The Connection Between Self-Worth and Bad Habits

If you struggle with your feelings of self-worth and confidence, you may want to examine your habits. You could have some behaviors that are contributing to your feelings of low self-esteem and learning to identify and then change these can help raise your opinion of yourself as well as improve your overall confidence. 

You may engage in some seemingly innocent behaviors that are contributing to your problems with self-worth. Or, you may allow others to treat you in ways that discount your strength and contributions. Knowing how your habits affect how you think about yourself as well as act toward others is essential to improving your sense of self and bolstering your confidence in your capacities. 

Bad Habits that Damage Your Self-Worth

Treating Yourself Too Harshly

You have an inner monologue that is continually running through your mind. Whether you are consciously paying attention to it or not, it’s always there. This constant stream of words can either lift you up or tear you town, depending on what you are saying to yourself. Are you continually criticizing yourself? Are you always the first to put yourself down? 

The words you say, especially to yourself, matter. Your mind hears them and internalizes them. Listen to how you talk to yourself and make an effort to make these words positive and uplifting. Focus on your strengths and give yourself compliments. 

Not Having Clear Boundaries

If you want people to respect you, your time, your belongings, and your space, you have to create boundaries. When your boundaries are unclear, though, it allows others to take advantage of you, which in turn leaves you with a lack of self-worth and respect. The bad habit of unclear boundaries means others are more likely to place their needs above yours.

Don’t allow people to disrespect you by taking advantage. Make your boundaries clear to others, and when those are not respected, stand up for yourself. This will provide you with a sense of empowerment and strength that can help build your esteem. 

Comparing Yourself To Others

Comparing yourself to others in real life and on social media is a destructive habit that can be draining your self-worth. Whether you are judging others to bolster your own confidence, or you judge yourself based on your perceptions of others’ lives, living through comparisons is not healthy for your sense of self. Focus instead on your own values, beliefs, and needs. Measure your successes against your own goals, not those of someone else. Comparison is very hard on your self-worth, so avoid it all costs. 

Surrounding Yourself with Negative People

You may not even realize that who you choose to spend time with can have a significant impact on your self-worth. While the negativity of others represents their own bad habit, your poor behavior choice is continuing to spend time with people who offer very little positive energy to your life. These people will drain you of your confidence and optimism, so break the bad habit now and release the toxic people from your life if you want to improve your self-confidence. 

Final Thoughts

These are just a few of the negative behaviors you may have that could be contributing to your low sense of self-worth. Examples of others include always saying yes to others, doubting your instincts, avoiding taking chances, not forgiving yourself, and apologizing when you’ve done nothing wrong. 

Any behavior that doesn’t lift you and support your emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and physical growth and health should be critically examined for revision. Learning to change these bad habits can help improve your sense of self. 

You Are What You Think

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right.” - Henry Ford

Forget believing that you are what you eat. The larger truth is that you are what you think. There is only one person responsible for your thoughts and that’s you. In truth, you are capable of changing your life for the better, just by getting your thinking under control. 

What type of self-talk do you indulge in? Troubling thoughts regarding a situation may be your instinct telling you there’s danger. However, your negative thinking may be an act of self-sabotage. 

We all have an inner voice leading up. Many people imagine the inner voice as two warring shoulder advisors. Whether you consider it to be your conscience or not, that inner voice seems to be taking everything it. 

You wake up in the morning and the voice is there, whether it starts speaking immediately or not. It follows you throughout your day and it’s that voice that has a nasty habit of keeping you awake as you toss and turn at night. 

 Conversations With Your Inner Voice

What does your inner voice say to you? Does it tell you that you’re good looking and wonderful as you gaze in the mirror getting ready in the morning? 

Or, do you notice every flaw and exaggerate it? Do you see the weight gain after a rough few months? 

Does it hone in on the gray hairs peeking through? Those may sound like little things, but it speaks to the tone that your inner voice takes. 

The negative tone can derail your motivation and destroy your resilience. It’s the quickest ticket to sap your energy. 

It can make pretty much every situation seem much worse than it truly is. The ability to take the tiniest problem and turn it into the worst case scenario is a gift that sadly, many of us possess. It’s the voice that keeps whispering to you that the worst case scenario is the most likely one. 

Before you reached that conclusion, though, you stopped off at all of the other dark timelines. The imagination is a wonderful thing, but it can easily turn on you to create nasty situations. How can you overcome a challenge that your own mind has created? 

More importantly, how can you respond adequately to a threat that your mind has blown out of proportion? Your response is likely to be a gross overreaction to the true situation. For example, you have been laid off. This would be a difficult situation for anyone to experience, especially if it comes from nowhere. 

The natural response is anger, anxiety, sadness, and frustration. What is your inner voice telling you, though? The right response is to start looking for a new job. If your inner voice is telling you that you are hopeless and unemployable, this will be much more difficult.

Why?

It shows, especially in interviews. It started as a thought, but it spiraled beyond that and had an impact on everything. That’s the power of thought. 

There is only one day to handle this and that is to change your attitude, which means you need to improve your self-talk. That means that you have to be aware of your self-talk, listen to your inner voice and when you hear it taking you down the wrong path, you need to correct it immediately. You are the victim of your own negative self-talk. 

When negative thoughts start to creep in, it isn’t about laying blame or finding someone else who did this to you. It’s about correcting your inner voice and steering it to more positive thoughts. 

You really are what you think. So, what do you think?

Capt. Sarab Sandhu

https://topsuccesssolutions.com/blog-category