Healthy self-esteem means thinking as highly of yourself as you think of your friends and peers. We are so used to negative feedback that we are more aware of our weaknesses than our strengths. We are often taught we will "fail", so it is often hard to enjoy success, no matter how big or small each success might be.

What is Self-Esteem?
According to Nathaniel Branden, Ph. D., noted author and expert on the subject, "Self-esteem is the experience of being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and of being worthy of happiness." As Branden notes, "Positive self-esteem is the immune system of the spirit, helping an individual face life problems and bounce back from adversity." So, high self-esteem is crucial during the turbulence of your teenage years.

How Can A Teen Build Self-Esteem?
The process is simple, but putting it to work may be difficult. Self-esteem is built upon the experience of success. Think of it as a circular process. When people experience success, they grow in self-confidence. As self-confidence grows, they feel empowered to face new challenges. As they succeed in confronting each challenge, they develop the capacity to cope with whatever life throws their way. That feeling leads to further growth of self-confidence, self-reliance, and self-esteem.

To Maintain Healthy Self-Esteem
1. Celebrate your strengths and achievements.
2. Forgive yourself for your mistakes.
3. Do not dwell on your weaknesses, every human has them.
4. Change the way you talk to yourself - stop putting yourself down!
5. Be sure that you are not judging yourself against unreasonable standards.
6. Beating yourself for your weaknesses is self defeating. Use that energy for positive thoughts about you.

People With High Self-Esteem Are
1. Able to accept and learn from their own mistakes.
2. Confident without being obnoxious or conceited.
3. Not devastated by criticism.
4. Not overly defensive when questioned.
5. Not easily defeated by setbacks and obstacles.
6. Unlikely to feel a need to put others down.
7. Open and assertive in communicating their needs.
8. Not overly worried about failing or looking foolish.
9. Not harshly or destructively critical of themselves.
10. Not aggressively driven to prove themselves.
11. Able to laugh at themselves, not taking themselves too seriously.

Affirmations for Self-Esteem
1. There are many things I do successfully. (Write them down if you have to.)
2. I can improve my self-esteem by meeting my own expectations.
3. I do not have to strive for perfection to approve of myself.
4. My worth as a human being does not depend on achieving a perfect weight, or by being the smartest, or the most popular or the fastest, or having the highest grades, or being the funniest, or having the coolest friends, or getting into the best school, or... (you fill in the rest!)
5. I alone am responsible for the decisions I make.
6. I am a unique individual.
7. Persistence will help me succeed.
8. Every mistake I make can be an opportunity to learn. I cannot be afraid to make mistakes; this is how I learn to improve.
9. I deserve support and will ask for help when I need it.
10. I have the power to forgive myself for past mistakes.
11. I will treat myself as someone special.
12. I determine what success means to me.

Self-Esteem Affirmations
"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail." - Ralph Waldo Emerson -

"You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." - Buddha -

"Our strength often increases in proportion to the obstacles imposed upon it." - Paul De Rapin -

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear.” - Mark Twain -

"The stars are constantly shining, but often we do not see them until the dark hours." - Earl Riney -

"Success does not come to you...you go to it." - Marva Collins -

"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things." - Winston Churchill -

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." - Eleanor Roosevelt -

"The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." - George Bernard Shaw -

"Problems are only opportunities in work clothes." - Henry J. Kaiser -

"Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity." - Helen Schuman -

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein -

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." - Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton University -

"The first and most important step toward success is the feeling that we can succeed." - Nelson Boswell -

"I've finally stopped running away from myself, who else is there better to be?" - Goldie Hawn -