The Confidence Blueprint: Building Self-Esteem from the Inside Out

Ever stumbled upon a realization that completely reshapes how you see the next chapter of your life?

As I step into my 30s, I challenge the idea that this decade should be met with trepidation or nostalgia for our 20s. Instead, I share my ongoing journey to boost self-esteem amidst the juxtaposition of outward positivity and inner battles with self-worth. Here, I open up about the harsh self-critique I’ve been guilty of and the transformative power of treating ourselves with the same kindness we offer others. It’s time to reframe how we see ourselves, not as flawed, but as works in progress with the potential to grow and thrive. Together, let’s uncover how these choices pave the way for genuine self-confidence and personal growth that echo far beyond just ourselves.

Resources Used Today:
7 Proven Tips for Building Lasting Self-Esteem and Boosting Your Confidence

Transcript

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 0:07

Hello, my dear passengers, and welcome aboard the Self-Growth Train, a podcast that combines personal stories, opinions and research in order to better guide you through your self-growth journey. My name is Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco and I am your tour guide. First, I just want to say thank you for tuning back into the podcast for another episode. As you guys know, I turned 30 last week and it has been an amazing first week of being in my 30s. Let me tell you, I feel very empowered, I feel very confident and I feel like I'm stepping into a new version of myself that is quite different from my teens and very different from my 20s. And I don't know, maybe I'm the only person that feels this because, like every time I talk about being 30 and being excited, people are like oh my gosh, no, you have to grieve your 20s. And I'm just over here like grieve? My 20s were great, but you know what? My 30s are gonna be amazing and I'm here for all the blessings and all the opportunities that are coming my way. Well, my dear passengers, it's time to buckle up those seatbelts, because we're heading into the first step of the day.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 1:20

That is the topic of day, and today's topic is self-esteem. Self-esteem is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as the confidence in one's own worth and abilities. Wow, am I not ready for this episode? And I say that because a lot of people think that I have high self-esteem. Why do they think that? Well, because my personality tends to be very positive, very welcoming, very smiling, as you can tell. But that doesn't necessarily mean that my self-esteem is high or that I necessarily think of myself as enough. In fact, I don't think of myself as being enough. And this is like in terms of academic wise, labor wise or not labor, but like job, wise, that's also as a partner wise, even as a friend. Sometimes I think that I struggle a lot with seeing my worth because I quantify a lot of things, not so much for other people, but like for myself, like for people. I qualify what they bring into the table, like I'm, like you know what. This person makes me feel good, this person makes me feel safe, this person makes me feel valued. I'm not counting how many times they've been there for me, but the moment that I'm not there for someone or I start failing someone and I'm not as consistent as I would like to be. That's where I start telling myself that I have no worth, which is not good. It's not healthy and definitely not something that we're going to be doing in this podcast, but I did want to clarify that this is something that I'm actively working on.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 3:07

I am not an expert on self-esteem, nor do I have a high self-esteem. I have moments with high self-esteem, but I do not have an overall high self-esteem demeanor or, like I guess, mindset, which is why I thought this episode was very important to cover, because I need help, and you guys probably need help too. So let's get started with it. For today's episode, I will be using two resources. That is, an article that I found online and, obviously, my own personal stories. The first resource that I'm going to use is an article by the Yale Ledger. Now, keep in mind when I say Yale, I'm not talking about the place that you go to whenever you commit crimes. I'm aware that my accent makes it seem like that's what I'm saying. I am actually talking about the student magazine of the very famous university, Yale, and this article is titled seven proven tips for building lasting self-esteem and boosting your confidence.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 4:06

First things first, how do you treat yourself and I'm not talking about on an day-to-day basis, although that is important how do you treat yourself when you do something wrong, when there is a mistake? Because, let me tell you, I love to berate myself. I love to say, Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco, why would you do that? Who told you to do that? Why would you do that? You know better than that. You shouldn't have done that. But if somebody came to me with the same story and the same mistake, this would be my approach oh, so-and-so. I know that what you did was wrong or what you did was a mistake. It happens. You're human, we're all human. We all made mistakes. You see how much of a hypocrite I am, but I'm willing to bet that we're all a little bit of hypocrites when it comes to the standards that we set for ourselves instead of the standards that we set for other people. And it's because there's a big part of us that it's like I should have known better, or I am better, or I just know what I'm capable of and I did not deliver that day. Yeah, okay, whatever.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 5:12

