Life eventually taught me that changing my view could help my self-esteem and let me feel better about myself. My self-esteem suffered for many years because my view was focused firmly on the things I didn't accomplish. There was no way to deny that I didn't finish this thing, and never started that thing, and failed to reach my goal at the other. With my mind's telescope pointed only at my disappointments, I could come to no other conclusion than I was not worthy of respect from myself or others.

I have a talisman that I carry with me everywhere I go, and it helps keep my self-esteem strong. A talisman is a good-luck piece, but it can also act as a trigger to evoke a memory or an emotional response. Here's the story of my talisman for my self-esteem and how you can use one of your own.

One effective method of building self-esteem that worked well for me was to build self-esteem through skills. “I can’t do anything right.” It’s a popular refrain of depressive self-talk. I should know. I used to do it all the time. Today, while I’m still not immune to such thoughts, I don’t have them nearly as often as I used to. When they do pop up, I’m much better at telling them to shut up and go away. It all started with just one thing.

It's important to learn to move on after failure because we aren't going to succeed at everything, and failure can damage our self-esteem. Yet building self-esteem can require us to stretch beyond our limits, even though, sometimes, our efforts may not bring us the results we hope for. When our self-esteem is poor, it's hard to keep ourselves motivated and positive. How do we continue to move forward after failing?

Boundary-setting is an important skill set to practice when you are on a journey to build stronger self-esteem. Like any other new activity that seems challenging in the beginning, your mastery will improve every time you try it.

The journey to stronger self-esteem is easier when you make time to set yourself up for success. Even when we face tasks that we are unable to do, we can improve our success rate by thinking ahead about why we failed and what we can change this time to help us win. With proper setup, we can change the outcome and bolster our self-esteem.

Sometimes building stronger self-esteem is about letting go of things that have been with us for much of our life. In addition to adding new skills to our tool kit, it's important to look carefully at the people, things, and attitudes that we carry with us from the past and decide if they are still relevant to who we are today and who we want to be in the future.

I started doing monthly check-ins a couple of years ago when I first recognized that I had a self-esteem issue. Poor self-esteem often keeps us stuck in the past with regrets or pinned to the future with hopes and dreams. My monthly check-ins keep me grounded in the present and give me a realistic view of my accomplishments and productivity level, which keeps my self-esteem healthy. Before I started doing monthly check-ins, I lived with a never-ending to-do list which made me feel like a failure and less than enough.

Building self-esteem is hard work. When your self-esteem is low, it can be difficult to act on plans that are specifically for your benefit. It may be hard because you don't believe you're worth prioritizing the effort or that you don't deserve the result you're aiming for.

When you trust your decisions, your self-esteem will grow. People with poor self-esteem often second-guess themselves and defer to others' opinions. While it's true that there are people who know more than you do on almost every topic, there is one subject on which you are the world's leading expert, and that subject is you.