Nothing matters more than your own opinion of yourself and your life. By definition, self-esteem is your own opinion about yourself or the value you're giving yourself. It can also be described as an inner voice that constantly reminds you how good you are in doing and achieving in your life. Your self-esteem depends on all of your feelings, thoughts and opinions about yourself, which means it is not fixed. It can vary, corresponding to the way you think.

As falling into the trap of negative thinking and crappy mood is in our human nature, once in a while, we find ourselves with low self-esteem. Low self-esteem can steal your joy, peace and happiness and efficiently impact your life in all areas. But for every problem there's a solution, only in this case, there are multiple solutions with the same goal – increase your self-esteem. Here are 10 powerful tips to improve your self-esteem and get you back on track.

Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

If you try to live up to or exceed someone else's personal best, you will end up with a low self-esteem and self-confidence. There is only one person you should compare to: the person you were yesterday. Focus on making the most out of your talents and being the best version of you possible.

Silence Your Inner Critic

We all have an inner critic that has an utterly irritating tone of voice. It can easily and viciously bring us down by whispering destructive thoughts in our minds. “You suck, you're lazy, sloppy, stupid, ugly” and other critics that can efficiently ruin your mood. But you don't have to accept anything it tells you. Silence your inner critic and fill the void with positive thoughts that can help you boost your self-esteem.

Embrace Your Positive Qualities

Instead of looking for flaws to fix, focus on your best qualities. Think about all your skills under your belt, experiences that made you who you are, social and physical resources you're surrounded with, talent and anything else that could instantly make you feel better about yourself. Reminding yourself of everything you have/are is a great boost.

Do Something You're Good at

There's no better way to boost your self-esteem than doing something you're really good at. It could be writing, playing sports, lifting weights, singing, swimming, cooking, painting, dancing... The possibilities are endless and the results highly successful. The point is to do something that requires your laser-focus to get you in the zone.

Set a Short-Term Goal You Can Achieve Soon

Many people make the mistake of setting a goal that requires a lot of time and efforts to be realized and when they fail, they fail big time. To boost your self-esteem, you should aim for something smaller, something more achievable. Set a goal that you can achieve quickly and when you do, you'll feel more confident and proud of yourself. The higher the self-esteem, the higher and bigger the goals.

Compliment Yourself

Just look at the mirror before heading off to work and say the first thing you notice about yourself. You can also write it down in a journal. Give yourself some credit, not only for the way you look, but also for getting a step closer to achieving your life goal.

Surround Yourself with Positive and Supportive People

It's time to get rid of the people who get the worst of you and bring you down. Find out whose presence makes you feel good about yourself and surround yourself with people of this kind only. There's no space in your life for people who tend to trigger your negative thinking.

Help Others

If a friend, relative or coworker is dealing with the same devil you do, try to help them and boost their self-esteem. Give them a compliment, open a funny conversation, visit the gym together or praise them publicly. By successfully doing so, you will feel better about yourself, because you helped them feel good about themselves.