Just for today stop judging yourself and remember that you are worth more than you think. If you want to discover a simple and practical technique to gradually increase self-esteem and stop self-sabotaging yourself, take note of these exercises.
Written and verified by the psychologist GetPersonalGrowth.
Last update: 15 November 2021
Few topics from the human universe are as relevant to psychology as this one. Abraham Maslow, for example, defined self-esteem as a basic need whose absence prevents us from achieving self-fulfillment or happiness. We therefore invite you to discover the “Just for today” technique to improve self-confidence.
Low self-esteem, in fact, is the cause of most of our problems, anxiety disorders, depression, relationship problems and, in essence, of daily suffering. Numerous psychological approaches and different schools have tried to provide us with the knowledge and resources necessary to deal with it and to increase it.
If this dimension is our eternal Achilles heel, it is due to two reasons. The first concerns our childhood, the education received, the sense of security and autonomy offered to us by our parents.
The second starts from a basic principle: self-esteem is not a stable concept, that is, it is not obtained and preserved until the end of its existence. On the contrary, this area of ​​our mental and emotional architecture is often very fickle.
A bad experience and our interpretation of it or even how we try to get over a painful romantic relationship can weaken it. And so our duty to take care of it as if we were taking care of a garden.
Weeds have to be pulled out, seeds planted and the flowers that grow in that field watered daily. In this article, we present a technique for success called Just for today.
Increase self-confidence from your own inner universe
Most of us care a lot about the judgment of others. So much so that, at times, we hide some aspects of our personality. We do this to be accepted and to avoid being judged.
Beyond that, sometimes just living with a narcissistic person can end up completely draining our self-esteem. We work so hard to get the affection or approval of that person (our narcissistic mother or father, a narcissistic partner, etc.) that our self-esteem is reduced to a minimum.
Instead, it is necessary to distance ourselves from the figures that cause us suffering to then heal the trauma and reinforce self-esteem again. Furthermore, this task should be daily.
A study by Crocker, J. and Parkh, LE (2004) at the University of Houston, Texas, indicates that many times we live in search of sources that strengthen our self-esteem. These sources can be a new couple relationship, a good group of friends, a good job, etc.
However, this external research is useless. The best way to increase self-esteem is to engage in daily inner work. We cannot seek outside what is not within us. Let's discover the “Just for today” technique together.
"Just for today" to reconcile with yourself
The opposite of self-esteem is self-sabotage. This attitude so harmful to our identity and to our psychological well-being manifests itself through a negative inner dialogue and for which we repeat:
"No matter how hard I try, I'll never be good, it's useless to try because I'll fail, I'm not determined and capable enough like those around me, I'm sure I'll disappoint them."
Our mind ends up getting used to these thoughts, which is why you have to break this pattern, deactivate it and replace it with a positive one. This is possible through the technique called "Just for today", which consists of the following steps:
- Train your approach towards a set of simple, yet powerful ideas. We will thus reconcile with ourselves, awaken our potential, get rid of the wrong ideas that we have cultivated for a long time, etc.
- Aim to turn off negative dialogue.
- Working on a dimension linked to self-esteem.
Here are some practical examples to train on every day:
- “Just for today” I will speak kindly to myself, reminding me how much I am worth, that I must love myself as I deserve.
- “Just for today” I will set myself a goal, realize it and remind myself that I am capable, that I am brave and that I can transform my reality.
- I will distance myself from what hurts me, from what generates doubts or unhappiness. “Just for today” I want to give myself what makes me laugh, what I want and thus enrich my self-esteem.
The best technique for self-confidence is to free yourself from fear and insecurity
When we live in the shadow of insecurity, fear of failure, of not being as others want, of perennial anguish because we do not consider ourselves good enough, we boycott ourselves in every way. To put an end to this dynamic, we must be aware of the thoughts that crowd our mind.
Then, we need to train it, harmonize emotions, start behaviors that make us feel competent and surround ourselves with people who enrich us, who do not obscure our light and our potential.
To do this, we advise you to keep in mind the technique to increase self-confidence "Just for today": it is simple, effective and can change our lives.
