I once had a client walk into my office and tell me they struggled with self esteem issues, I replied with a smile and said "have a seat so do I."

More often than not there’s something or someone out there that we give the power to make us feel bad about ourselves. Whether it’s a learned behavior we’ve been battling since young or a new way we’ve learned to cope through tough situations, it does us no good to compare ourselves to other people. Of course it’s easier said than done, but not worrying about what everyone else has accomplished and focusing on what you can accomplish can serve as a buffer to feeling bad about yourself.

You aren’t alone and it would be an understatement to say that everyone you know has more than likely struggled with not liking something about themselves at one point or another. It’s fine to not like something about yourself, you either work towards genuinely accepting it or you improve upon it. Letting ourselves soak too long in our sadness is what leads us to feeling depressed, eating too much or too little and other self-defeating behaviors.

We can’t let our happiness rest in the hands of others, our own happiness has to live within us.