Have you ever felt insecure about yourself and slowly begun to feel anxious and depressed? Feeling like you’re not good enough and that you are not worth it? 

Well, that is because there is a correlation between self-esteem and mental disorders. There was a study that delved deeper into how low self-esteem can increase the risks of anxiety, depression, educational stress and suicidal ideation in secondary school students in Vietnam. 

In conclusion, it can be said that self-esteem is associated with anxiety. Depression, and academic stress, which significantly affect student’t quality of life and links to suicidal ideation. Then, how can we start building your self-esteem?

Firstly, self-esteem is your opinion on yourself. When you have low-self esteem, it means that you constantly think about yourself in a bad light and are often extremely self-critical. Low self-esteem can cause you to lose confidence in yourself and hinder your abilities to achieve great things! 

There are myriad causes of low self-esteem, such as an unhappy childhood where your surroundings were extremely critical, poor academic performance, ongoing stressful life events, mental illness, etc… Regardless of the cause, this is our life, and we are in charge of leading it. So, how can we start building our self-esteem?

1. Talk to yourself positively

How is it that we can say great things to other people and not to ourselves? How have we learned to be so mean to ourselves? When was the last time you looked into the mirror and said, “I love you”. Yet, some of us go around and drop that phrase to people whom we know for as little as 2 months. You need to learn to treat yourself like your own best friend. Give yourself a hug first thing in the morning, and give yourself a break when you make mistakes. 

2. Challenge negative self-talk

When you catch yourself saying negative things about yourself such as “I’m not good enough”, or “I suck at this”. Take a pause, breathe and look for objective truth, how am I not good enough? What am I doing that I consider as bad, not enough? What does enough look like? 

And if you can’t look for an objective criticism, then ask a trusted friend for their opinion, most of the time, you will see that it is just your head playing with you.

3. Move your body

Exercising is always a good idea to boost your brain for all kinds of things. Physical activities such as walking, running, swimming, gymming, etc… bumps the production of your brain’s feel-good chemicals called endorphins. This hormone will help you de-stress and promote positive thoughts.

4. Don’t compare yourself to others

With today’s access to social media, where people are showing off their best lives through lenses, we often find ourselves comparing our life to theirs, pitying our own sad souls. However, it is these moments that you have to commit step 2 - challenge your own negative self-talk and understand that everyone is different. Each of us are on our unique journey and no one will ever be you. 

5. Step out of your comfort zone

Most of the time, we are comfortable being by ourselves, doing our things. However, this year, we want you to live by this quote, “be comfortable with being uncomfortable”. Because that is when growth truly happens. Overcoming uncomfortable situations and challenges are key to building your self-esteem. No matter how big the hoops are, even small actions can boost your self-esteem. 

At Stucolab, we encourage you to step outside of your comfort zone through little action with our action cards - hidden under each seat. The objective of these cards is to get you to interact with other people, get out of your comfort zone and overcome yourself - building your confidence step-by-step.

Visit us at No. 24 Alley 575 Kim Ma to start building your confidence.