Self-esteem is defined as the opinion you hold about yourself and when you ask yourself “what do I think about myself?”, what do you come up with? On a scale of 1 to 10, where does your opinion of yourself lie? Would you say you are a 10? Take a moment and honestly assess the level of your self-esteem and if you’re any less than a 9, then perhaps you could benefit from the strategies I’m about to go through in this post.

To build your self-esteem and to change the opinion you have about yourself takes intention and work. You can not expect to suddenly like yourself overnight. Sure, there may be moments where you feel good about yourself and experience some pride about a job well done but it is the act of reflecting, collecting evidence, and consistently challenging your thoughts and underlying beliefs that will ultimately shift your opinion of yourself to one that gives you confidence, purpose, clarity, and fulfillment in life.

 Become aware of and...

The effects of having low self-esteem are wide and at first glance may be surprising but if we go back to the cognitive model, we can see that what we believe about ourselves dictates most of what we think, feel, and do. Therefore your self-esteem is a major player throughout your life and when you don’t like yourself, or your self-esteem level is on the lower end, then much of what you are thinking, feeling, and doing are likely not serving you.

OVERACHIEVING

So, how does low self-esteem affect you? Some of its consequences may appear to be positive and mistakenly not attributed to low self-esteem, such as the drive for success. There is a large handful of overachievers who work to make themselves feel good and significant. They are afraid of letting others know they aren’t good enough (which is the belief they may hold about themselves) so they work twice as hard to prove otherwise. 

Tying your worth to your to-do list may signify you have low self-esteem.

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While feeling good about yourself isn’t the only road to loving your life and finding happiness, it certainly is one of the most important. Remember, change starts with you and so it is up to you to work on improving your self-esteem so that you can unlock happiness and live the life you want to be living.

But, of course it’s easier said than done and improving the way you feel about yourself takes work, commitment, and consistency. Self-care is at its foundation. Even if you were to spend time going through numerous exercises aimed at helping you improve your self-esteem, if you are neglecting the care of yourself, your self-esteem will continue to suffer. 

Let’s start with reviewing the basis of where to begin when you want to feel good about who you are- taking care of your body. Physical self-care. This often is the easiest place to start because you can feel the effects of physical self-care relatively quickly. Moving your body, fueling it with...

Stress: It’s part of life and while we would love to live a “stress-free” life, it’s highly unlikely, if not impossible that you’ll ever get there. So, what we need to do is learn how to effectively manage the stress we do experience so that it doesn’t cause adverse effects on our health and well-being. This is possible.

What Exactly is Stress?

Is there such a thing as good stress or is it all bad and harmful? Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain resulting from demanding circumstances. It is a burst of energy that can create a lot of tension if not managed in a healthy way. 

Believe it or not, not all stress is necessarily bad. You likely have experienced stressful moments that have motivated you to meet specific goals or to rise to challenges. When we feel a certain level of stress, we often feel motivated to get tasks accomplished. Stress actually boosts memory and keeps us safe. 

Not all stress is necessarily bad.

Our body...

When we refer to “the self,” all sorts of terms may come up, words like self-identity, self-concept, self-image, self-esteem, and self-love. What’s the difference and how can we move towards becoming our best selves?

Self Identity

Let’s start with self-identity- this is who you are. Self-identity is the awareness of and identification with oneself as a separate individual, how you identify and define yourself. You would describe your identity with specific and selective traits, qualities, abilities, and characteristics that represent you. 

An example of a self-identity is perhaps a role that you play, such as mother or doctor, or perhaps a certain trait that encompasses who you are, such as reliable or lazy. You can identify as a particular sexual orientation like as bisexual or pansexual or as a gender like or unlike the one given to you at birth.

A person’s self-identity is not formed from birth but rather it is shaped through life. Family,...

With a new year just around the corner, we’ve been focusing on creating goals that will help us become better versions of ourselves, but let’s widen the view a bit more and talk about designing your life.

Yes, you can in fact be the designer of your life. You are the one in the driver’s seat, the author of your book, the creator of your future. 

You are the one in the driver’s seat, the author of your book, the creator of your future. 

Now, you may be thinking, but life is so unpredictable. How can you possibly plan for your future life when there are so many things you can’t control? What about those events that throw a curveball at your life and cause more than just a wrinkle in the best laid plans?

You’re right. Life is unpredictable and you cannot possibly plan for every curveball that life throws at you. In fact, that would be a pretty boring life, if you ask me! The greatest memories that I have happened when I hadn’t planned...

When we are feeling motivated, watch out! We are driven towards our goals, taking action, and doing what we need to to make sh*t happen. It usually happens when our creativity is sparked or we begin a new project. We have all these ideas and are excited to move towards the goal. It’s why New Year’s Resolutions are a thing. It’s that fresh start, where we have almost this blank slate ready to fill. 

We feel inspired and then we begin to take action and as the project wears on, we tend to not feel so inspired anymore. We step back, waiting for that feeling to return and when it doesn’t, we say we have lost motivation. It leads us to procrastination as we are just “waiting” to feel motivated again. We get hung up on what's blocking our way instead of finding solutions. Then, we are no longer driven to complete or meet the goal we set out to accomplish in the first place.

 Right now, you may be mulling over some resolutions that you’d...

Let’s talk about setting goals for personal development. Working towards specific goals will allow you to live your life with intention and these days, given all the unpredictability and the unknown of the world, it is imperative that you know where you are heading. Personal goals provide you with a compass because as they say, if you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time!

We’ve talked before about becoming your best self and even if you are struggling with any number of mental health issues, your best self is who you are despite or perhaps because of your struggles. You see, you are unique, one-of-a-kind, and so your goals should be too. The direction you are going will be different from any of those people around you. 

Your goals are as unique as you are.

Which is exactly why it’s important to identify and set goals specific to your life and the life you want to be living. As humans, we naturally want our life to hold meaning, we need purpose and...

Being fully present is something that most of us moms seek to be but the fast-paced, do-more world we live in along with our own expectations of what it means to be “good enough” keeps us from actually being completely engaged in a single task at a time. We feel forced to multitask just to keep up and to feel any sort of accomplishment yet this often leaves us feeling disconnected and even more overwhelmed. Not being present moves us away from the sense of happiness we seek to feel.

Being present requires a focused engagement of every aspect of our being including the physical, mental, emotional and even the spiritual. This is not easy to do in these modern times, especially when we are up against the hustle culture that permeates our society. We are bombarded 24/7 with distractions and demands for our presence.

We owe it to ourselves and to those we love to learn how to be fully present in the here and now.

We resort to multitasking as a way to check off our to-do list...

Back in the day when I was filling out job applications as a teenager, I would get to the question about skills and qualifications, and I would freeze. I would ask my mom, who seemed to know me best at that time, “hey mom, what am I good at?” She’d ramble off a list and I’d dispute each one, and add maybe one or two that I agreed with to the application.

Later, as Google came around and my confidence grew a bit, I would google “strengths” when I got to that question, and readily have available a long list of skills and character traits to choose from I would write down which I think I bring to the table.

This past summer, I was reading a book called “Your Message Matters” by Jonathan Milligan. It’s all about identifying what you have to share with the world and finding your voice. In it, Milligan suggests to email ten people closest to you and ask them each for three words that describe you.

Are you showing up as your authentic...