9 Therapy Activities for Self Esteem
Takeaway: Struggling with self-esteem, self-acceptance, and self-compassion can be exhausting and limiting. Confronting these feelings is the first step toward improving your mental health, but figuring out how to do that is hard. This blog breaks down different ways to raise your self-confidence, whether by yourself or with a professional.
How do you see yourself?
If your answer isn’t positive, you’re not alone. A reported 85% of the world’s population struggles with low self-esteem, which is a fundamental part of your identity. How you think and feel about yourself also influences your interactions with the world.
Self-esteem looks different as you get older – it generally improves with age, peaking sometime in middle to late adulthood. Before reaching this time in life, it’s common to experience negative inner thoughts, intrusive thoughts, and depression clouding your mind. It is nothing short of a challenge, but there are ways to change this.
Improving your self-esteem starts with finding a healthy balance between the highs and the lows, which is where true growth happens. Yet, this doesn’t always come naturally to everyone. It’s tough to figure out what will help you create a better self-image, given that we’re flooded with content about transforming self-esteem overnight. These “tips” aren’t practical or realistic and bring you down instead of building you up.
In this blog, we explain the self-esteem activities activities we recommend to help you increase your self-worth. They aren't quick fixes, but with time and practice, you can start to embrace your positive traits and improve your self-worth.
How Do You Know You Have Low Self Esteem?
Some people are naturally more pessimistic than optimistic, but low self-esteem goes beyond being a “glass half empty” type of person. The small habits that you chalk up to anxiety may be a sign that something deeper is going on, piling up until they become unmanageable. If all of this sounds familiar, it’s time to start paying closer attention to your relationship with yourself.
When you learn how to identify the signs of low self-esteem, feeling happy and satisfied with yourself doesn’t seem like such an unattainable goal.
You avoid addressing conflict and challenges in life.
For someone with low self-esteem, the less conflict, the better. Avoidance allows us to delay addressing unhealthy situations, but while it can be a useful coping mechanism in the moment, it doesn’t solve any problems – it only creates more. A telltale sign you’re avoiding something is feeling unable or simply not advocating for yourself when necessary.
You talk negatively about yourself.
Negative self-talk is a tell-tale sign that you don't have healthy self-esteem. By consistently putting yourself down with statements that show a lack of self-compassion, like “I’m a failure” and “I’m a bad person,” it’s easy to have a cycle of self-fulfilling prophecies—a belief that influences your behavior, increasing the likelihood that it comes true.
You’re a people-pleaser.
When we say that almost everyone exhibits some type of this type behavior, we mean it. In a 2022 YouGov survey, over 90% of respondents say they have at least one people-pleasing habit or characteristic. There are a host of these unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, all of which lower your self-esteem. Here are a few examples:
Always saying "yes" to requests or favors, even when it inconveniences you.
Apologizing excessively, even for minor things, to avoid disappointing or upsetting others.
Prioritizing others' needs and desires over your own, often at the expense of your own well-being.
Agreeing with others or going along with their ideas simply to gain their approval or avoid rejection.
You compare yourself to others.
Are you guilty of scrolling on social media to see what everyone else is doing? Whether you compare yourself to a high school classmate or the family down the street, judging and criticizing your life based on other people’s isn’t healthy. It makes you feel inadequate and can cause you to always search for ways to self-improve, not a way that actually promotes positive growth and development. Playing the comparison game also encourages you to constantly seek validation and reassurance from others and base your self-worth on their opinions and perceptions of you.
9 Therapy Activities for Self Esteem
What do you typically do when you feel down about yourself? Rather than returning to old, unhealthy coping mechanisms, here are nine therapy activities to boost your self-esteem.
1. Make a Commitment
Making a commitment to personal growth involves setting clear goals and taking proactive steps towards self-improvement. You have to hold yourself accountable for acknowledging your negative emotions and self-critical thoughts. Otherwise, your healing journey may be more complicated than it has to be.
If this is challenging, work with a trusted person to create a “contract” outlining your long-term and short-term goals. Committing also gives you a sense of purpose, allowing you to recognize that all the effort you invest is worth the hustle. Your emotional well-being is worth it, you just need to make the commitment.
2. Gratitude Journaling
It’s no secret that writing down your thoughts on paper helps you process information more effectively. Gratitude journaling is a specific type of activity that focuses on acknowledging the positive things in your life, from major accomplishments to small interactions with others.
If you want a more structured way to process these thoughts, complete a gratitude journal worksheet or a guided journal prompt, or keep it simple by listing three things you’re grateful for each day. Reflecting on the good things in life can counteract negative self-talk and create a more compassionate and accepting view of yourself. It also helps to see how you have agency over creating your own positive experiences.
