To most people, February is a month of love, heartbreak, and black celebration, but there is so much more to this very special month.

February is national Boost Your Self-Esteem month. Here are some creative ways to do just that:

• Always accept other people’s compliments. Don’t downgrade them, because then you are chipping away some part of yourself that is amazing.
• Don’t be afraid to take that selfie, because at the end of the day you will be much happier. In fact, every day you should pick out five things you like about yourself and write them down.
• Give people compliments. There is no better feeling than making someone else feel like they are worth it. And it is an amazing ice breaker to make new friends.
• Don’t be afraid to take risk. Talk to somebody, have a conversation with someone you never talked to before, make someone’s day.

Now let’s look at some facts.

In a survey conducted to determine men’s self-esteem on succeedfoundation.com, out of approximately 400 men, 80.7 percent  of them had admitted to being self-conscious about their body, 18.2 percent were on high protein diets, and  31.9 percent of said that they have exercised excessively to maintain their ideal weight.

In a study on dosomething.org, 70 percent of high school girls have struggled with not believing they are good enough. Believing they are either too thin, too fat, too ugly, too pretty, too emotional, too dumb, too smart, too innocent or, sadly, not innocent enough. Almost 75 percent of the time, these girls end up with some type of harmful release, usually either smoking, drinking or establishing some type of eating disorder.

So keep in mind that you are not the only one, the people around have almost certainly had some type of issue with themselves at some time.

“I think everyone deals with it at some point in their life,” science teacher Amanda Eades said.

High self-esteem is something we all need to develop.

“In high school, I struggled with self-esteem because all my friends were cheerleaders. I was a swimmer so I had a more athletic build, compared to their more petite body structure,” math teacher Rebecca Tudor said.

Somebody deals with self-esteem almost every day, and it is up to us to let those people know that they are never alone. Reach out and help somebody, who knows, you could save somebody’s life.