Self Esteem

You know the feeling all too well: everywhere you turn it seems as though people are looking at you and judging you. This paranoia rapidly turns into self consciousness and that reinforces the downward spiral of feeling self conscious all the time. Here are some quick and easy tips to help reduce that feeling and help get you back on track to being your normal self.

Do a mirror check

Before going into a room full of strangers, do a quick check in a mirror or even with your reflection in some glass. Check your hair isn't having a bad hair day that it hasn't told you about. If you're male, check your trousers are done up. Even check there's no spinach in your teeth!

This means that you've at least done a quick check that there's nothing glaringly wrong before you go into a room.

Please yourself, not others

This is the next good place to start. Especially when you realize that other people are probably an awful lot more concerned about how they are coming across than you.

Most people are self centered. So unless you're really trying to stand out as being different, there's actually a good chance that you're not sticking out anywhere near as much as your mind is telling you.

So take the time to relax. Take some deep breaths and just be yourself more often rather than trying to conform to what you think other people think you should be (whereas in reality they probably could care less).

Imagine everyone else is naked

This could be quite a scary image - not everyone looks as good in real life as the actors do in most adult movies - but it's a good way to move your mind away from feeling self conscious about you.

OK, if you were the only person clothed in a room full of nudists it could well be that you would feel self conscious. But ignore that side of things and just let your imagination run riot for a while. There's a good chance this will help you to focus away from yourself for long enough that your rational mind has chance to kick in and quell your fears.

Drift out of yourself

Not quite astral projection but similar-ish.

Let yourself become totally detached from the situation that's causing the self conscious side of your nature to run riot.

Instead, view the whole room including yourself as a casual observer or even a reality-television camera that's merely observing what's happening.

This sense of detachment will give you the opportunity to re-assess the situation. There's a very high chance that doing this will show you that you're no weirder than most of the other people in the room.

Learn to ignore that nasty voice in your head

We all have voices in our heads at least some of the time.

Often, we let them speak to us in a way that no human would get away with.

Practice moving the voice elsewhere - putting it in a catapult is a fun way of doing that - even if it comes back later. The short break will give you enough time to regain at least some of your self confidence.

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