How to Feel Better About Yourself: 10 Proven Ways to Boost Self-Worth

Struggling with how you see yourself is more common than you might think. Low self-esteem can seep into every corner of your life, affecting your relationships, career prospects, physical health, and overall happiness. The good news? You have the power to change your self-perception and build a healthier relationship with yourself.

This comprehensive guide draws on evidence-based techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help you feel better about yourself. These aren’t quick fixes, but proven strategies that can create lasting change when practiced consistently.

Understanding Self-Esteem and Why It Matters

Self-esteem is the overall opinion you have about yourself—how you evaluate your worth and capabilities. It’s not about being perfect or thinking you’re better than others. Instead, healthy self-esteem means recognizing your inherent value as a person, acknowledging both strengths and weaknesses without harsh judgment.

When your self-esteem suffers, you might experience persistent self-doubt, avoid challenges, struggle with relationships, or feel undeserving of good things. These patterns can become self-fulfilling prophecies, reinforcing negative beliefs about yourself.

1. Identify Your Self-Esteem Triggers

The first step to feeling better about yourself is recognizing what situations tend to shake your confidence. These triggers vary from person to person, but common ones include:

• Public speaking or presentations at work or school
• Social gatherings where you don’t know many people
• Conflicts with family members, romantic partners, or colleagues
• Receiving criticism or feedback, even when constructive
• Major life transitions like starting a new job, moving, or relationship changes
• Comparing yourself to others on social media
• Deadlines and high-pressure situations

Keep a journal for a week or two, noting when you feel particularly bad about yourself. Look for patterns. Understanding your triggers empowers you to prepare for them and respond more constructively.

2. Become Conscious of Your Inner Dialogue

We all have an internal narrator—that voice in your head providing constant commentary about yourself and your experiences. This self-talk significantly influences how you feel about yourself.

Start paying attention to what you’re telling yourself, especially in those triggering situations you’ve identified. Are you your own cheerleader or your harshest critic? Many people with low self-esteem engage in brutally negative self-talk they would never direct at someone they care about.

Try this exercise: When you catch yourself thinking something negative about yourself, ask, “Would I say this to my best friend going through the same situation?” If the answer is no, you’ve identified self-talk that needs changing.

3. Recognize Common Thinking Traps

Our brains are pattern-seeking machines, but sometimes these patterns work against us. Mental health professionals have identified several common thought distortions that erode self-esteem:

Black-and-White Thinking

This involves seeing things in absolutes with no middle ground. You’re either perfect or a complete failure, smart or stupid, worthy or worthless. Reality exists in the gray areas, but this thinking pattern eliminates nuance. Example: “I didn’t get the promotion, so I’m obviously terrible at my job.”

Negative Filtering

This means focusing exclusively on negatives while ignoring or minimizing positives. You might receive ten compliments and one criticism, but obsess only over the criticism. This creates a distorted, overly negative view of situations and yourself.

Disqualifying the Positive

When something good happens, you dismiss it as a fluke, accident, or “not counting” for some reason. This prevents you from building confidence through positive experiences. Example: “I only succeeded because it was easy” or “They’re just being nice.”

Fortune Telling

You predict negative outcomes with little or no evidence, then treat these predictions as facts. Example: “Everyone will think I’m stupid if I ask that question” or “This relationship won’t work out, so why bother trying?”

Emotional Reasoning

You believe that because you feel a certain way, it must be true. “I feel worthless, therefore I am worthless.” Feelings are valid, but they aren’t always accurate reflections of reality.

Catastrophizing

You expect the worst possible outcome and magnify potential problems. A small mistake becomes a disaster in your mind, triggering anxiety and shame disproportionate to the actual situation.

4. Challenge and Reframe Negative Thoughts

Once you’ve identified negative thought patterns, it’s time to question them. This doesn’t mean replacing genuine concerns with false positivity. Instead, you’re testing whether your thoughts align with facts and logic.

Ask yourself:

• What evidence supports this thought? What evidence contradicts it?
• Am I looking at the full picture or just focusing on negatives?
• Is there another way to interpret this situation?
• What would I tell a friend thinking this way?
• Will this matter in five years? Five months? Five days?

Then practice reframing. Instead of “I’m such an idiot for making that mistake,” try “I made a mistake, and that’s a normal part of being human and learning.” The second statement is more accurate and compassionate while still acknowledging the situation.

5. Practice Compassionate Self-Talk

The way you speak to yourself matters profoundly. Developing a kinder internal dialogue is one of the most powerful ways to feel better about yourself.

Use Encouraging Language

Instead of catastrophizing before a challenge, tell yourself: “This is difficult, but I’ve handled difficult things before. I can do this.” This isn’t toxic positivity—it’s realistic encouragement.

Embrace Self-Forgiveness

Mistakes are isolated events, not permanent character flaws. When you mess up, acknowledge it without defining yourself by it: “I handled that poorly, and I’ll do better next time” rather than “I’m a terrible person.”

Eliminate Rigid Self-Demands

Notice how often you use words like “should,” “must,” and “have to” when thinking about yourself. These create unrealistic expectations and set you up for failure. Replace them with more flexible language: “I’d prefer to” or “I’m working toward.”

Acknowledge Your Progress

Give yourself credit for efforts and improvements, not just perfect outcomes. “I was really nervous, but I spoke up in the meeting anyway” deserves recognition, even if you didn’t say everything perfectly.

