A blogger friend made an important observation about my post Five Things You Can Do To Feel Better About Yourself. She said that in her experience, using tools such as those I wrote about is a great way to help yourself when you’re feeling pretty good but can be hard to implement when you’re in a negative space. So how do you make these tools “reliable when (you are) in an unreliable state?” I believe my friend was correct when she said she needed to take baby steps.

This means you have to give yourself a break. When you’re depressed or just feeling down about your life it’s easy to be hard on yourself for everything you do, or don’t do, without any regard for what’s truly important. Part of you is complicit with the negativity and will do all it can to continue the negativity (see my post on the Anti-Me). If you are aspiring to implement new tools into your daily life you could very well beat yourself up every time you realize you’ve forgotten to acknowledge yourself or taken a step to feel better. So you have to give yourself attainable goals and start slowly. And above all, BE GENTLE with yourself.

Here are some practical things you can do to start taking baby steps towards feeling better:

1. Choose one new skill to focus on and don’t try to add anything else for at least a week, maybe even a month.

2. Give yourself credit for doing it when you do and if you start beating yourself up for not doing it, try to find a voice inside yourself that can simply repeat: Be Gentle.

3. Make a sign (this could be as simple as using a sharpie on a piece of blank paper or the back of an envelope) that says “Be Gentle With Yourself” or a reminder to use another tool of your choice.

4. Remember that in the beginning you may only try your new tool once in a whole week. This is still very much an accomplishment.

Every step gets you closer to feeling good about yourself.