are needed. There is good to do in the world and you can step up. You can make a difference.
I recently heard a story about a father whose son was struggling with low self-esteem, so he started taking his son to an elderly neighbor’s house each week. They would talk with the neighbor, and help her out with little things each visit. One week, the father was out of town, and the son went on his own. When the father returned, the son’s face glowed with pride as he told his dad how he fixed the neighbor’s computer, helped her figure out the remote control, and took her trash cans to the curb.
I get so excited about this because as soon as someone stops dwelling on how “bad of a person” they are and starts to connect and help and love and serve, they start to get this light in their eyes and this bounce in their step. This might not be comfortable or easy or self-focused— but it’s going to make you proud to be yourself.
#6. Self-Talk Tip: Accept Compliments with “Thank you”
This is another one that will feel awkward at first, but I’m serious. When someone says something kind about you, graciously accept the compliment and say, “Thank you.” To help it stick, write down the compliment in a notes folder on your phone. Nuff said.
Catch Your Inner Critic to Reclaim Self-Worth
When you’re working to improve your self-esteem, it’s important to recognize that your inner critic is going to always undermine how you feel about yourself. If you can catch that voice in the act when it tries to hand you ugliness about yourself, and then purposely replace what it’s saying with the beautiful truth about you, you can end its name calling and repair your mental filtering.
And here’s the last thing. Stop trying to hide yourself. Show the world the weird things you’re passionate about. Get excited about *fossils, or anime, or laughing loudly, or sea glass. If you’ve got deep wounds and hurts, or weird passions or awkward teeth, every time we hide ourselves, we accidentally reinforce the fear cycle…and when we show ourselves we come to find that we are safe. Don’t wait until you feel confident to take action, that’s not how confidence works. We have to share ourselves first, and then our confidence will grow.
There you have it. Six practices that will help you improve your self-esteem, from our thoughts all the way to the ones that touch at your core. You can build self-esteem in a practical way, and I hope you find that as you use these practices, you see for yourself that self-esteem isn’t about ego or self-aggrandizement—it’s rooted in belonging, contribution, purpose, and authentic human connection. You got this. Pop this list into your phone and set some reminders to start taking action today.
And again, if you’d like to do the Values Clarification exercise, click here to get the free workbook.
You also might be interested in my course called Grounding Skills for Anxiety. It’s also free—just follow the link.
