Having a low self esteem can arise for many and complex reasons, and different causes may require different remedies. However, there are some common themes amongst those who suffer from a lack of self esteem, and alongside them come some partial solutions which, when brought together, may help you to start increasing your self regard. Once you start that process, it can then become a much easier task to eliminate your low self esteem altogether.

It can sometimes be very difficult to view yourself in a detached and critical way, without emotion intervening, and that is especially so if your self esteem is not at a tolerable level. However, it can be a great help if you can devote some initial time in self examination, and to find if there is a pattern to your feelings. If you can pinpoint those moments when your esteem is, in your eyes, at its lowest, and also at its highest, you will probably find some clues as to how you may improve the way you feel.

Something very important to remember is that, although you may not think too highly of yourself at any one moment, others may see you differently and more positively. In fact, everybody will see you from different angles, and with different results. You are an individual, and so is everyone else; what that means is you have a self image and a different image to everyone else you ever meet. That image is one you make into what you want, if approached in the right way and with patience.

How differently you may appear to others can be quite stunning, when compared to the way you feel. Once on a management course I had to do a mock presentation to a senior executive, based on quite a large volume of reading material. It was February in England, and I had just come back to work that day after 2 weeks of flu, commuted for over 2 hours, and felt awful. What was more overwhelming was that my personal life was in emotional turmoil, and was about all I could think of. I felt dire, but had to do the presentation, and to make it worse, have it videod and then criticised by others on the course, plus lecturers.

When I watched that video, sitting with the