Failure. It's not a nice word, is it? For many of us, we see failure as a glaring red stop sign. "Go no further," failure tells us, "You are not good enough to succeed." But did you know Walt Disney's first animation company was dissolved within six months? That J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter was rejected by 12 publishers? For both, failure was not a stopping point–they continued to try until they found success. How did they keep believing in themselves, instead of seeing failure as a message they couldn't succeed? They separated their work from their self-worth.

How do we define our personal values? In my post last week, "What Is Self-Worth", I explored the topic of self-worth. When we are living with low self-esteem, we often struggle to find self-worth. This comes from believing we are unable to succeed at the things we value personally. But where do these values come from? How do we decide what is important to us?

Explore your low self-esteem? How do you do that? Picture a road map. On one side is a bright red dot, labeled "High Self-Esteem." This is our destination, the place we dream of arriving. Our map is covered in routes that twist and turn, approaching the red dot from all different directions. On our journey we will be able to explore these, finding the ones that lead us closer to our goal. But in order to begin, we need to find the dot labeled "You Are Here." We have to know our starting point. We have to explore the starting point of our low self-esteem to know how to raise it.

If you're struggling with confidence and anxiety, then feeling self-confident and safe in the world around you is hard. Your brain is stuck in a stress-response mode, making you feel overwhelmed and uneasy. Anxiety isn't a choice; it's due to your biology, your environment and past experiences in the world that trigger doubt or fear. The more we know about the science of anxiety or anxiety disorders and what contributes to our level of distress, the more confident we become in our ability to overcome it.

Do you know how to talk back to your negative self-talk? Knowing how to identify negative self-talk first is important because what you tell yourself becomes your reality. When your core beliefs are self-critical, doubtful and make you feel inadequate, your self-esteem suffers tremendously. The good news is if you are willing, you can talk back to negative self-talk and transform it dramatically with just a little effort.

Each day is an opportunity to change your self-esteem. If you struggle with negative self-talk, insecurity or believe that it's too late to build self-esteem you are wrong. You deserve to feel confident and happy with your life. Others may have told you that low self-esteem is impossible to change, but that is not the case at all. In fact, small shifts can lead to tremendous gains in self-esteem and I have several ways you can change your self-esteem starting today.

Your behavior can make you look insecure to others, but you don't need to look insecure. Without knowing it, you may act in a way that shows others you struggle with confidence. However, we've all done it and instead of beating yourself up, learn how to change these behaviors so that you can appear confident and not look insecure.

Emotional manipulation in a friendship is toxic to your self-esteem and confidence. The worst part is that the victims are generally people who are already struggling with loving themselves or co-dependency and who often lack self-confidence. This makes it hard to recover and to protect yourself from the effects of emotional abuse. The more you know about emotional manipulation, the easier it will be to protect yourself from emotional manipulation in your friendships.

You can use inspirational quotes to improve your confidence and self-esteem. Tired of feeling insecure? Here are 12 quotes to inspire confidence.

It can be hard to stop negative self-talk from consuming your mind, but it's possible. The more you become aware of your sneaky inner critic and fight back, the easier it will become. Extinguishing negative self-talk is vital in the quest for happiness and building unbreakable self-esteem. It is a concept we are constantly fighting against in a society that perceives self-worth by race, status, youth, sex, power, money, attractiveness, attention on social media, and other external factors.