Oregon, IL Clinical Mental Health Counseling Tips: How to Boost Your Self-Esteem and Self-Worth

Oregon, IL Clinical Mental Health Counseling Tips- How to Boost Your Self-Esteem and Self-Worth

According to estimates, around 85 percent of people have low self-esteem. If you are struggling with your own self-worth, you’re far from alone.

Of course, improving your self-esteem is easier said than done. Everything from adverse childhood experiences, such as being bullied, to ongoing medical conditions and mood disorders can knock your confidence and feed into negativity.

However, there are ways to conquer negative feelings and feel better about yourself without seeking clinical mental health counseling. Let’s take a look at some tactics that will help boost your self-worth while living in the Oregon area.

Silence Your Inner Critic

A good starting point is to learn how to handle the negative thoughts that can drag down your self-esteem. As soon as your inner critic starts up with unhelpful comments and criticisms, stop it in its tracks. The most effective way to do this is to say something like, “Stop!” or “No, we are not going there,” but out loud, using your voice to override this negativity.

Repeat Personalized Positive Affirmations

Another way to reduce the influence of your inner critic is to replace it with your own positive affirmations. In the same way that silencing your inner critic with your own voice has a powerful effect, repeating encouraging phrases out loud can boost your self-confidence and self-worth. Instead of copying positive affirmations from a website or from some book you found in Oregon, make sure to use phrases you’d actually say, for example, to encourage a friend.

Seek Out Uplifting Influences and Activities

How you spend your time, and who you spend it with, has a huge influence on your self-esteem. All too often we can let endless Instagram scrolling and the inevitable comparison trap diminish our self-worth. Likewise, spending time with critical, destructive, or unsupportive people will drain our self-esteem before we’ve even started to build it up.

Start to remove negative influences and activities from your life and replace them with positive, uplifting ones. Take a break from unsupportive friends and stop engaging in behaviors such as gossiping and mindless social media scrolling. Instead, seek out uplifting people and uplifting activities, such as physical exercise, painting, reading, or music in and around Oregon.

Reframe Your Mistakes and Failures

Slip-ups and failures are normal and expected, especially if you’re trying new activities or pursuing creative outlets such as learning a musical instrument. However, rather than using your mistakes as fuel for negative self-talk, reframe them as learning experiences, practice runs, and all part of life’s journey. Focus on the positives, such as the enjoyment an activity brings rather than the result, or how stumbling now teaches you what to look out for in the future.

Tips for Boosting Your Self-Worth in Oregon

While these tips can help you boost your self-worth, there’s no doubt that it can still be a slow process.

One of the best ways to help you through this process and guide you toward self-acceptance and increased confidence is to see a counselor in the Oregon area.

Counseling can help you change your viewpoint and your life, so that you can do it on your own. For more information on how counseling can help you feel better about yourself, feel free to get in touch with us today.