6. Focus on What You Can Control

Much of our distress comes from trying to control things beyond our power—what others think, past events, or uncertain futures. This creates a constant sense of failure and inadequacy.

Instead, direct your energy toward what you can control: your actions, your responses, your effort, and your choices. You can’t control whether someone likes you, but you can control whether you’re kind and authentic. You can’t control outcomes, but you can control how much effort you invest.

This shift in focus reduces anxiety and helps you feel more capable and empowered.

7. Try Acceptance-Based Techniques

While cognitive techniques involve changing your thoughts, acceptance-based approaches teach you to change your relationship with them. Not every negative thought needs to be debated or disproven—sometimes the goal is simply to reduce its power over you.

Practice Cognitive Defusion

This technique creates distance between you and your thoughts. When a negative thought appears, try these strategies:

• Say “I’m having the thought that…” before the thought. “I’m having the thought that I’m not good enough” rather than “I’m not good enough.”
• Visualize the thought as words on a screen or clouds passing by
• Repeat the thought rapidly for 30 seconds until it becomes just sounds rather than meaningful words
• Thank your mind for the thought, then refocus on what you’re doing

These techniques help you recognize that thoughts are mental events, not facts or commands you must obey.

Allow Uncomfortable Feelings

Instead of fighting against difficult emotions, practice allowing them to exist without acting on them. You can feel inadequate and still take action. You can feel anxious and still move forward. Feelings are temporary experiences, not permanent states or accurate indicators of your worth.

8. Build a Self-Care Foundation

How you treat your body significantly impacts how you feel about yourself. When you’re exhausted, hungry, or neglecting basic needs, everything feels harder and negative self-perception intensifies.

Prioritize Physical Health

Regular physical activity boosts mood, reduces anxiety, and increases self-efficacy. You don’t need intense workouts—even 20-30 minutes of walking most days provides substantial mental health benefits. Exercise proves to yourself that you’re capable and worth caring for.

Nourish Your Body

Eating regular, balanced meals stabilizes your mood and energy. When you feed yourself nutritious food, you’re sending yourself a message: “I deserve to be nourished and cared for.”

Protect Your Sleep

Sleep deprivation amplifies negative emotions and makes it harder to regulate thoughts and feelings. Most adults need 7-9 hours nightly. Prioritizing sleep is an act of self-respect.

9. Engage in Activities That Bring You Joy and Meaning

When self-esteem is low, people often stop doing things they enjoy, creating a vicious cycle. You feel bad, so you withdraw, which makes you feel worse.

Make a list of activities that bring you pleasure, satisfaction, or a sense of accomplishment. These might include:

• Creative pursuits like drawing, writing, or playing music
• Physical activities you genuinely enjoy
• Time in nature
• Learning something new
• Helping others through volunteering
• Connecting with friends or community groups
• Reading, cooking, gardening, or other hobbies

Schedule at least one enjoyable activity each day, even if it’s brief. These positive experiences accumulate, gradually shifting how you feel about yourself and your life.

10. Surround Yourself with Supportive People

The people you spend time with influence how you see yourself. Relationships that involve constant criticism, comparison, or negativity will undermine your efforts to feel better about yourself.

Evaluate your relationships honestly. Do certain people consistently leave you feeling worse about yourself? While you can’t always eliminate these relationships (especially family or coworkers), you can limit your exposure and emotional investment.

Conversely, seek out people who appreciate you, support your growth, and treat you with respect. These relationships don’t require you to be perfect—they offer acceptance alongside encouragement to be your best self.

When to Seek Professional Help

Sometimes low self-esteem is deeply rooted or connected to past trauma, depression, anxiety disorders, or other mental health conditions. If you’ve tried these strategies consistently without improvement, or if negative self-perception significantly impairs your functioning, consider working with a mental health professional.

Therapists trained in cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, or other evidence-based approaches can provide personalized guidance and support. There’s no shame in seeking help—it’s actually a sign of self-respect and self-care.

If you’re experiencing thoughts of self-harm or suicide, reach out immediately to a crisis helpline, mental health professional, or emergency services. These thoughts are symptoms of treatable conditions, not reflections of reality.

Building Lasting Self-Esteem Takes Time

Learning how to feel better about yourself is a process, not a destination. You won’t wake up tomorrow with perfect self-esteem, and that’s okay. What matters is consistent practice and self-compassion along the way.

Some days will be easier than others. Old thought patterns will resurface, especially during stressful times. This doesn’t mean you’ve failed—it means you’re human. Each time you notice negative self-talk and choose to respond differently, you’re strengthening new neural pathways and building lasting change.

Remember that your worth isn’t determined by achievements, appearance, others’ opinions, or any external measure. You have inherent value simply by being human. The journey to feeling better about yourself is really about recognizing what was already true: you are worthy of kindness, respect, and care—especially from yourself.

Start small, be patient with yourself, and celebrate each step forward. Over time, these evidence-based strategies can transform your relationship with yourself, helping you build the healthy self-esteem that supports a more confident, fulfilling life.

Sources:

• American Psychological Association – Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• National Institute of Mental Health – Caring for Your Mental Health
• Mental Health First Aid – Mental Health Resources
• Psychology Today – Self-Esteem Basics
• National Alliance on Mental Illness – Mental Health Information