My son has attended the same summer camp for two years now. Throughout the summer there are specialty camps kids can opt to attend. Last summer he signed up for an intense biking camp. At the beginning of the week, there were more than 30 kids signed up. By day three, the numbers had dropped to about 12. By the end of the week, only 6 kids remained.

On the first day of camp, the kids and their counselors rode a total of 10 miles. But the rides were short and they stopped at several fun locations to play and rest in between rides. Still, my very fit and athletic son needed to take a bath that night to relax his muscles.

The second day, the kids rode about the same distance, but with only one, longer break in between. It was a hard day, evidenced by the fact that more than half of the kids dropped out after day two. My son mentioned that he thought maybe he'd like to quit, too. But day three was too intriguing for him to give up.

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We are so used to negative feedback that we are more aware of our weaknesses than our strengths. So it is often hard to enjoy success, no matter how small each success might be. Celebrating your strengths and achievements is a natural process to building self esteem. Learning to recognize that we are human and that we will make mistakes will also help us build self esteem so we all need to learn to forgive ourselves.

Self acceptance is required before self esteem can develop. Self esteem is built by experiencing success whether small or large. To build self esteem you need to stop dwelling on your weaknesses and learn to forgive yourself for your mistakes. Beating yourself up is only defeating yourself and your energy is better spent if you build positive thoughts about yourself even when things are not as successful as they can be. Learning to recognize if you are judging yourself against unreasonable standards will help you to know your strengths. So setting goals that you can reach is a good way to set yourself up for success and will continue to build strength in yourself.

A self help exercise is to write down the things you do successfully. Every mistake a person makes can be an opportunity to learn. We can't be afraid to make mistakes, this is how we learn to improve. Persistence and learning from past mistakes will help us succeed.

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