I have horrible self esteem issues. I'll see someone I think is pretty, and I'm instantly "why can't i be pretty". I'm self-critical of everything I do. I can't keep pictures on the net for long because I get disgusted with the way I look. I have no clue what to do.
It's tough to suddenly "like your look". I certainly didn't have some sort of mystic revelation where I decided I was attractive (or at least not unattractive). The key thing to work towards is acceptance. "This is me." And that includes all your traits, be they positive or negative. And I would even suggest that you shouldn't separate your traits into "positive" or "negative". Because far too many people focus on the negative aspects of themselves. Fat people want to be skinny. Tall people want to be shorter. Plain folks want to be hot, and attractive people feel they're not taken seriously. Jocks want to be smarter, and geeks want to play football. Instead, just be aware of your "inventory", and accept it. ALL of it. Your hair that doesn't sit right. Your aptitude at chess. Your knack for science and your inability to remember dates in history. Accept it. It's what makes you you. I also suggest diving deeper into the stuff you love. If you love playing lacrosse or writing poems or skateboarding or collecting stuffed animals, then for God's sake, LOVE it. Don't hide in the basement with your lacrosse stick and Beanie babies. Love this stuff, and love loving it. Enjoying the stuff you enjoy seems to help people love themselves more. Lex
Hi there! Let me add a little bit to what Lex mentioned. In starting to like yourself and eventually loving yourself, for who you are, maybe every morning when you get up, observe yourself in the mirror and say the things you observe about yourself out loud. For example, when you look at yourself in the mirror, say "I like my hair this morning," or "I have never noticed it before but this is a cool nose I have," or when you are dressed and all ready to head out, just stand in front of the mirror and say to yourself "I like the way I look" and head out the door. As you do this over time, built on it. For example, "I like the way I look" could become "I like the way I look because I like my eyes" or "...because I styles my hair the way I like it." Also, as Lex mentioned own the things that make you. Start with the things you like and love doing on a regular basis, and it doesn't matter what it is, whether it is reading, collecting stamps, running/jogging, photography, climbing steps, swimming, etc.... Here is the thing. If you pursue the things you like you will build up a sense of self worth and also accomplishment. Both of them reinforce each other and allow you to keep building further accomplishments, self-worth and self-esteem. Set yourself goals with the things you like. For example, if you like swimming, go and do that on a regular basis. Every time you head for the pool set yourself the goal of swimming a number of lanes. Try to set yourself a realistic goal,try to achieve it and built on that. The more often you achieve the goals you have set for yourself, the better you will start feeling good about yourself because you will know that you have accomplished and achieved something, no matter how small or large it is. You can also include accomplishments when you tell yourself the good and great things about you. On one morning you could for example say "I like myself because I managed to swim 10 lanes yesterday without having to take a break. Go me!" In other words, the things that make you will provide you with the self-esteem and self-worth. In accepting things at which you might not be so good at, remind yourself that "while I might not be good at this, I am actually way better at this....". I hope this helps a bit!
...or do you just want someone to say "you're kinda cute"? You're kinda cute. Now get out there and kick ass. Lex
Don't worry Retrograde... I feel your pain lol my FB pic right now is the one I used for Doppleganger week. I mean I guess I'm not bad looking but... I know what you mean about seeing someone and wanting to be like that. I'm working on fixing that now with one of my friends and they've told me everything has said on here. You have to love yourself and accept who you are. Find an outlet also where you are focused so much or having so much fun doing something that you completely forget about all these problems. I wish you the best of luck (*hug*)
I know what it's like having low self esteem. For a long time I thought I was totally worthless. I could not fathom anybody ever seeing me as an equal but I got past these feelings and now think I'm pretty cool. The transformation took time but I think that was time well spent. What I think is the best way to high self-esteem is a LOT of small steps. Look at yourself in the mirror a few times a day and try to see yourself from another persons perspective. If you look at yourself from your perspective you are not seeing your true self. You are mainly seeing all your insecurities. This was said by Lex and Mirko already. In the looks department you don't need to worry. You are just young and the teen years are the most difficult period of life. You are halfway there. It does get much better so hang in there. The most powerful tool in attracting people is confidence. I know you will get the needed confidence. Your desire to raise your self-esteem should show you that you will be successful. (*hug*)
I wish I had advice to offer, but I'm in the same boat as you. I hope you can find your way to liking yourself and your looks, because I know how unhappy it can be living like this. One thing to remember for what it's worth, people like us with low self-esteem see ourselves very differently from how the rest of the world sees us. We'll amplify points that other people will either not notice or will overlook very quickly, while we fixate on them endlessly. The others are right, I look at your pics and I can see absolutely nothing wrong - to me you look adorably cute! It's you that's being hard on yourself, not others. But still I understand how hard it is to overcome this... so.... (*hug*)
