Resiliency is the ability to bounce back from a situation that throws you off, and there's a direct correlation between it and self-esteem. When your self-esteem is strong, you have the confidence to leave your comfort zone because you aren't worried about your ability to recover if things go south. You can build healthy self-esteem by focusing on improving your resiliency.

Building healthier self-esteem takes courage. Your courage will help you make the changes you choose to make to your actions and attitudes that will allow you to feel more confident and self-reliant. But where do you find the courage to become the person you wish to be? How do you begin to practice courage to build strong self-esteem?

A sure sign of healthy self-esteem is being your own best friend--loving and accepting yourself exactly as you are. This is a bottom-line requirement for strong self-esteem. Often, we only recognize the things about ourselves that disappoint us and pay no attention to our talents and accomplishments.

When you practice setting boundaries that protect your self-esteem, you are supporting yourself in many ways. It shows you love and respect yourself, and it keeps you from grief when others attempt to abuse you, intentionally or inadvertently. Whether it's between you and people you love and choose to have in your life or people you must interact with for your job or another requirement, creating a boundary that reflects your needs will strengthen your self-esteem.

Mindfulness can help you build strong self-esteem in part because mindfulness is the practice of focusing on one thing at a time. When your mind jumps around from one thing to another, it's difficult to make progress on any one task. This can lead you to feel inadequate and incompetent. Learn to practice mindfulness and you will find yourself completing more tasks with fewer errors, and your self-esteem will blossom.

A self-esteem affirmation is a positive statement about yourself that, when practiced regularly, can improve your image of yourself. We believe what we hear repeatedly, and when we replace negative self-talk with positive affirmations we can change our belief that we are less worthy of love and happiness than others.

The forced isolation of the pandemic offers us a unique opportunity to focus on how to build self-esteem. Many of us are spending this time alone without the support that we have learned to rely on. This can be very intimidating as we are forced to do things for ourselves that we are not used to doing, but it can also be very freeing by allowing us to experiment and practice new skills without the world watching. It can be a perfect time for building self-esteem.

We can build and maintain healthy self-esteem by helping others and earning their gratitude and appreciation. Strong self-esteem comes from believing in our value as a person. One way to feel that we are worthy of self-respect is to be there for others in need.

My usual routines for self-care are failing while I'm in quarantine, and my self-esteem is suffering because I feel unproductive. Healthy self-esteem allows us to take care of ourselves and love ourselves because we believe we are worth the effort. The last few weeks have been difficult as I struggle to adapt to the restrictions placed on us by the COVID-19 pandemic. After I spent one week doing nothing to take care of myself, I created a quarantine routine to help rebuild my self-esteem and get back to feeling productive.

Setting reasonable expectations for yourself can create healthy self-esteem, while unreasonable expectations can negatively affect your self-esteem. When you don't meet your goals, you disappoint yourself and possibly others. If you have healthy self-esteem you trust yourself to fulfill your commitments. I'm going to share how learning to set reasonable expectations for myself made me successful last week and helped me build a stronger sense of self-esteem.