• Self esteem is first and foremost about respect, respect for yourself.
• The more you respect yourself, the stronger is your self esteem. It is easy to let your feelings get the better of you and if you do that then you can feel worthless, anxious and lose that respect.

There are things in life that can cause a lack of self-esteem. Here are some of these things:

Lots of people get depressed at some point or another, for lots of different reasons. When that happens, your self-esteem can be hit pretty quickly because of it. Say if a friend is coming around after dinner. He or she doesn't turn up and doesn't call either. You may start to feel a little depressed

if you were looking forward to seeing them. You may start to think 'they don't like me anymore' or 'they don't want to see me any more'. Depression and a lack of self-esteem come close to each other.

Insecurity, uncertainty, even just a lack of knowledge may cause us to feel insecure. When you don't feel happy about something in your surroundings and you don't know what to do about it or how to change it, you can begin to liken yourself to that sometimes. Not feeling good about, or even scared of your surroundings is not a very nice thing to face, and it sometimes makes us feel the same way about ourselves if it goes on for long enough, because we get wrapped up in it so much.

Abuse is something that comes in many ways - physical, sexual, emotional. Some people see you at a vulnerable stage, and they may see that as an opportunity to take advantage of you and abuse you. When people abuse you like that, it may take away your self respect. DON'T LET THEM DO IT !

Failing at our objectives may makes us feel like we can not achieve anything we want to, and because we can't achieve, it makes a feeling of being worthless and useless.

Criticism is something that we sometimes misunderstand. If someone criticizes us for something we have done, it may be just because they want to point out that we did something which we could have done better. But if criticism is taken the wrong way, it is like another way of saying to ourselves that we failed.

Always remember:

That you are stronger than others in points and others may be stronger than you in other points. No one is perfect but every one is unique.

To help with self esteem there are many points to remember that will make a big difference.

• If it happened that you did or said something you do not feel very comfortable about or you had a feeling that you looked fool when you done that, then do not concentrate on blaming yourself.
• Think positively. Think about what happened to see where are the areas that you could have performed better. Identify your mistakes and admit them and then think how to solve the problem rationally. It is important to remember that every one make mistakes but the important thing is how to utilize the lesson learned from that mistake and try to avoid such mistakes in the future. Do not get into a loop of self blame because this will make things worse and have a negative effect on your self esteem.

• We all get criticized form time to another during our life time. Some criticize us in a nice easy way where others do it in a heavy painful way.
• We need to know that it does not mean that every one who criticize us that he doesn't like us or want to disappoint us even if they criticized us in a tough way that is painful to us. Lots of criticisms we get are aimed to develop and improve us but you always need to keep in mind that you have a brain and feelings that you have to use to distinguish between what good criticism and bad criticism and criticisms which can improve you or other which can be destructive to you.
• Good criticisms are constructive criticisms. They target your actions and not your personalities. For example, "you are lazy" is not a constructive criticism but "you did not give enough attention to your study" is a constructive one because you know what YOU DID WRONG but not that YOU ARE WRONG.
• If what ever you have done was criticized, try to think quietly and objectively about how true this criticism is. If you see a reason for that, try your best to get things better and to improve in this area. If you do not see any reason for this criticism, try to discuss the matter with the one who criticized you to know what are the bases of his criticism. It is always better to wait for others to cool down and then discuss matters with them. Open your heart to this type of criticism as it can carry grate benefits for you and lead you to ways you can improve your personality. This type of criticism is usually a constructive one.

• Learn how to protect yourself.
• Read this web site from time to time as it will always have new ideas which will help you protect yourself. Knowing how to protect yourself will increase your self esteem.

• Knowledge can create miracles and knowledge is power.
• Who ever has the knowledge can control his or her life. The more you read and educate yourself, the more you feel you are strong and aware and this will highly increase your self esteem. Remember that the first thing God asked the profit Mohamed was to read and this shows how important reading is.

• You can't be all things to all people.
• You can't do all things at once.
• You can't do all things equally well.
• You can't do all things better than everyone else.
• Your humanity is showing just like everyone else's.

• You have to find out who you are, and be that.
• You have to decide what comes first and that will help you to take better decisions in your life.
• Discover your strengths, and use them.
• Be yourself and do not dream to be another person, because no one else is in the contest of "being you."
• Learn to give yourself the respect you deserve and believe in it.

• That you are a wonderful, unique person.
• That you are a once-in-all-history event.
• That it's more than a right, it's your duty, to be who you are.
• That life is not a problem to solve, but a gift to cherish.
• And you'll be able to stay one up on what used to get you down.

• I am a valuable and important person and deserve others respect.
• I trust my abilities.
• I express my ideas easily, and I know others respect my point of view.
• I am aware of my strength and limitation and confident of the decisions I make based on my current awareness.
• I am positive and optimistic that I can reach my goals and dreams and that I can quickly pick up my breath and move to continue my life journey.
• I am proud of my past and optimistic to the future.
• I accept criticism easily and share my success with others who have contributed to them.
• I feel warm and loving toward myself for I am a unique and worthy person.
• I am actively in charge of my life and my growth and well being and I know that the better I feel abut my self, the more I can give others.
• I evaluate the criticism toward me and am not affected by negative opinions or attitudes of others.
• It is not what happens to me, but how I handle it, that determines my personality.
• No one in the entire world is more or less worthy, more or less important, than I.
• I appreciate and count my blessings and keep gifts God has given me.
• I am an active person and know how to react calm during problems and difficulties.
• I treat others with love and respect.