Self Esteem Group (A guide)

This blog provides you with some of the most effective self-esteem groups and individual activities.

Although building self-esteem can be a difficult task but the journey of boosting self-esteem is very rewarding and reinforcing.

Self-esteem holds great importance in almost every field of an individual’s life.

Let’s take an overview of self-esteem and its importance before we move on to self-esteem groups and individual activities.

What Is Self-Esteem?

Self-esteem is referred to as a person’s overall sense of his worth or his personal value.

In simple words, self-esteem is the measure of how much an individual appreciates and likes himself.

Self-esteem is seen as a personality trait which means it is stable and long-lasting.

Self-esteem comprises various beliefs about oneself including an appreciation for one’s body image, beliefs, emotions, and behavior. 

Self-efficacy and self-respect are the two main components of self-esteem according to Branden (1995).

Self-efficacy is referred to as the ability of an individual to deal with the challenges of life.

On the other hand, self-respect is referred to as the belief that one deserves happiness, success, and love.

Why Self-Esteem Is Important

Self-esteem holds great significance. Self-esteem plays a major role in encouraging an individual and ensuring his success in his life.

The individual who has low self-esteem might not believe that he deserves achievement and thus will not be able to succeed in his life.

He might end up living vicariously.

On its contrary, the one with healthy self-esteem will make achievements in his life for he has a positive outlook towards life, maintains a positive attitude, and believes to accomplish his goals.

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Self-Esteem Group and  Individual Activities 

The following are some of the very interesting and effective self-esteem groups and individual activities.

These activities are a means of boosting self-esteem in children, teens, or adults.

Teachers or parents can make use of these activities to boost up the self-esteem of their students or children respectively.

1. My Wins

My wins activity is very interesting and effective, especially for creative kids and teens.

This activity can be performed by individuals of any age group to boost up their self-esteem. 

For this activity, children or adults have to draw, paint, sketch, or in any artistic way present the things that hold great importance for them.

These things might include their achievements, their qualities, their good experiences, anything that makes them feel good about themselves.

This activity can be performed on a specific theme such as ‘ win’, ‘ achievement’, ‘ happiness’ etcetera, or even without any theme. 

This is a very simple and easy worksheet that helps individuals identify the things that are very important to them.

Recalling those things, those achievements, those qualities, for those good experiences can help boost up the self-esteem of individuals. 

Children facing self-esteem issues can perform this activity on a theme ‘what makes me feel grateful’ or ‘ what makes me great’ and identify the things that make them feel good about themselves.

It could either be being a good friend, a helper, a motivational speaker and so forth.

2. Reframing Negative Judgments

Negative self-talk can contribute to lowering the self-esteem of an individual to a great extent.

Therefore it is very important to identify negative thinking patterns or negative self-talk and work on them to prevent their negative effects on the individual. 

Reframing negative judgments is a very effective worksheet specifically designed for adolescents and adults who feel difficulty in accepting their failures.

This activity helps individuals reframe their negative judgments which contribute to lowering down their self-esteem.

This activity helps individuals learn from failures and avail the opportunity of making success in this world.

Failures are a part of learning. Everybody fails in some areas of their life. Failures and setbacks are not for making you feel unworthy or depressed, these are to make you stronger and competent.

Thus, one must learn from failures rather than feeling sad about failure does it influences self-esteem a lot. 

For this activity, the individuals are supposed to mention the events that affected their self-esteem.

Then they are supposed to write their initial judgments on the situation, their emotions, and feelings resulting from that situation.

Then they are directed to write a more realistic and positive statement for that event to view the situation from another perspective.

This would help eradicate the effect of the negative judgment on self-esteem.

This worksheet can be accessed from here.

3. The Self-Esteem Gauntlet

The self-esteem gauntlet it’s a very interesting game that helps boost up self-esteem and integers positive talk.

This game is designed to be played in groups of 8 to 40 people.

For this game, participants have to form two lines in which there will be facing each other. Some other participants have to move or skip between the two lines and run the gauntlet one by one.

All these participants will move or skips individually while the participants forming the two lines will have to pat individual, say kind words to him, or hug him.

The participants moving or skipping through the two lines are encouraged to move slowly so they could collect positive justice, words of kindness, and appreciation from other participants. 

This game is very interesting and effective for increasing the self-worth of an individual, self-esteem of an individual, and group cohesion.

It makes individuals feel good about themselves.

4. Who Am I?

Who am I? is another interesting game which is played in groups.

The instruments required for this game include a large roll paper, scissor, and some markers.

