Self Esteem

Self-Esteem Group Activities
Presented by: Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes
Executive Director, AllCEUs
Host: Counselor Toolbox Podcast
Copyright Counselor Toolbox Podcast 2018 All rights Reserved. 1

Objectives
 The Nature of Self-Esteem
 Identifying and Disarming the Critic
 Creating an Accurate Self Assessment
 Identifying Cognitive Distortions
 Developing Compassion
 Shaking the Shoulds
 Handling Mistakes
 Responding to Criticism
 Goal Setting
 Core Beliefs

The Nature of Self-Esteem
 How you feel about yourself in contrast to who
you think you “should” be
 The more rejecting we are of ourselves, the more
 Distress we experience
 We seek external validation
 In order to develop healthy relationships people
need to feel good about themselves
 Self esteem is like good soil.

Benefits of Strong Self Esteem
 Stable moods
 Ability to set healthy boundaries
 Stronger sense of self-confidence
 Improved relationships
 Less stress and feelings of emptiness

Where Does It Come From
 Positive Regard (Flip charts or breakout groups)
 Direct—About you
 Indirect—In general
 Conditional—You are only okay if…
 Unconditional---You’re okay.
 What makes people lovable? (group brainstorming
activity)

What You Do vs Who You Are
 Who you are cannot be taken away. Think of it as
your heart and spirit.
 What are some of these things? (Hopeful, caring,
creative, humble, patient, inquisitive…(virtues))
 What you DO can change.
 What are some of these things? (rich, powerful,
beautiful, skinny, intelligent, honest… what else??)
 Card sorting activity

What Do I Value
 5 Admirable People
 Identify 5 people you admire.
What qualities do you admire about them
 For each quality, explain why it is admirable
What do you wish was different about them?
Are they lovable?
Alternate activity: Post pictures of 5 people who are
currently admired in popular culture

Ask clients in what
ways their internal
critic bullies them.
What would they do
if these behaviors
were from another
person?
What would they
tell a child who
was experiencing
this at school?

The Pathological Critic (Inner Bully)
 Arsenal of shoulds
 Origin of the Critic: Conditions of Worth
 Catching your critic
 Talking back

Accurate Self-Assessment
 Self-Concept inventory
 Listing your strengths and weaknesses
 Developing a new self-description and celebrating
your strengths
 Envelope activity

Miracle Question -- Activity
 Based on your (revised) ideal self (Group
discussion)
 If you woke up tomorrow with a strong self esteem,
what would it be like? What would be different? The
same?
In your relationships
In how you handle stress
In your mood
In your job, etc.

Cognitive Distortions
 The Distortions and Combating Them
 Magnification/Exaggeration
What are the facts
What is the probability
 Minimization of the good---Own it!
 All or Nothing– Find the exceptions
 Availability Phenomenon
What is the probability

Cognitive Distortions
 The Distortions and Combating Them
 Emotional Reasoning
 Overgeneralization
Find the exceptions and the differences
 Mental Filter (only seeing the bad)
Look for the good
 Personalization and Blaming
What parts were out of your control?

Compassion
 Compassion defined
 Developing compassion for others
 Developing self-compassion
 Creating a compassionate world by modeling
compassion

The Shoulds
 The tyranny of should
 How should affects your self esteem
 Challenging and revising your should
 Can, will, cannot, choose not to
 Atonement and guilt

Handling Mistakes
 Reframing mistakes
 The problem of limited awareness (context)
 Your mistake-success ratio

Responding to Criticism
 The myth of reality
 Reality is everchanging
 Now two people share the exact same reality
 Responding to criticism
 What does criticism mean about you?
 About the situation?
 About that other person?
 Take what is useful and leave the rest
 Why are suggestions or feedback not useful?

Asking for What You Want
 Needs vs. wants
 Wants inventory
 Creating a win-win

Goal Setting and Planning
 What do you want
 Prioritizing goals
 Making your goals SMART
 Making a commitment
 Blocks and un-blocks to achieving goals

Core Beliefs
 Identifying Core Beliefs
 I am…
 What core beliefs do you want your children to have
about themselves?
 Developing new core beliefs

Improving Self-Esteem
 To improve self-esteem, you must
 Change the way you feel about yourself (i.e. change
your feelings about your self-evaluation)
Focus on your strengths
Aim for effort, not perfection
Decide if some of the “ideal” characteristics are
important to you
 Change yourself
Likely there are some areas in which you want to improve
Make a plan to tackle them ONE at a TIME

 Make a list of positive affirmations and add one new
one each day
 When you find a fault in yourself, remind yourself of
three positive qualities
 Do not minimize your accomplishments. Take credit
where credit is due.
 Surround yourself with people who are positive and
encouraging
 Instead of complaining about faults, take positive
action

 If there is something you feel "bad" about that is
impossible to change, then add a new, positive
quality.
 Do a good deed every day
 Make changeable, specific attributions for
negative events
 Patience-- changes do not happen overnight
 Accept your fears and work with and through
them. Nobody is perfect.

 Evaluate whether you hold yourself to a higher
standard than you hold everyone else.
 Do you think you are that much better than everyone
else, or do you just need a reason to beat yourself up?
 Manage your inner critic
 Focus on what goes well for you.
 Caring about what people think about you is
good. Worrying about what they think is
pointless.
 Aim for effort rather than perfection.

 View mistakes as learning opportunities.
 Remind yourself that everyone excels at different
things. Stop comparing other people's strengths to
your weaknesses.
 Use insecurities to your advantage.
 Recognize what you can change and what you
can't.
 Take pride in your opinions and ideas

Summary
 Self esteem begins in childhood
 It is imperative to help people separate strengths
and weaknesses from who they are
 Self loathing and rejection contributes to
dysphoria
 Part of self esteem development includes
 Values identification
 Understanding wants vs. needs
 Addressing cognitive distortions

Self-Esteem
by McKay and Fanning
Provides a wealth of activities and tools that
are simple to implement for self-help as well
as for group activities.
Receive a 25% discount on your entire order
from https://NewHarbinger.com when you
use promocode 1168SNIPES at checkout.

Self Esteem

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