No.1 Record Your Story
The word self-esteem gets used in a lot of different contexts. It’s a stand-in for everything from confidence to self-worth. But the real definition of self-esteem is actually pretty simple, self-esteem is how you feel about yourself, that’s it. It’s all the positive and negative feelings that affect your vision of who you are and what you can do. But it isn’t always easy to figure out who you are. The majority of people feel confused about their identity on a regular basis. And that confusion just breeds more negativity, more feelings of inadequacy. When you don’t know how you feel about yourself, you naturally lean toward self-criticism. Because in your head, someone who values themselves would know the reason why. But the truth is, you have hundreds, if not thousands of reasons to appreciate yourself. To feel good about who you are. But like most people, you take that positivity for granted. You let it slip into the back of your mind or fade away from your personality. Instead, you focus on the one or two negative feelings that keep swirling around in your brain. So, what can you do to bring that positivity back to the surface? What’s the best way to reflect on all the reasons why you deserve your own respect? Recording your life story is a fun and therapeutic strategy that countless people have used. Not only does it help you remember what you love about yourself, but telling your story also motivates you to maintain that positivity in the future. But it’s not just about reflection, the fact that you’re writing down your story plays an important role, because when you write something down, you have to be clear, you have to be concrete. You’re forcing yourself to be specific about who you are. So, if you’re feeling confused, telling your story can give you the clarity that you’re looking for.
stand-in for 代替；代表
self-worth n.自我价值；自尊；自负
majority 大多数
identity 身份
on a regular basis 定期地，经常地
breeds v.繁殖；导致（breed 的三单形式）；养育
inadequacy n.不充分，不足；不胜任，缺乏信心
lean toward 倾向于
take ... for granted 认为……理所当然
slip into 溜进
swirling v.打旋；（使）旋动
reflect v.反射（光、热或声音）；照出（影像）；显示；反省；深思后认为；引起（某种）看法
therapeutic adj.治疗的，有疗效的；使人放松的
countless adj.无数的，数不尽的
reflection n.（光、热或声音的）反射；反射光，反射热，回声；（反射出来的）影像，倒影；深思，反省；（尤指见诸语言的）想法，意见；表现，反映；坏的印象；（数）镜射，反射
be specific about 明确说明
No.2 A Point Of Pride
Instead of looking back in time, you can also boost your self-esteem by setting goals for the future. Okay, just imagine you’re a aspiring author, but you’ve never actually written a book before. You’ve written plenty of short stories, but you’ve always been too scared to try something bigger. Maybe you’re worried you’re going to fail, or you’re just feeling overwhelmed and you don’t have enough faith in yourself to take on the challenge. How can you build the self-esteem you need to accomplish your dreams? Try setting something called a point of pride. A point of pride is one specific goal that you accomplish in order to prove something to yourself. Going back to our previous example, your point of pride might be to write one chapter, because if you can write one chapter, that means you can write another and another until you finish your entire book. By creating an achieving your point of pride, you’re giving yourself a consistent source of motivation. And more importantly, a source of self-esteem. By taking this small step, you’ll discover a genuine confidence in yourself. Your ultimate goals will finally feel like something you can realistically accomplish. All you have to do is pick one manageable but challenging point of pride, and concentrate all your attention on that single goal. If you can do that, your self-esteem will start to skyrocket.
looking back in time 回顾历史
aspiring adj.有抱负的
overwhelmed adj.被压倒的，被淹没的；（强烈地影响而使） 不知所措的 v.（情感）难以禁受；使应接不暇；淹没，漫过（overwhelm 的过去式和过去分词）
faith 信心
take on the challenge 接受挑战
realistically adv.现实地；实际地；逼真地
skyrocket 飙升
No.3 Studying Yourself
You can also boost your self-esteem by changing basic things like the way you speak. For example, you might be using self-critical language, you undercut your own success, you belittle your own accomplishments, and you overrate the value of the people around you. The problem is, you probably don’t even realize that you’re doing it. It’s become almost automatic for you. So, how do you change something that you don’t even think about? Try studying the way you speak, every time you undermine your own achievements, go ahead and write it down. That way you can focus your attention on your harmful language, and gradually change it for the better. You may not notice a difference at first, but over time, this simple strategy will have a huge impact on your self-esteem.
self-critical adj.律己严格的；自我批评的
undercut vt.廉价出售；较便宜的工资工作；从下边削球；削弱；根除
belittle vt.轻视；贬低；使相形见小
accomplishments n.造诣（accomplishment 的复数）
overrate v.高估，对……评价过高
undermine v.逐渐削弱（损害）
No.4 Practice Self-compassion
One of the hardest things of building self-esteem is learning how to forgive your own mistakes. You want to be perfect, you want to be respected and successful. So, whenever that doesn’t happen, you either pretend that nothing happened or you become your own worst enemy. You criticize yourself and you hold a grudge. But both of these approaches have the same fundamental problem, they’re focused on preserving the good. You’re trying to maintain this fragile image of yourself, you expect to be that perfect, successful person. So, you react negatively every time that doesn’t happen. You either ignore your mistakes, or your tear yourself down. And slowly but surely, you chip away at your self-esteam. So, what should you do instead? The real secret behind your self-esteem has nothing to do with preserving the good. It’s about forgiving the bad. You’ll spend the rest of your life making mistakes. We all do. There’s just no way around it. So, before you can believe in yourself, you have to learn to live with those failures. Little by little, you can boost your self-esteam by actively forgiving yourself. Each time you say something stupid or make a careless error, just take a minute to acknowledge what you did wrong, and then no matter what, cut yourself some slack.
