An exercise to help boost self-esteem

Research shows that positive emotions help us to engage in new types of behaviours that can help break long standing patterns. On the other hand, studies show that negative emotions result in narrow, survival-based behaviours. One way to help reduce negative emotions is to be conscious of personal strengths. Here is a quick exercise that has been shown to help people reduce their focus on narrow, survival-based thinking and to help become more aware of the things that they are good at.

INSTRUCTIONS: Go through the following list and write out an example of when you used any of the following things. Going through the list, see if there are things that you notice are personal strengths that have. 

1. STRENGTHS OF WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE
1. Creativity (Originality, Ingenuity)
2. Curiosity (Interest, Novelty-Seeking, Openness to Experience)
3. Open-Mindedness (Judgment, Critical Thinking)
4. Love of Learning
5. Perspective (Wisdom) 

2. STRENGTHS OF COURAGE
1. Bravery (Valor)
2. Persistence (Perseverance, Industriousness)
3. Integrity (Authenticity, Honesty)
4. Vitality (Zest, Enthusiasm, Vigor, Energy) 

3. STRENGTHS OF HUMANITY
1. Love
2. Kindness (Generosity, Nurturance, Care, Compassion, Altruistic Love, Niceness)
3. Social Intelligence (Emotional Intelligence, Personal Intelligence) 

4. STRENGTHS OF JUSTICE               
1. Citizenship (Social Responsibility, Loyalty, Teamwork)
2. Fairness
3. Leadership 

5. STRENGTHS OF TEMPERANCE
1. Forgiveness and Mercy
2. Humility and Modesty
3. Prudence
4. Self-Regulation (Self-Control) 

6. STRENGTHS OF TRANSCENDENCE
1. Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence (Awe, Wonder, Elevation)
2. Gratitude
3. Hope (Optimism, Future-Mindedness, Future Orientation)
4. Humour (Playfulness)
5. Spirituality (Religiousness, Faith, Purpose)

For example:

1a) A lot of people have said that I have a creative streak. I used to love painting and I was good at it when I was in high school. I am a fairly right-brained person and I can come up with creative solutions to problems that other people don't always see. 

1b) Curiosity. I guess I am a pretty curious person. I spend a lot of time reading about self-help and looking at self-improvement information on the web. I am curious about other people sometimes. 

1c) Open-mindedness: Well I am not always open-minded but I try to be non-judgmental most of the .... etc.

Web tool for sticking to your commitments

What is it?
StickK (http://www.stickk.com) is a web-based tool to help you achieve your goals.

How does it work?
1. Log a goal on the website (eg: work up to running 5km over a month)
2. Select your incentive (eg: money you will pay yourself and lose to a charity if you don't succeed)
3. Choose someone to act as a referree to measure your progress
4. Add supportive friends who you can post to about how you are going

Cost
Free (unless you choose a cash incentive to pay yourself)

Why do it?
The website reports that there is research showing that people are more likely to achieve their goals when there are incentives (rewards or losses) or accountability (someone checking in on you).

Managing your feelings

Avoidance of feelings is very common and It can be difficult to learn how to manage feelings effectively. Here is an effective technique that can help you to work with emotions without avoiding them known as the LABL exercise[1]. Here are the steps:

Label what you are feeling. For example: “This is sadness” or “This is shame”. If you are feeling several emotions then label the strongest emotion. If you don’t notice any emotion, then look for experiences like numbness, emptiness or neutrality and label it that.

Acknowledge the physical sensations. Where do you feel this emotion in your body? Emotions are usually felt in the area between the throat and the pelvis since there are multiple nerve endings associated with emotions in this area. If you notice the emotion in several areas, try to focus just on the area where the sensations are strongest. Can you feel the perimeter of the emotion or the space that it takes up in your body? Can you notice how the physical sensations of the emotion change from moment to moment?

Breathe into the emotion and experience it fully. Imagine that your breath moves into the area where the emotion is. Each time that you breathe in, focus on becoming a little bit more willing to experience the emotion. This step is about working towards 100% willingness to feel the emotion. This can be tough to begin with. It can help to just try to feel a little bit of it (like 5% of it) and work up. Saying things to yourself like: “It’s safe to feel this emotion”, “I am willing to feel this” or “I am in control of how much I want to feel of this” can help.

Let go. In this step you can let go of the emotion. Some people like to take some deep breaths and imagine breathing the emotion out and letting it go a little more each time. This step is to remind us that no emotions are permanent – they are always coming, going and changing.

At the end of the LABL process you might notice that the emotion has changed. It might be less, or it might be more… or it could still be very similar. The point of this exercise is not to get rid of the emotion. The point is to not avoid the emotion. It is normal to want to get rid of painful emotions and most people feel frustrated if the emotion isn’t gone after you let it go. That’s why it can be useful to repeat the LABL steps several times each time that you sit down to do it. Once you let go, go back to the start and label whatever feeling is strongest and start again. This will help you to learn that trying to get rid of emotions is avoiding. The LABL exercise is designed to increase your willingness to experience emotions. This will help you to reduce the avoidance of emotion that tends to keep anxiety and depression going.

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[1] This method was developed by Dr Belinda Khong. http://www.belindakhong.com/

Introduction

I am a clinical and research psychologist working in Sydney. For some years I have been collecting information about psychological strategies for managing thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Most of these I come across as I am subscribed to updates from a number of journals that publish psychological research. Most of those articles are very dense and I have tried to condense the valuable pieces of information I come across into something practical. Instead of sending people large PDF files, I thought that it might be easier to publish the information on a blog. I hope that you find the information here useful.