6 Little, Meaningful Ways To Feel Happier This Holiday Season
Joel Muniz | Unsplash Low self-esteem is more common than most people realize, especially around the holidays, which can be difficult for a lot of people. It becomes the culprit and root cause that makes you vulnerable to stress, anxiety, and even depression. Low self-esteem, when not addressed, can lead to many emotional, personal, and relationship challenges.
The process to get over the feeling of low self-esteem is easier than you might have imagined. It requires you do some decompiling of your old programs and start questioning what you are telling yourself. Are you ready to let go of what no longer serves you? To take back the control and live the life you deserve and desire? Then commit to these small, meaningful ways to feel happier this season.
Here are 6 little, meaningful ways to feel happier this holiday season:
1. Kindly call yourself out
Your low self-esteem comes from beliefs and the "lies" you tell yourself: You’re good or bad, a success or failure, pretty or ugly. Low self-esteem stems from core beliefs tied to fears about being liked, loved, accepted, or included, leading people to internalize thoughts like "I am unlovable" or "I am a failure."
Research shows that identifying these distorted beliefs is actually the first step toward changing them, as cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the most effective treatments for improving self-esteem. Low self-esteem can come from a fear of not being liked and wanting others to accept you. Fear of not being good enough, worthy enough, pretty enough, smart enough, skinny enough. Fear of not being loved. Write a list of the fears or lies that are holding you back and causing your low self-esteem.
2. Figure out where your self-doubt started
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More than half of your beliefs were formed by the time you were five years old by well-meaning parents, teachers, and guardians. For example, you believed in the tooth fairy, perhaps for years. Ask yourself, what other lies were you told? Think about some of the life lessons that have defined you. What was the life lesson you learned from it? Were they true or limiting beliefs that no longer serve you?
Gather information and support, confront the perception, and dissipate the fear. You get to choose which to hold onto or release. Is it possible that when you were 9 years old, someone said you weren't smart? Could that have been true at the young age of 9 that there was more you needed to learn? Does that mean you are not smart today? No, of course not, but if you keep telling yourself that you’re not smart, you eventually will start to believe it.
Instead, make a list of 10 things that prove it to be false. If you are finding a challenge identifying them, ask your family, friends, or co-workers to give you examples of times they found you to be smart in some area. Do this for your personal limiting belief that causes your feeling of low self-esteem.
3. Acknowledge what believing those lies has cost you
You may not have ever thought what low self-esteem has cost you. It doesn't have to be in a monetary sense, but it can be, too. Perhaps you missed out on events, gatherings, and opportunities personally and professionally due to your low self-esteem. Allow yourself to "get sick and tired" of "being sick and tired" of it all.
Research published in 2004 found that poor self-esteem is associated with a broad range of social problems, including withdrawal from opportunities and relationships. Studies also show that people with low self-esteem often engage in self-sabotaging behaviors like procrastination or disengaging entirely to avoid negative feedback, ultimately limiting their chance for success.
4. Break through toxic emotions and meanings
Words generate meanings that create the emotions of our lives, which drive all our actions, therefore producing the results we experience. Look at the language you associating to your circumstances.
There are more than 500,000 words in the English language. Yet, linguists say we only use 2,000 words in our vocabulary. Over 4,000 words are available to describe our emotions, yet most people generalize and live in less than a dozen, of which 80 percent are negative, and we link all the same pain or pleasure to each one.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me," persuades the victim of name-calling to ignore the taunt, to refrain from physical retaliation, and to remain calm and good-natured. Names and words can hurt you if you let them.
Stay away from toxic words and emotions and create new empowering ones! Redefine the negative words and emotions you tell yourself over and over again that create your low self-esteem, and replace them with new, empowering meanings. Instead of generalizing the meaning and emotion, make it specific and rewarding.
For example, instead of "I am not smart," perhaps you came up with "I am smart at work", "I am smart with how I raise my children," "I am smart with my organizational skills," or "I am smart with how I manage money."
5. Learn to take imperfect action
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Give yourself permission to get over the feeling of low self-esteem and eliminate the things that keep you stuck, like pain, shame, guilt, and blame. Stop making excuses for your life and start taking responsibility for it from here on in. Take imperfect action and find what is great in every moment instead of what is wrong.
Research published in 2018 found that self-compassion acts as a powerful buffer against the negative effects of perfectionism. People who recognize imperfection as a normal part of being human develop a stronger sense of self-worth and greater well-being than those who demand flawlessness from themselves.
6. Make peace and practice gratitude
The gift of high self-esteem starts with making peace with your pain. Start with gratitude. Be grateful and count your blessings. Your very life is the result of your thinking processes. According to author Claude M. Bristol, "The secrets of success lie not without, but within, the thoughts of man … what you believe yourself to be, you are." Your thoughts control every action. Be careful with them.
When you make these suggestions a daily practice in your life, you will see that low self-esteem is a feeling that you can get over quickly and easily. Your self-esteem will improve, and you will start to feel better about yourself. You will find more appreciation and love show up around you. Your self-worth will improve, and you will find yourself taking more pride in your successes. The world around you may seem to have changed, but you will know it was an inside job.
Decide today to eliminate low self-esteem and make it a feeling you can get over. Start now by taking imperfect action, appreciating all the gifts in your life, and living in gratitude. See how the challenges you once thought were so big no longer weigh your life. Watch the way you see and feel about yourself improve day by day.
Lisa Lieberman-Wang is a relationship expert and co-creator of the neuroscience Neuro Associative Programming (NAP).