The Magic Wand exercise is a great example of how to journal for self-esteem.
In a perfect world, no one would struggle with low self-worth, and we’d all be happy with our lives and ourselves. However, it’s difficult to cope with reality when you have low self-esteem, which is why the Magic Wand exercise is so helpful. The activity revolves around the question: What would it look like if you had a magic wand and could make your life exactly how you wanted it? What would you change?
By mentally exploring the possibilities of your ideal self, you gain a sense of empowerment as they formulate your ambitions – even if they aren’t attainable in the present. This reinforces a positive self-image and boosts your self-esteem. Write about what you visualized in a journal to further reflect on the activity.
3. Positive Affirmations
Positive affirmations are an easy way to build self-esteem. Research shows that they even help stimulate reward pathways in the brain. After a while, these affirmations will no longer feel awkward. They’ll fit right in with your morning and nightly routines, ensuring you practice healthy self-esteem throughout the day. Be sure to emphasize your positive qualities. Write them in your planner or in a self-esteem journal, on a sticky note, or your mirror – as long as they’re visible, they’ll work! The more positive feedback you can give yourself, the better, so here are a few to get you started:
I am worthy of love and respect just as I am.
I embrace my uniqueness and celebrate my strengths.
I trust in my ability to overcome challenges and grow stronger.
I am confident in my decisions and trust my intuition.
I am deserving of success and happiness in all aspects of my life.
4. Exercise
Physical activity is a go-to strategy for many people to address mental health challenges. But if the idea of running a mile makes you want to go back to bed instead of motivating you, there are other options. Yoga is a spiritual and physical practice that helps strengthen the mind-body connection, so it is a powerful way to help you feel more in control of your self-esteem. If building muscle, losing weight, or gaining strength is on your list of goals, accomplishing these can also improve your self-image.
5. Practice Mindfulness
Clear your mind and focus on the present by incorporating mindfulness tasks into your routine. Do this by closing your eyes and creating an environment that’s free of judgment in your mind. Acknowledging your thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they come and avoid letting your mind wander to unrelated things.
It may be difficult at first (especially if you are new to mindfulness techniques or have a mental health condition like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder that makes it difficult to focus). Still, research shows that integrating it into your daily life is highly beneficial for calming your mind and increasing your ability to focus. The more you practice, the better you become at being present in the moment, leading to quicker and more noticeable changes in your self-esteem.
6. Goal-Setting
As you improve your self-esteem, practicing regular goal-setting is a way to continue honoring the commitment you made at the beginning of your healing journey. Use the SMART formula to create short-term goals that reflect what you hope to achieve. Hint: use your journal entry from the Magic Wand exercise to help formulate goals.
7. Change Your Thinking
Addressing your negative core beliefs can increase positive thinking. Challenging these thoughts as soon as they appear in your mind is an immediate way to foster self-awareness about when your mind starts to allow negativity in. Reframe the thought by replacing it with something more realistic. The cognitive triangle, a part of cognitive behavioral therapy, proposes a framework for breaking down and delegitimizing unhelpful thoughts. Learn more about it here.
8. Psychoeducation
Psychoeducation is something you can do on your own and in individual or group therapy. Whether you choose to learn independently, with someone else, or both, learning new information from watching videos, reading books, or a simple online search is a way to explore different perspectives on improving self-esteem. For example, one of the fundamental psychoeducation concepts about self-esteem is determining the difference between positive and negative thinking and how both manifest in your mind. You could learn what has worked for other group members in group therapy. In individual therapy, you can work with your therapist to explore evidence-based resources and learn about different treatments that boost self-esteem.
Addressing Low Self Esteem With a Professional
Out of everyone you know, chances are you’re not the only one with self-esteem issues. Everyone struggles with negative thoughts, self-doubt, or having a healthy sense of self at some point, but that’s not a justification to avoid addressing the problem. If you don’t address your low self-esteem, it can lead to depression and anxiety – or, in some cases, more severe mental health issues.
Self-esteem therapy is an opportunity to find the root of the issue with a professional who focuses on helping you develop skills to make positive changes to your mental health, rerouting negative thoughts, anxiety, and internal stress. Low self-worth slowly becomes a thing of the past when you do this to develop high self-esteem.
Using the science-based exercises discussed above and starting therapy, you can feel confident, experience joy, and navigate life without feeling terrible about yourself. Schedule a consultation today to match with one of our amazing therapists in Chicago!