Honestly, at that point, what you need to do is take a deep breath and practice some self-compassion, and I know it's not that simple, but guess what? The reality is that that compassion, kindness and empathetic feelings that we can feel towards other people, we're also able to feel towards ourselves. We just need to practice, because a lot of times we don't learn to do that for ourselves. But by practicing self-compassion we're able to see ourselves as what we are, which is human, which means that we are going to make mistakes. We're not going to be perfect, and that's totally okay. In fact, it's expected and it's normal and in a way, it's inevitable. So the first step will be self-compassion, but the second step is a fun one.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 5:55

The second step is setting and achieving small goals. Now, I'm not talking about these goals that you have for months or years from now. Those are good, but we want to start getting a sense of achievement. Why? Because it helps to boost our self-esteem, because it means that we're working towards something that means a lot to us and we are seeing the rewards of working towards it. So let's say, for example, you wanted to lose weight and your goal is to lose a hundred pounds in a year. That's doable. It takes a lot of work, but it's doable. So one achievable and small goal would be well, instead of drinking sodas, I now only drink water. And then you can start working towards that goal. And then, once you achieve that goal, you can add another goal, such as, but not limited to, adding vegetables to every meal or walking 2,000 steps a day, and little by little, you will be achieving these goals that are going to boost your self-esteem and are going to help you achieve your ultimate bigger goal, and it's just like a domino effect and it's great. So definitely try it.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 7:06

Once we have done that, it's time to really embrace self-improvement. Now, my dear passengers, if you listen to this podcast, I already know that you embrace self-improvement. But hey, maybe you have sent this to a friend or a family member that has never listened to the podcast. So I'm going to assume that you guys have not embraced self-improvement yet.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 7:29

When it comes to self-improvement, self-improvement is not just physical or health stuff. Self-improvement also has to do with what you're learning and what you're feeding yourself, and by feeding I'm not talking just about food, I'm talking about what you're consuming. That is what you're consuming through music, tv, books, you name it. Okay, so, with embracing self-improvement, it is very important for us to like take time for ourselves and just say, hey, I want to learn a new language. Okay, well, let's get started with Duolingo. Or let's get started with taking classes at night or taking classes during the day. I don't know your life. You get to choose what time you want to take classes. I just prefer at night. It can also mean taking classes on dancing. It can also mean writing a book. It can also mean I'm running out of ideas swimming. It can also mean learning how to sew.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 8:26

There's so many possibilities out there of things that you can learn or improve on that. It's kind of hard to like just pinpoint options, isn't that weird? When there's so many options and so many things, it becomes harder to name them. Oh, what can I say? What can we do? It's just life. But yeah, it's just life. Embrace your self-improvement, invest in your self-improvement and slowly but surely, you're going to notice that you're going to start seeing your potential and start seeing how your self esteem keeps increasing, because now you're saying huh, I told myself I was going to learn a new language and guess what? Maybe I don't speak it fully yet, but I now know seven phrases that I can say very confidently and without hesitation. So yeah, look at me improving.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 9:16

Next, we get to use positive affirmations, and I don't know about you, my dear passenger, but I absolutely love positive affirmations. In fact, about two years ago, I used to do a positive affirmation every single day and I would post it on my Instagram and people loved them and I just, I don't know, like somewhere along the way, I stopped doing them and I don't know why. So I'm actually going to start doing that because I noticed that, at least for me telling myself, I am enough, I am special, I am deserving, I am loving, I am worth it, I am enough, I am deserving, I am blessed, I am thankful, I am. There's just so many things that I can keep saying and, like you noticed, probably when I started saying those words, how my whole demeanor changed, and it's because maybe at first I didn't believe the words that I was saying, but over time I started believing those words and, yeah, you know what? I'm going to start doing positive affirmations on Facebook again not on Facebook on Instagram again, because people need them. So I'm going to give it to them and I'm going to give it to myself. So I gotta make a quick pause, because at the beginning of this episode, I said that I felt like a hypocrite. I mean, I still kind of do um, and I felt that I wasn't ready for this episode, because I don't necessarily have the highest self-esteem, and that's still true.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 10:41

However, as I am reviewing these articles, and I am talking about them, and I'm talking about the tools that they are describing, it's interesting because, my dear passengers, if you are questioning, doubting or kind of like confused as to how these actually work, let me tell you I have used every one of the ones that I have already mentioned and they have worked in the past. Now here's ?? kicker. Okay, this is the part where I'm like Frances Marie, what are you doing? As I'm reading about all these techniques and I'm like, yeah, yeah, this one works, this one works, this one works, this one works. What I'm asking myself is okay, if you know that all of these work, why did you stop? Why did you not continue?