Summary: I hear you, man. I know what you're talking about. The great thing is, by admitting you don't like parts of yourself, you can identify them and start to change them to better yourself. I started out "from scratch" if I can say that, and looked at what i didn't like and set out to change it. These days, I feel very attractive and I am more confident with myself. What you have to realise is that you need to commit yourself to changing yourself to be the best you can be. I am not telling you to change who you are - you must decide for yourself what YOU want to change about YOURSELF, and hopefully you realise that there are some things you can't change, so you can start accepting those parts of yourself right now already, because that could take years. The most "real" thought is that this process takes years. Since starting at 14, I am nearly 18 and I am still busy trying to finish off my personal checklist. I have related my personal story to a few people. If you want to carry on reading and know what I did, I can copy-paste some text here below. Sorry if some of it doesn't make sense - it's a direct copy-paste, and I looked through some of it and when I type fast I make stupid spelling errors. Anyway, here it is: I can help you relate by telling you my stories for now, and I can help your firther if you ask more specific questions and tell me more about yourself. I love your bio and I am getting a feel of who you are already. When I was 14, I looked at myself and saw what I did and didn't like. I decided what I wanted to change, while at the same time realising what I could not change. You have to learn to accept that part of you, and live with it even if it takes a few months, or even years. So basically, I formulated a checklist in my head. I decided to tackle only as many as I could handle at a time. This checklist included: Hair Face (acne) Teeth Body Confidence This list may appear short, but a tremendous amount of work is required for each section. To explain each one: My hair is naturally blonde, but because of my sedentary lifestyle, it got darker and began looking brown/dirty-blonde. I wanted it to be a healthy, golden-blonde look. I try and spend a lot of time outside, tanning (body), and I put lemon juice (yup...) in my hair when I tan to help lighten my hair. Also, during puberty, the amount of testosterone affects hair - it makes it curl when it gets longer. The only way for me to "accept" this is to do nothing about it! I have to wait for puberty to finish - that's all I can do. I just keep my hair short now and I think it looks good. Face - who doesn't hate acne, right? I eventually convinced my mother to take me to a dermatologist and sort out my acne. I have used many different face-washes over the years, and finally found a combination of face-wash and medication that makes me in the best condition I can imagine. Again, I have to wait for puberty to finish before it all really goes away. Teeth - I hated my teeth! hahaha. I made sure I got braces, whitened them and only yesterday at an appointment, my orthodontist told me my treatment was finished (retainers being worn for over a year and a half now)! [Tick] Body - this has to have been the freatest challenge. Sick of being the weedy, skinny, nerd. I got into fitness. This took me a lot of courage to finnaly delve into. I started gymming about a year ago in December. Since then, I have maintained going to gym between 2-4 times a week. I convinced my parents to get me a protein shake. I educated myself about diet, changed my habits and everything improved. Fitness has to have been the best thing that ever happened to me. It boosts your confidence like mad, it leaves you feeling good because your body releases endorphins, and your body starts to take the shape everybody dreams of. It can be challenging at first, because your workout techniques are never perfect. Sometimes you can have bad workouts, and sometimes good ones. And with ANYTHING else in life, you get better at it (techniques etc) with practice. You reap better results and it always leaves you feeling great. Finally, I managed to work a cardio routine into my life. Nowadays, I run around my neighbourhood about 2-5 times a week (you can do swimming, or cycling as well), and I gym 2-4 times a week. Tanning is the other thing that I work on - when there's a good opportunity to tan - I take it! It is very complex to try and explain this to you, because one becomes accustomed to all this over years! You have to manage your time to manage your school work and exercise. Confidence, self-esteem, and transforming from a sedentary lifestyle to an active lifestyle just happens naturally when you motivate yourself to change. A few tips I can give you: With workouts and cardio routines, don't worry if you don't manage to muster 100% every single time. Also, never do the same things, in set routines, for the same number of reps etc. You will get bored and get demotivated. Set out a similar routines for particular muscle groups / set out similar routes for jogging and switch up days to work on. With your body - don't get discouraged when you don't see results. It took months for me to believe I had changed. I would suggest you take your own "before" picture, but make sure you don't look at it and try compare until after a few years. Be open to new opportunities: Kind of like a "yes man" approach to life. When an opportunity arises - take it! Find out of you like it or not. At least try. Explore yourself in your youth while you still can Please ask me more questions. I would love to help all I can and I will be happy to elaborate on any specifics.
no one is born with self esteem, at least no one I've met, it is something you gain while going through life. Either people keep telling you that you're pretty, or they treat you different for some reason (looks, charm, money, whatever). But for us folks who fall in that massive average percentile we have to find out self esteem. Its in there somewhere. Now I would say you have great eyes, and like before you have the cutness of a baby panda. It may not be much, but it is a starting point. I used to have bad self esteem (and to a point I still do) because people always said I was ugly, so I got into the mind set of: "If people say it it must be true." So, let me ask you this: Is Britney Spears the greatest artist ever? Lots of people says so. Is Ben Afleck a great actor? Many people think so. My point is: You can't let what people say BE the thing that defines you. People suck, they're brutial and put others down to make themselves feel higher. Don't be too hard on yourself...there are plenty of people in the world to do it for you. Good luck out there
i am my own worst critic also. others think i am cuter than i do. i hate hearing my voice on a recording also, but others say my voice is cool. be more confident if you can you will be happier i have also found that people gravitate toward confident people
I know how you feel. The constant comparing others and wishing you could be like them and never really being happy with yourself. It is challenge and something I have been struggling with for awhile. I have good days and bad days. The pic thing you talked about really hit home as I can't stand pics of myself. There has been a lot of good advice given hear and you are on your way to a better you as hard as it may seem things will get better.
