This week has been unique in that I have several people with many different complaints that all seemed to be suffering from the same problems. Doubt, low self-esteem, and not believing in themselves is a real problem that can cause many different issues. Doubt is a learned behavior often imposed on each other by negative statements from loved ones. Self-doubt will take away from your daily activities and the way you live. How we feel toward ourselves and the respect and value we show ourselves is our self-esteem. Un-controlled low self-esteem can cause anxiety, poor decision-making, depression, and mental health issues. Each one of these negative actions causes another negative action and the downward spiral continues. This downward spiral may cause and influence unreasonable paranoia, uncontrolled anxiety, panic attacks, and multiple personal issues. These disorders will interfere with work performance, social activities, relationships, and 
every other aspect of a person’s life. Doubt and low self-esteem may attribute to major events as losing a job, spousal abuse, hostile actions toward friends and family, becoming a bully, causing accidents, and various traumatic personal events.
There have been libraries written about self-help and how to improve a person’s self-esteem. Being successful depends on the individual and how much they really want to improve their situation. Many people express their desire to do better but in truth, they enjoy the attention even though it is negative attention. Those people that truly want to be better and improve their life usually find success rather easily and quickly, providing there is not a medical or mental issue involved. Those individuals need to visit a medical professional for evaluation. For everyone else, a few simple changes will show improvement in a short period of time. Proper diet, getting enough rest, positive attitudes, and an exercise program to meet their age and physical condition would be a good start. Other simple changes to your daily routine could include visiting family members, cleaning up or rearrange your living area, make a special effort to do something nice for someone, do a self-improvement project, sign up for a class at a local school, and probably the best thing a person could do is get involved in a good church program.
Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz state in their book Simple Matters, “although this frenetic pace can be somewhat stimulating, there is a danger that the important things of life may get neglected or forgotten. The things that matter most in life are never complicated and are seldom urgent. They are simple, and they stay that way. That is what makes them easy to overlook”. Everyone needs to just slow down and appreciate their families, and most of all themselves. If you don’t love yourself it is hard to expect anyone else to love you.
Romans 15:13 states “May God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Having peace with one’s self and being at peace with those around them make for a much easier life. Believe in yourself, have positive thoughts, and enjoy the things and people you are involved with and your life will continue to get better every day.