Content

• Steps
• Method 1 of 4: How to Offer Help
• Method 2 of 4: Helping a person build healthy self-esteem
• Method 3 of 4: Features of Low Self-Esteem
• Method 4 of 4: Taking Care of Yourself
• Tips

Self-esteem, or how a person feels about themselves, is part of the emotional component of a person. If you have high self-esteem, you may not notice how your friend or loved one is suffering from low self-esteem. Unfortunately, you cannot influence how a person perceives themselves, but it is within your power to offer your help and support. All this will help a person to form a healthy self-esteem.

Steps

Method 1 of 4: How to Offer Help

1. 1 Be a good friend. A true friend can listen and can talk to the person sincerely. While it can be difficult to maintain a relationship with an emotionally unstable person, remember that the condition is temporary. Gradually, it will become easier for a person.
   • Try to spend time with your friend. People with low self-esteem often do not dare to offer anything to others. You may need to initiate and organize meetings yourself. In addition, you may run into problems when you try to persuade a person to meet and agree on a specific time and plan. It is important to remember that these difficulties are a reflection of the anxiety, fears and depression of the person with low self-esteem.
   • Make regular appointments. This will make it easier for you to schedule appointments and keep in touch all the time. You can arrange to have coffee together on Sundays, meet at the poker table on Wednesday nights, or swim in the morning. All these meetings will be useful for you and your friend.
   • Listen carefully to your friend and make eye contact as you talk. Ask a friend about his problems, take an interest in his affairs. Offer your help and advice, but only if the person asks for it. Your attention will help the person feel better. If a person sees that you care about him, it will be easier for him to strengthen his self-esteem.
2. 2 Don't impose your way of thinking on the person. If you decide to explain to the person how he should feel about himself and how to behave, you may lose a friend. Appreciate the person for who they are and help them develop and take care of their psychological health.
   • If you criticize a person's negative attitude towards themselves, they are unlikely to respond well to it. This problem cannot be solved with logic alone.
     • For example, if a person says that he considers himself stupid, do not object to him ("No, you are not stupid, you are very smart"). In response to this, your friend will probably recall several situations in which he acted foolishly because he thought about it a lot.
     • Better to answer like this: “I'm sorry that you feel this way. Where do these thoughts come from? Something happened?" This will make the conversation more productive.
   • Recognize the person's feelings. Understanding that you have been heard may be enough. You may be tempted to dismiss the negative feelings of your loved one, but you shouldn't.
     • Good: “You seem to be very upset that you have no one to go to this event with. I think this is unpleasant. It happened to me too. "
     • Bad: “Don't be upset about it. There is nothing wrong with that, just forget about it. This happened to me too, and I did not see a problem in it. "
3. 3 Help the person solve the problem, if possible. People with low self-esteem often feel guilty about everything that happens. It seems to them that the problem is in them, and it is impossible to solve this problem. A person with low self-esteem will find it helpful to look at the situation from the other side with the help of another person. Remember that problems can be solved only after the person has expressed their emotions.
   • • Returning to the example above: “Many people go to company events, but I know many people who do not mind attending such events alone. You probably won't be there alone. "
     • Or: “We also thought about going there, so you can go together. To be honest, I would even introduce you to a friend of mine, you will surely like each other. "
4. 4 Volunteer together. Helping other people boosts self-esteem. By stimulating interest in helping others, you will increase your friend's self-esteem.
   • Offer the person to help to you... Ironically, people with low self-esteem are more likely to help others than themselves. Being able to help someone else can build a person's self-esteem.
   • Ask a friend to fix your computer or give his opinion about the situation you have with another person.
5. 5 Be prepared to listen to the person. If your friend wants to talk about his feelings or the reasons for low self-esteem, it is most important to be there and listen to the person, since the conversation will allow him to analyze his feelings. When a person realizes the cause of self-esteem problems, he begins to understand that a negative attitude towards himself comes from the outside.
6. 6 Invite a friend to try changing what your inner voice says. Ask your friend what his inner voice tells him. Most likely, a person most often hears negative things. Encourage your friend to try to stem the flow of negativity and adjust to more pleasurable things.
   • For example, if a person's inner voice says that they always fail in a relationship, this leads to the assumption that the person is doomed to be lonely, based only on one relationship... This assumption also suggests that a person does not draw conclusions from his mistakes and does not learn from them. You should try to correct such wording:
     • “This relationship turned out to be unsuccessful, and I am glad that it did not drag out. It's good that I found out about this now, and not after the wedding and the birth of three children! "
     • “I may have to kiss a couple of frogs before I find my prince. This is how it happens for most people. "
     • “I learned that I needed to work on my communication skills. I’ll do it and I’ll be a better person. ”
7. 7 Carefully invite the person to see a psychologist if you think it will be helpful for them. If you think the person's problems are so serious that you cannot help them yourself, offer psychotherapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy and psychodynamic psychotherapy work with self-esteem.
   • You may need to be careful about this. There is a risk of alienating the person or making them think that you think they are abnormal.
   • If you've worked with a psychologist yourself, explain to the person how it helped you.
   • Don't be surprised or upset if the person doesn't take this advice. Perhaps it will be enough just to say about it, and this thought will remain in the mind of a person. It is possible that over time, a person will nevertheless decide to turn to a psychologist himself.

