Self-esteem is defined as how we feel about ourselves and how we value ourselves. It influences most all of the choices we make in life, from partners to jobs to choosing friends. If you were raised in a dysfunctional family, it’s likely that you don’t have a healthy sense of yourself.

Often depression and anxiety can stem from self-esteem issues. If you don’t have the confidence to live a life of your choosing, then you could dislike yourself to where you feel unlovable and living alone when you really want to have a partner. You avoid people so you don’t face rejection or feel so unworthy that you are angry all the time.

Here are six things to healthy self-esteem:

1. Recognise and respect your successes
You already have some sort of success in your life and don’t realise it. Making it through a dysfunctional family background or other hurtful events is success. You made it! We cannot control our backgrounds or families or the things that happen as we go through life, but we can control how we come out on the other end. Having healthy coping skills in place as well as a social support system can help you through tough times. Knowing you are a survivor helps you to feel better about yourself.

2. See life as a journey not a one-time occurrence
Look at your life as a journey. Your journey may have started slowly or unhappily, but you aren’t stuck there forever. You have your future in front of you to control. You are not doomed to an unhappy life. It’s our choice to live life miserably or to learn to do it differently.

3. Everyone makes mistakes along the way
Making mistakes is part of the journey of life. Mistakes can be corrected. If you have low self-esteem you focus on your past mistakes hope you don’t make them again just or just expect to make mistakes and therefore let others decide important things for you. Until you can learn from your mistakes and make changes you will remain stuck.

4. Face the fears
You may live in fear of many things. The fear of being alone, being unlovable, just facing life or so afraid that you are completely overwhelmed. It is ok to have fear but you cannot allow it to run your life. We all have some degree of fear and that is healthy. It is when our fear stops us form living the life we would like that is becomes unhealthy.

5. Ask yourself the right questions
Instead of asking yourself why you are depressed or anxious or why you are unlovable, ask yourself how you can eliminate these destructive emotions. Ask yourself how other people look at life or relationships and learn from them. Ask yourself what you can do every day to feel better. Ditching the negative emotions will help you turn the corner.

6. Eliminate Negative Thinking
The way we think about ourselves has a huge effect on our self-esteem. If I think I am a failure and dwell on that for long enough then I will start to believe it as a fact. Anything anyone tells me or that I do has to fit into the view that I am a failure. To grow our self-esteem, we need to start thinking more positively.

We all have doubts about ourselves at some point. So don’t let them win out.