self-compassion 自我同情
pretend v.伪装，假装
grudge n.怨恨，嫌隙
approaches 方法
preserving 保存
fragile adj.易碎的，易损的
either 要么
chip away 逐渐去除
has nothing to do with 与……无关
around 绕过
careless 粗心的
cut yourself some slack 放自己一马
No.5 Revisit Your Past
Have you always struggled with low self-esteem? Or, can you remember a time in your life where self-esteem was the last thing on your mind? Many people go through highs and lows throughout their life. They start accomplishing their goals and developing healthy habits. So they feel positive and confident, until some kind of failure knocks them down a peg. If you’re stuck in one of those valleys, you can use this easy trick to climb your way back out. Think back to the happiest time in your life, when were you the most motivated? When did you love yourself the most? It really doesn’t matter if it was last week, last year or even decades ago. Reflect on that point in your life, and ask yourself this important question, how did you climb to the top of that amount? What about that period of your life stands out the most? Maybe you were excelling at work or you might have had an amazing group of friends. Often times by reflecting on our past, we learn new things about what makes us happy. For example, many people like to say their career oriented, they focus all their time and energy on work, but their job consistently makes them feel inadequate or insecure. So, they think back to their happiest moments, and they realize something that changes their life. They feel the best about themselves when they’re helping others, not when they’re concentrating on their career. My point here is, if you’re struggling with self-esteem, revisiting your past is a simple and rewarding way to turn your mentality around, and you might just discover something new about yourself in the process.
low self-esteem 自尊心低；自卑
last thing on your mind 你最不想做的事
throughout prep.遍及，到处；自始至终，贯穿整个时期
knocks them down a peg 让他们相形见绌
climb your way back out 爬出去
stands out 脱颖而出
rewarding adj.值得的，有意义的；赚钱的，营利的
mentality n.心态，思维方式
No.6 Go Your Own Way
People want to fit in, whether you’re 15 years old or 50. You might think about your social standing more than you’d like to admit. It crosses your mind when you’re getting dressed in the morning. When you’re walking through the grocery store or when you’re sitting down at your desk. But the more you think about your social standing, the harder it is to build self-esteem. One huge study which analyzed over a thousand participants found that people who spend time trying to fit in have lower self-esteem on average. It doesn’t matter if you’re popular, unpopular or somewhere in the middle. Because it’s not about whether you fit in. The best thing you can do for your self-esteam is to stop caring all together. That’s right. Do at least one thing every day that separates you from the rest of the herd. It could be a change in your style or some obscure new hobby. It really doesn’t matter as long as your carving your own path. When you’re focused on making yourself happy, you’ll discover all kinds of new reasons to cherish your individuality.
fit in 适应，融入
social standing 社会地位
getting dressed 穿衣服
caring v.照顾，照料；在意，担忧；喜欢，想要（care 的现在分词形式）
herd n.兽群，畜群；人群，民众
obscure adj.难以说清楚的，模糊的；鲜为人知的，默默无闻的
carving n.雕刻，雕刻品；雕刻术 v.雕，刻；切下；开创，赢得（carve 的现在分词形式）
cherish v.珍视，珍爱；怀念（过去），抱有（希望）
individuality n.个性，个人特征
No.7 Reclaim Your Values
If I ask you what things were the most important to you, what would you say? For most people, it’s not that hard of a question, it only takes a few seconds to prove your values to me. But how long has it been since you’ve proved your values to yourself? Even though you know what your values are, they might have faded into the background. maybe they’ve gotten lost in your usual habits and routines, you might forget to make time for your family, or you may have lost touch with your passions. By reclaiming your values, you can remind yourself who you are, you can remember what makes your life worthwhile, because that’s ultimately where most of your self-esteem comes from. When you know yourself, in the kind of person that you are, you can learn to like yourself. So, set aside some time every week or every day if you can to reclaim your values, make some kind of conscious decision that proves who you are, you might put away work to spend quality time with your family, or skip a night out to get back in touch with your creative side. Each time you make these choices, not only do your values get stronger, you also feel proud to call them your own.
reclaim v.要求归还；利用，改造（荒地）；回收（废品中有用的东西）；感化，使纠正
make time for 为。。。预留时间
worthwhile adj.重要的，有益的，值得做的
set aside 搁置；留出
put away work 将工作放在下
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