Ask HN: Low self confidence and self esteem. How to improve?

I've started a similar journey 6 years ago, and have been doing some of those things here, some there, sometimes none of them at all, but always coming back to the good habits. Sleep, healthy lifestyle, healthy body and healthy mind. Some times it seemed like I was making huge progress, sometimes it felt like I was back to the hole again. But it was all progress!

And one last thing that has made all the difference in the past two years: therapy. I went to the doctor, said I had all those issues and started working on them. Been on at least three therapists in the past two years, still think I'm gonna seek another one soon, but the progress I've made through therapy has been invaluable.

First of all many of us also feel like you in different situations so don't get stressed. I started doing 'toastmasters' a year back to improve my public speaking and in general thinking of my feet abilities and have been very transformational for me. If you would like as a non-profit I do mock-interviews for people to help them be ready for their interviews I can also try helping https://calendly.com/bbansal/mock-interview-practice?month=2...

I've been there. I always had a feeling I had something wrong in me, that I lacked something that others had. Being able to be confidence. For me it ended up stemming from my ADHD, it caused me my inner monologue volume to be just too high, and negative thoughts to surface more.

I wish I could tell you there was one silver bullet, but there wasn't. People with natural confidence don't know to teach how they got there, because it's natural for them.

I had to learn it from scratch. And it was achieved via small steps. Small achievements, lot's of good old fashioned self assertions (reading positive affirmations about myself each morning, making a list of what good things I did today, making a list of written and achievable goals, being forgiving to myself)

For me also taking Ritalin at some point helped accelerate it as it helped me lower the volume of my inner monologue and thought loop.

Also knowing ADHD had something to do with it, helped me make peace with the fact I'm just a good person, I forgave my younger self for the mistakes I made, the embarrassing things I said, the things I wanted to say but didn't. It may sound lame in writing, but realizing I was a good boy after all, cracked something in me that made peace with myself.

English is not my native language so hope it made sense.

tl;dr I've been there, it's possible to build confidence, it takes lot's of small wins and being deliberate, forgiving to yourself, and also getting diagnosed to see if you can blame some neurologic situation vs yourself. this may be the counter intuitive thing, but for me it was the game changer. I finally really stopped thinking I was stupid. It was some neurological problem with my brain. that worked for me, YMMV.