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 11:25

And again, this was a growth moment for me, because I was starting to go back into that mentality of let's quantify, because look at all of these times that you were able to do it, but now you're not doing it. So, therefore, you're failing? No, so I decided to stop the episode and, well, restart it and talk to you guys about this, because I thought this was a very special moment of growth that I needed to share with you. The way that we grow is we have to make mistakes, we have to fail. So if you're currently failing, I know it feels frustrating, I know it feels like there's no purpose to it, but really there is, because, at the end of the day, you're going to learn from it. Now you might just learn not to ever do it again, and that's okay, but guess what You're learning? And that actually brings us to the next step, which is developing a growth mindset. Everything that happens in your life everything okay, everything that happens in your life, everything okay allows you to learn from it, to grow from it and to persevere through it. So if you start developing a growth mindset which, by the way, the tools that I mentioned before will definitely help you do that what's going to happen is you're going to have moments like the moment that I just had, which was hold up, wait a minute. I said this before and I do admit that I haven't necessarily been doing all of this stuff. However, I do recognize that they have helped in the past. So therefore, moving forward, I'm going to start doing them again. That's growth and that can happen as instantaneously as it did for me, or depending if you haven't developed your growth mindset. It may take a couple of hours, weeks, months, years, I don't know. But the more you develop that growth mindset, the quicker you're going to get to it. So definitely start seeing the potential in yourself to continue growing and continue learning, because it's definitely inside of you. You just need to let it grow. Let it grow.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 13:37

The next step is to surround yourself with positive influence. What does that mean? It means you have to pay attention and be very selective around who you let into your space. You know, as you know, I recently got my first apartment and I'm very happy and excited about it. I know I talk about it all the time, but like, listen, I'm very excited and for me, I have always been very like ah, whoever wants to come, let them come To my parties, let them come To my events, let them come, come. I just want all the people to be there. But one of the things that I learned especially recently is I have to be selective in who I let into my space. Who do I let come into my life and affect me. Because that's the thing.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 14:30

If you're like me and I'm very stubborn you might have seen what I just said, heard what I just said about surrounding yourself with positive people or the positive influence, and you might have said again, like me in the past, stubborn me, oh, Frances, I am a very secure person in my abilities and who I am, and I can be around any type of person and they're not going to get me to feel any other way except the way that I want to feel. Well, let me tell you something they will, and it's going to be when you least expect it. So do yourself a favor and be very careful with who you surround yourself with, who you give the time, your resources and the space to, because the reality is, whether you want to admit it or not, whoever you hang out with is influencing who you are and who you are becoming. So definitely, be very mindful and very careful. And, last but not least, you know you got to practice self-care.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 15:31

You have to practice self-care and that kind of goes hand-in in hand with surrounding yourself with positive influence. But practice self-care doesn't necessarily mean getting pedicures and manicures which they're fun, as you can tell. It doesn't mean wearing a crown, even though that's also fun. No, self-care goes above the physical. It also goes with the mental, it also goes with the emotional. It's learning who you are and the things that you need in order to take care of yourself.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 16:02

I have one of my co-workers her name is Maryam and I love her so much and she's always saying, like your body knows what it need, your body knows what it needs. If you listen to your body, your body will tell you I need sleep, I need to take a shower, I need to exercise, I need food. Start listening to yourself, start listening to what your mind tells you too. We got to be careful with the mind, because, that is true, we got to be very careful with the mind, but try to identify what it is that you need. How is it that you need to take care of yourself? Because when we don't take care of ourselves, that's where we fall into temptation, that's where we fall into drugs and alcohol, that's where we fall into peer pressure. So by taking really good care of ourselves, we're also boosting that self-esteem and we're saying to ourselves hey, I know exactly what I need and I know that I can give it to myself and I don't need anybody else to give it to me. However, if somebody wants to give it to me, oh my gosh, they're so nice, they're so cute, thanks.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 17:03

Well, my dear passengers, the time has come for the last step of the day, that is, recap time. Today's episode discussed self-esteem, which is our confidence in our own worth and abilities, also known as self-respect. We now know that developing self-esteem can be hard. However, there are a couple of tools that can help us along the way, such as, but not limited to, practicing self-compassion, setting and achieving small goals, embracing self-improvement, practicing positive affirmations, developing a growth mindset, surrounding ourselves with positive influences and practicing self-care. Remember, self-growth is an endless journey towards self-improvement. However, you don't ever have to do it alone. As your tour guide, my goal is to guide you with the best intentions and the best research available. Make sure to follow me at my Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Self-Growth Train Podcast, and to also check out my new website, theselfgrowthtrainpodcast. com. As always, all the resources used today have been added to the episode's descriptions. Well, until the next time, dear passengers, safe travels. Bye!