What's Stopping You?: Why Smart People Don't Always Reach Their Potential, and How You Can

Spreading Positivity

And assuming a kinder intention (however forced it feels at first) has further benefits. It starts to undermine the other props of your low self-esteem. By developing positivity about something – anything – it can spread elsewhere, even to you. In Boost Your Self-Esteem John Caunt suggests we practise techniques that reframe the information we feed our brain, helping create more positive attitudes and opinions. Over time and with positive and reinforcing steps, these help build our self-esteem, or at least disrupt the thought process that leads to our default low self-esteem assumptions.

These include (again, with some thoughts of my own):

• Recognize your positive qualities. This is one for the diary – listing all your good ...