For this activity, the participants are directed to lay down on a chart paper of their size, our helper outlines the body of the participant on the chart paper which the participant cuts out later on.

In the same way, every participant has to cut out the outline of his body from a chart paper.

Once done, the participant has to write his name on the top and write something he likes about his body on the chart paper.

Then he has to take a round of the class and on every participant’s chart paper he has to write something which he likes about their body. Everybody has to do the same.

Then the chart papers with positive comments about the bodies of participants will be hung outside the classroom so the children can read and acknowledge their positive features whenever they see the chart papers.

This activity is very effective in increasing the self-esteem of individuals and helping them acknowledge their positive features.

It increases self-awareness and awareness about others.

5. Winner/ Loser

A winner/ loser game is another effective exercise that helps increase the self-esteem of individuals.

For this game, participants have to arrange themselves in the form of pairs.

Each partner is directed to recall and reveal a past negative experience to his partner.

Then the partner has to retail the same story by emphasizing only the positive aspects of the situation. 

This activity helps individuals practice how to focus on positive aspects of situations.

It increases awareness about others and enables individuals to learn about their partners to a deeper level.

When individuals look upon a thing or situation from the other person’s perspective, they are more likely to change their beliefs about the situation and adopt a positive outlook of life to deal with their problems.

Recommended Amazon Books

The following is the list of some of the best books on self-esteem.

You can read these books to increase your knowledge about self-esteem and acknowledge various activities that can help you increase your self-esteem.

These books related to self-esteem are easily accessible on the Amazon Store.

Just click the book you wish to study and you will be redirected to the page from where you can access it.

• The Self-Esteem Workbook for Teens: Activities to Help You Build Confidence and Achieve Your Goals by Lisa M. Schab LCSW | Jun 1, 2013
• Raising Self-Esteem in Adults: An Eclectic Approach with Art Therapy, CBT and DBT Based Techniques by Susan Buchalter
• Ten Days to Self-Esteem by David D. Burns
• Group Exercises for Enhancing Social Skills and Self-Esteem by Sirinam S. Khalsa | Sep 1, 1996
• Self-Esteem: The New Reformation by Robert Harold Schuller  | Jun 1, 1982

What activities build self-esteem?

Various activities can be performed to boost self-esteem.

Some activities that can help increase self-esteem include making yourself a Priority, stop pleasing people, finding yourself, observing your self-talk, learning from mistakes rather than blaming yourself, acknowledging and appreciating your success, being grateful, and nurturing a positive attitude.

How do you teach self-esteem?

Self-esteem can be taught in various ways.

Some ways in which parents can boost their kids’ self-esteem include helping children learn new things, being a good role model for children, praising children wisely, avoiding harsh criticism, appreciating the success of children wisely, focusing on the strengths of children and encouraging children to help and give others.

What activities can you do to love yourself?

Self-love is a very important element in the developmental process of an individual. There are various ways in which you can love yourself.

Some ways to practice self-love include buying yourself fresh flowers, cleaning your house, or the place where you live, organizing your workplace, taking out time for rest and relaxation, practicing mindful eating.

How do parents destroy self-esteem?

There are multiple ways by which parents contribute to decreasing the self-esteem of their children.

Verbal put-downs, comparison with siblings, comparison with other age fellows, and lack of positive reinforcement are some ways in which parents contribute to decreasing their children’s self-esteem.

What can cause low self-esteem?

Low self-esteem can be a result of unsupportive parents, friends who are bad influences, stressful life events such as divorce of parents or death of a significant one, experiencing trauma or abuse, poor academic performance, achievable or unrealistic goals, mood disorders, eating disorders, anxiety, and so forth.

How can I make my body feel positive?

You can make your body feel positive by practicing positive affirmations, focusing on your strengths, focusing on your skills and positive qualities, engaging in positive self-talk, and avoiding negative self-talk, identifying and appreciating what your body can do, setting realistic health-focused goals, and so forth.

This blog provided you with some of the most effective self-esteem groups and individual activities.

These activities are very effective in boosting self-esteem.

These would surely help your children for students to enhance their self-efficacy and self-confidence productively.

If you have any queries or questions regarding this blog, let us know through your comments. We will be glad to assist you.

References 

18 Self-Esteem Worksheets and Activities for Teens and Adults (+ PDFs) by Courtney E. Ackerman (2020)

Self-esteem Activities – Pocket

3 Group Therapy Activities for Boosting Self-Esteem – Totem …

What Is Self-Esteem? – Verywell Mind

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