Self esteem is often defined as an individual’s enduring perception of how much he or she is worth as a person. However, despite this seemingly permanent nature of how one esteems his or her worth, there are ways in order to make a less than desirable level of self esteem improve over time. True, there are a huge number of stories that point in the direction of failure, but there are in fact ways to find success in building self esteem.

To begin, it is important to understand that if your loved one—be it family or friend, suffers from low self esteem—trying to convince him or her that they are worth so much more than they think they are is not the way to go. In fact, trying to build their self esteem does not involve any sort of radical shift in perception. Self love and self respect is something that you continually work on and build over time.

Trying to convince people of their self worth by constant affirmation may even backfire, as you are in effect shattering their worldview about how badly they see themselves. When these individuals see themselves so negatively, this disturbance of their worldview in such sudden and aggressive means may backlash, causing them to violently retaliate or to withdraw from other people almost immediately.