Beliefs

Another central aspect of fighting anxiety and a negative self-image is the close analysis of your belief system.

You might not be aware of your underlying negative beliefs about yourself and the world/people around you; however, they strongly influence your daily ability to deal with stressful situations. In fact, they determine your actions and thus the direction your life is heading toward. Better get those beliefs right!

Get many smaller pieces of paper /one big piece of paper and tear it into smaller pieces. Write down your main beliefs about yourself and about the world, everything that feels fundamental. If you are unsure what your beliefs are, start with your fears. You will find that your underlying fears stem from a similar belief. Here is an example.

Fear 'I am afraid of getting things wrong/embarrassing myself'

Your underlying belief could read like this:

'I am only loved/accepted by others if I succeed' or 'I can only love myself if I succeed'

You get the picture. Once you have written down what feels like a fairly complete collection of your major fears/beliefs, I want you to turn each piece of paper on its back and rephrase the sentence into a positive belief.
'I am only loved/accepted by others if I succeed' could be rewritten like this: 'I am loved unconditionally by my family and friends' or 'Other people already know I am not perfect, and they still love/like me'

Read these new phrases out to yourself on a daily basis, before you go to bed might be a good time. Once again, repetition is the key here. You will find that these new belief-phrases will pop into your head from time to time when you attempt to draw from your usual thought patterns. The more you consciously decide to replace the old with the new, the more they will actually replace self-damaging pattern with new, empowering feelings.

You are beautiful, You are safe, You are in control.