Teenage Self Esteem

Tips for increasing and improving Teenage Self-Esteem

Concise Dictionary defines the term "self esteem" as the belief and confidence in your own ability and value. We can simply say this as our self confidence and we even know how much important this thing for us in each part of our life.

And for personality development it is one of the prerequisite for optimal achievement. Almost all age groups needs this tool. Decreasing in self-esteem can leads to serious mental problems like depression.

Among all age groups, teenage requires this the most. This is because the teen years are always a turbulent and confusing time, it is also a time when a persons self esteem can either develop to it's full potential, or be left behind to wither for the rest of their adult life. This is the stage of human development when one can develop positively or negatively. There are various methods for increase teenage self esteem but i am going to sort our some major factors which  i collected from various sources and from my experience.

1) Appearance (self image-self perception) - Teenage years is one of the most pressured times of your life, and no doubt one of these pressures will be to do with your self image. This has a flow on affect to influence your self confidence and self esteem which can affect your studies performance, sociability, etc, and can lead to a vicious cycle. In regards to looks there is always room for improvement, and what you can't fix you feature.(So if you have crooked teeth, make sure they're clean. If you have a funny shaped head, make sure you have a great haircut that suits it.) There is a lot of very effective treatment out there for acne which you may consider. The trick to gaining self esteem is that once you have done all you can to better your appearance then that in itself is something to be confident about. You may not be able to have any control about what you have, but you have 100% control about what you do with it and that is all that matters. Also realize that any self esteem issues that you associate to your looks are all in your head, and anyone that has a go at you is usually insecure about themselves, and compensates by putting others down.

2) Parents or Guardians - Yes, parents may have good intentions for you but these good intentions can be overbearing and may actually hurt your self esteem and lead to lower levels of confidence. Usually the main situation is a parent that overworks their child, hoping for them to get perfect grades and attend college however this is not always best for a teenagers self esteem. Problems can occur when you feel overworked, and over supervised. They should by all means encourage you and make sure you are keeping up but not become the bad guys by pressuring you to the point where it is unhealthy. This will negatively affect your grades, your relationship and result in low self esteem symptoms. If you have an issue with your parents in any area, ask to sit down with them for a moment, and explain your side of the story and the listen to their side. A lot of progress can be made when you can recognise each others situation.

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How to Build a Positive Self-Esteem

                                  How To Build A Positive Self-Esteem!

When the matter of developing personality comes, we can never exclude the topic of self-esteem or confidence. According to Oxford Dictionary, Self-esteem is the confidence  in one's own worth or abilities. This is having faith in oneself or on whatever we do. To build a positive self-esteem is very important for total personality development. For an instance, instead we have ocean of knowledge, we know a lot of things but if we do not have self-esteem of self-confidence then we can't express our talents before others, hence it lies dormant inside or within us which is equivalent to nothing or we know nothing. So, what will be the importance of us being knowledgeble or what that kind of wisdom worth? Therefore, to develop our personality as a whole, self-esteem is the inevitable tool. From what i have learnt from Shiv Khera's book entitled " YOU CAN WIN ", i am going to give some keypoints here on how to build a positive self-esteem.

     Initially, I am touched by one saying in this book that "If you want to build a positive self-esteem quickly, one of the fastest way is to do something for those people who can't repay you back in any kind". Or, simply help those people without the expectation of getting anything back for your help. Involve yourself in social works, volunteer for disabled of poor people. Shiv Khera has very nicely described the power of attitude in this book so i experience that building positive self esteem finally leads to positive attitude which in turn make the way for achieving success making you a winner.

Thinking like "this is my life, i will do and can do whatever i like", is one of the phrase which does more damage or bad than good. So, inspite of whatever we are, our position, we shall always making our mind for gaining positive and productive thinking. Helping those who cannot pay you not only makes you feel good internally but also increase your popularity among self. Acutually, in this era, people are running so much for earning money, property that they are forgetting to know who they are indeed. In this race, either they earn money but they are losing the invaluables i.e. their health, relationship, and most importantly internal peace of mind. Diseases like diabetes, hypertension, depression, bipolar, schizophrenia are not only due to genetic transformation but these external causes are also hidden factors. We dont have time to calm our mind by meditating, practicing yoga, exercising. WORK WORK and again WORK. We are ready to take allopathic medications whole life, but we simply forget a simple quote "Prevention is better than cure". I am talking all of these here because all these topics are interlinked or interrelated.

  In his book, Shiv mentions that, there are two kinds of people in this world- givers and takers. "Takers eat well and Givers sleep well".  Please read this quote once more. This has a very powerful meaning and potential. Yes! takers are well eaters. They eat until it burst out from belly but givers on the other hand sleeps with peace and internal freedom. Although, givers can suffer from starvation, they can sleep well, we can join this phrase with the incident of Lord Gautama Buddha. If food, clothes and shealter would be the ultimate power or need of human beings, why did BUDDHA left all of these as he was the prince? He could get whatever he wanted or liked but he had left his kingdom and his new born son for the sake of what? Yah! peace of mind, internal freedom. So, it is verified from here too that how much important internal freedom and internal peace means and how much it is needed for us. Please think about this. Shiv also mentions that givers have high self-esteem, positive attitude, and keen interest in serving the society. As human beings, by nature, we all have the faculty of giving and taking or mutual help. But, a healthy personality with high self-esteem is one that not only has its need to take but also to give. Here is an example from the book "YOU CAN WIN" which really worth a lot.

 A man was washing his new car when his neighbour asked him," When did you get the car?" He replied, "My brother gifted it to me." The neighbour said, " I wish i had a car like that." The man replied," You should wish to have a brother like that." The neighbour's wife was listening to the whole conversation and she interrupted, " I wish i was a brother like that." What a positive way to think!

So, to build personality, internal peace as well as positive self-esteem, the only keypoint is "GIVE SOMETHING FOR WHICH YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO BE PAID". 

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