Method 2 of 4: Helping a person build healthy self-esteem

1. 1 Spend time with someone with low self-esteem. Perhaps the mere presence of a person with high self-esteem will be beneficial for your friend's emotional state. Use opportunities to express your perception of yourself. This will help your friend build a healthy self-image.
2. 2 Show the person how you set goals, take risks, and overcome challenges. People with low self-esteem are often afraid to take risks and set goals for fear of failure.By setting goals and taking risks, you show the person what a healthy attitude towards life can be. In addition, if you show that one failure is not the end of the world, you will let your friend know that the person can recover from failure. If possible, tell the person how you feel about life. It might be worth mentioning the following:
   • What goals do you set for yourself and why. ("I want to run 5 kilometers, so I'm working on my body.")
   • What will you do when you reach your goal. (“When I’ve run 5 kilometers, I’ll think about running a half marathon.”)
   • How will you feel if you fail. ("What will I do if I try, but I fail? I will get upset, but I can always try again. Also, my main goal is to get stronger physically. If I am healthy, I am already a winner. If with running will not work, I can do other sports. ")
   • What are the consequences of the risks. ("I can lose weight. I can hurt my knees. I can look ridiculous in the gym. I can feel better. I might like all this very much.")
   • How will you feel if the situation ends differently? (“I’ll be very happy to reach my goal. It will give me confidence. But I don’t want to get hurt. And I don’t like feeling insecure when doing a new job.”)
3. 3 Tell the person about your inner voice. Everyone has inner voices, but it's hard for us to understand that a voice is saying something wrong if we have nothing to compare with. Explaining to the person what your inner voice is telling you and what you think of yourself will make it easier for them to understand that their inner voice can be more positive.
   • Emphasize the fact that even if things don't go as planned, you don't blame or berate yourself.
   • Explain that you do not feel like other people judge you or think badly of you.
   • Share how you praise yourself for your accomplishments. Explain that being proud of yourself does not mean being arrogant.
   • Speak about your inner voice so that your friend feels support, not pressure.
4. 4 Explain that you are not perfect. For people with low self-esteem, a confident person seems like an ideal. Such people are often too critical of themselves and, comparing themselves to others, compare their worst qualities with the best qualities of others. It is important to explain that you are not perfect and will never be perfect and that you love yourself anyway. This will help the person with low self-esteem see themselves differently.
5. 5 Show that you accept yourself. Let the person know through words and actions that you accept yourself as you are. Yes, you have goals and ambitions, but you are happy with who you are now.
   • Use positive phrases: "I am good at ...", "I hope to continue to develop in ...", "I appreciate my ...", "I feel good when I ...".
6. 6 Explain how you set goals for yourself. If you show a person with low self-esteem that you have something to grow in, but you do not consider it your weakness, he will be able to understand that you can evaluate yourself differently.
   • A person may feel like they are a failure because they cannot find a job. Try to formulate your attitude to this situation like this: "I am a great employee, and I try to find a job that suits me."
   • Don't say you are not organized. Say this: "I am better able to see the big picture, not the details, but I try to develop organization and attention to detail."

Method 3 of 4: Features of Low Self-Esteem

1. 1 Understand that you may not be able to help. Self-esteem is everyone's personal business. To build self-esteem, you need to want it yourself. You can offer your help and support, but you cannot change the person's attitude towards yourself.
2. 2 Know the symptoms of low self-esteem. Recognizing signs of low self-esteem can help you support your loved one. Common symptoms include:
   • constant negative remarks addressed to you;
   • the desire to have only the ideal in life;
   • anxiety and panic in the presence of other people;
   • the desire to fiercely defend oneself with minimal provocation;
   • the conviction that everyone thinks only bad things about a person.
3. 3 Talk about your inner voice. One of the key features of low self-esteem is the constant presence of a critical inner voice. Often a person speaks negatively about himself. If your loved one does this, most likely he suffers from low self-esteem. The person may say the following:
   • “I'm so fat. No wonder I don't have a boyfriend. "
   • "I hate my job, but no one else will take me."
   • "I'm a loser".
4. 4 Step in if the problem gets worse. Remember that things can get worse over time if you don't work on them. If you think the person needs help, talk to them as soon as possible. People with self-esteem problems may:
   • stay in a violent relationship;
   • become aggressors themselves;
   • give up your goals and desires;
   • neglect personal hygiene;
   • self-harm.

Method 4 of 4: Taking Care of Yourself

1. 1 Set boundaries if required. Often, people with low self-esteem are in desperate need of others. Even if you want to help, constant phone calls in the middle of the night, endless exhausting conversations about yourself, and requests for appointments when you are busy can be very inconvenient. Set boundaries to keep your friendships from becoming toxic. For example:
   • Your primary responsibility is your commitment to your children. This does not mean that your friend is not important to you, but the child's presentation at the event will have a higher priority than meeting with a friend.
   • After 22:00, you should only call if urgently needed. A car accident is an urgent need, but breaking up with a girlfriend is not.
   • You spend time apart from your friend because it benefits the relationship. You value your friend, but you also need time to socialize with other friends, family, boyfriend or girlfriend, and personal time.
   • You discuss not only your friend's concerns, but also your life, interests, and affairs. In a friendly relationship, one must both receive and give.
2. 2 Remember that you are a friend, not a psychologist. Just like a psychologist is not a friend, friend is not a psychotherapist... Trying to help someone with low self-esteem may waste a lot of time and energy, but you will not solve the problem. Because of this, both you and your friend are more likely to feel discontent and devastated. The psychologist is able to provide help that even the best friend cannot do.
3. 3 Don't put up with aggression. Unfortunately, people with low self-esteem can behave badly with others. Sometimes this behavior turns into aggression. You are under no obligation to help the person who offends you physically, verbally, or in any other way.
   • Low self-esteem does not give a person the right to be cruel, no matter what the reasons for this self-esteem may be.
   • You have the right to protect yourself from pain. Break off the relationship, if need be, with a clear conscience.

Tips

• To increase self-esteem, you can show the person that you can love yourself.
• It can be difficult for someone with low self-esteem to find or change jobs, so try to cheer up and support the person.