35 Ways to Feel Good About Yourself Right Now

Feel good about yourself by changing your habits, having a positive outlook, and embracing all your unique quirks and traits. Sometimes feeling good about yourself can be really hard, though. We see our differences and our failures and overlook the good. It’s this type of self-deprecating behavior that stops us from feeling good about ourselves. Instead we need to embrace, appreciate, and celebrate even the smallest victories. With enough negative reinforcement from others and ourselves, we become trained to see only our flaws and failures. If we have become trained to feel bad about ourselves, is it possible to retrain ourselves to feel good? Definitely!

With a combination of positive thought and positive action, you can lead yourself out of the dark side and into the light. As with any new skill or new habit, you must start small and practice regularly. It may feel unnatural at first, but as you change your thoughts and actions, your feelings will follow.

See a few ways to feel good about yourself right now:

1. Call your mother. For most of us, this is the person who loves us the most and has our back. Ask her for some positive words. If not your mum, then call that someone who is your support person.

2. Look in the mirror. Instead of finding your physical flaws, look at your best features. Your eyes? Your hair? Your smile? Focus on that for a minute and be grateful for it.

3. Write a love note. Let someone you care about know how you feel. Spill your guts. Be mushy. Sharing your love makes you feel lovable.

4. List your accomplishments. Go on, write them down. Everything from winning the spelling bee to completing a project on time. Write down anything you can think of that you feel proud about. Look at you!

5. Clear your desk. It clears your brain. It helps you think and opens the creative channels. Now you’re buzzing. And you have a nice clean desk.

6. Do 5 minutes of exercise. Yes, 5 minutes. It’s not intimidating, but it will get the ball rolling. Even a little bit of exercise will boost your energy and could be the start of a routine for you.

7. If you’ve done something wrong, apologize. Guilt and shame are such unhealthy emotions. Take care of this right away.

8. Find something to give away. If you have something you don’t need or use, and it might be something someone else might need or use, give it to them. It feels good.

9. Lift someone’s spirits. You can turn around bad feelings about yourself right away when you channel your energy into making someone feel good about themselves. It’s crazy how that works.

10. Change one thing. If there’s something really bothering you about yourself, then pick one small action to change it and do that now. Go ahead. Just a little thing.

11. Write an affirmation. Find the thing that makes you feel really lousy about yourself. Now turn it around and state the opposite. There is truth in the opposite. So write that down and repeat it until you believe it.

12. Phone a friend. What are friends but walking, talking antidepressants? One dose of friend a day, and you are good to go.

13. Follow through with a promise. If you’ve made a commitment, do it today. Get it off your plate. It feels good to be reliable.

14. Write a vision. If you want to feel good about yourself every day for the rest of your life, then write out a plan for that. What is your life vision? Start writing it down.

15. Relive your best memory. Pull up a wonderful, happy memory and take a few minutes to dwell on it. Go through all of the details and feel the feelings you had then. Now there’s a little boost for you.

16. Make your bed. You have a neat bed. It makes your room look neat. You are a neat person. So feel good about that.

17. Praise your children. Sometimes when we feel bad about ourselves, we take it out on our children. Don’t do that. Lift them up. Tell them everything you wanted to hear as a child.

18. Hug someone. Hugs are magical feel-good potions that infuse us with joy. If you have time, hug someone once in the day.

19. Just the act of smiling tells your brain you are happy. Really!

20. Give just a bit more today. Today, go above and beyond. Do just a bit more with something at work or at home. Give more than is expected.

21. Let someone else decide. Relinquish responsibility to someone else every now and then. They can be right or in the spotlight, and you can let them. That’s OK.

22. Sow peace. Find a way today to create peace. Negativity is all around. Sprinkle peace over it.

23. Hold your tongue. Don’t say it. You may want to. You may have the right to. But just smile instead.

24. Plan a party. Parties are fun. People like parties. People like the people who throw parties. It doesn’t have to be a big one. Just get fun people together.

25. Choose healthy. If you have a choice between healthy and unhealthy today, choose healthy. That’s a positive thing.

26. Do something out of the box. Shake things up a bit. Change your routine. Try something new. It will make you feel like a mover and shaker.

27. Appreciate beauty. It’s all around you. Just look for it. When you see it on the outside, you may feel it on the inside. Beauty is catching.

28. Show humility. Bask in just knowing your own greatness inside without the need to have it reinforced publicly.

29. Share some wisdom. Your life experiences have taught you many things. Share what you’ve learned with others in a way that is useful.

30. Read something uplifting. Divert your mind from negative thinking. Find a great book that will inspire and uplift you.

31. Surprise someone. Do something fun and unexpected for someone you care about. Just planning this will life your spirits.

32. A complicated, task-oriented, stuff-filled life will not make you happy or provide long-lasting self-esteem. Give yourself the time and space to live within your authentic value system.
33. Start a new habit. Pick one habit you’ve wanted to accomplish. Start very small. Set up accountability. Don’t think ahead.

34. Pay those bills. If you have outstanding bills, do what needs to be done to get them paid. The energy and stress of them hanging over your head will pull you into a hole.

35. Don’t give up. Whatever it is, hang in there just a little longer. Find the strength, the emotional or mental reserve. Ask for help if you need it.