‘I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me.’ Cary Grant sums up what can safely be termed approval addiction, i.e. a deep-rooted need to gain approval, to be liked and accepted. While this need is a basic part of human nature, in some individuals it can grow to the extent of a craving, a veritable addiction, where their sense of identity is totally dependent on what others think of them. And the main culprit behind this problem is low self-esteem.

Self-esteem simply means liking and placing a high value on yourself. Right from childhood, our self-esteem is affected by daily experiences and the atmosphere of our surroundings. It is no exaggeration to say self-esteem affects us in every possible facet of our life. Just think about the skills, opportunities and talents that you have. How much more useful they are to you if you have the confidence to actually use them. So, the ability to raise our self-confidence will open all kinds of doors to us in life.

Let’s look at how this is done: In order to build your self-esteem you must, first of all, identify the elements that keep you from forming a better opinion of yourself; the people, the comments, the situations that make you feel unworthy and useless. Getting rid of these elements or developing immunity to them is the first step towards building one’s self-esteem.

Allowing other people’s opinions or perceptions to shape your self-image is death to self-esteem. There’s always going to be someone, somewhere who has an opinion about you. Other people’s opinions are based on their beliefs and perceptions and frankly, they’re none of your business anyway.

If you feel that the approval or disapproval of others is having too much of an impact on how you feel about yourself, then it’s time to stop giving so much weight to them.

If you cannot simply ignore such people, try and minimise contact with them. We need to focus on who we are and what we think about who we are, not what others think about us.

No one is good at being perfect because perfection is never achievable. Once you reach what you once believed to be a level of perfection, you’ll always see more possibilities…and that’s okay. But constantly demanding perfection in order to feel or establish your worth is a confidence crusher.

Even the most confident people sometimes get into emotional states where they don’t “feel” confident. But those who have learnt to develop a sense of self-esteem that is detached from their feelings are still able to maintain their sense of self-worth, even when their feelings don’t support it. There will be times when you’re fatigued or discouraged or frustrated, which is completely normal. But you must never allow these emotions to determine your view of yourself. Okay, now that we have the obstacles out of the way, let’s look at three ways to build self-esteem:

Few things will affect your self-esteem more than the way that you talk to yourself. Think about it, your voice is the one that you hear (in your head) all the time and so you’re always going to be powerfully influenced by it. If you want to build your confidence, start paying attention to yourself and talk to yourself in ways that will build self-esteem and self-respect. Instead of focussing on correcting your weaknesses, work on building your strengths. Your weaknesses might get mediocre at best, but you’ll always have some areas of weakness…you’re human. Focus instead on your strengths and your weaknesses will become less and less prevalent in your mind. This will also help you become more comfortable with yourself just as you are.

Self-esteem is best demonstrated in actions, so come up with a list of actions and goals which will help you feel more confident and get to work on them. Write them down and create a plan of action for achieving them. This could be a physical goal such as working out, or a career goal… anything that will help you develop outward manifestations of high self-esteem. These actions will influence your belief about yourself and raise your sense of worth.

Shake yourself free of approval addiction and take hold of your self-esteem, that’s the trick to successful self-improvement.