Over the next few weeks, I am looking at common thoughts that people with low self-esteem have, found within this Buzzfeed article, and how we can possibly address them.

When you have a low opinion of yourself, you can easily get to a point where you let people disrespect you because you don’t think you deserve to be treated better.

Whether it’s at work or in your personal life, accepting disrespectful treatment from others will leave your self-worth and self-respect in tatters if it carries on for too long.

So how can we stop letting people walk all over us?

• Start saying NO! Do you really want to take on extra workload from your colleagues? Do you really want to go out to a club to keep a friend company when you’re completely knackered? Sometimes you have to say no for self-preservation. If somebody is shocked by this and holds it against you, they don’t deserve a place in your life.

• Walk away from those that disrespect you more than once. Read this Boost of the Day for a nice quote about this. When someone cancels on you last minute, tell them you don’t like this behaviour. If they keep doing it for no good reason, this is disrespectful and you should walk away. You need to raise your self-esteem to realise your worth, and the only way to do this is to not accept such behaviour.

• Ask more for what you want. If you’re generally a person who lets others decide where you’re eating, what you’re seeing at the movies when secretly you have a preference, start telling people what you fancy. Sometimes people just will assume that you don’t mind if you don’t express your desires. You will be surprised by how your opinions will be listened to and taken into account. If a certain person discounts your opinion, it may be time to walk away as they are being selfish.

Try these three things and I hope you will start to see the difference.