Being back in school, no matter what level, is not always good for your self-confidence. Seeing your peers seemingly living their best lives can make you feel like your life is not at the point it should be. However, feeling good about yourself does not have to be an unattainable goal. Here are five ways to boost your self-esteem when you go back to school this year.
1. Cosmetic Changes
You may hear some people say that you should feel good about yourself as you are without having to make changes to your appearance, in other words, promoting body positivity. While this is a helpful and powerful sentiment, you should not let that stop you from making small, inconsequential changes that make you feel beautiful, cool, or however else you want to feel. People use all sorts of products to enhance their appearances such as new clothes, jewelry, makeup, or lash services. As long as you use these products in moderation and do not rely solely on them as the source of your confidence, they can be useful tools to boost your self-esteem.
2. Learn a Skill
Knowing that you have a special skill that most others do not have can help you convince yourself that you are capable of doing something worthwhile. Try to find a skill that is in line with your other general interests. For example, if you like music, try learning one of your favorite songs on the instrument of your choice, work on your singing voice, or learn to play a new instrument. If you are interested in poetry, try writing a different type of poem or expanding your current library. There is always something new to learn.
3. Help Others
It might seem counterintuitive at first, but helping others can make you feel better as well. Even helping with something small, like opening the door for someone when his or her hands are full, can make you feel like you are making a difference in someone else’s life. It can also help you feel like karma is on your side. Karma is the idea that if you do good deeds or put good energy out into the universe, those good deeds will come back to you to make your life better. If you believe in that concept, then helping others is even more important.
4. Embrace Failure
Again, embracing failure might seem counterintuitive to raising your self-esteem, and to an extent, it is. Failure is necessary to learn from your mistakes. When you fail, you can look back on the experience to figure out where you went wrong, so try not to think of failure as a setback that loses you time and instead think of it as a learning experience that will help you do better when you try again next time. If you stop letting failure affect you negatively, your mental state will improve and you will believe that you are always getting better at whatever you do.
5. Be Proud
Pride in oneself is often looked down upon in today’s society. Having pride in your accomplishments or abilities is often seen as selfish or arrogant, and while going around bragging about yourself constantly does come off that way, allowing yourself to indulge in pride sometimes is healthy. You are your own worst critic, and many people tend to be overly humble or downplay their skills, but it will do wonders for your mental state if you can come to terms with the fact that you are allowed to feel good about the things that you have accomplished.
Having high self-esteem is not easy, and there is no simple switch you can flick to suddenly make yourself feel better. Working on yourself is a process, but it is a worthwhile process. Going to school can be rough, but hopefully, these points have helped you on the path to getting the confidence boost you need to be socially successful during the upcoming school year.