As we conclude November, let’s take some time to not only practice gratitude, but to trust in your abilities, and have the compassion to gain a better perspective of how self-acceptance can be your path to contentment.
Self-acceptance is the very first thing you must accomplish in your life. Accepting who you are is the key to unlock a good living – if that door remains closed, you won’t be able to move toward your goals.
Being at peace with who you are is fundamental; otherwise, you will end up sabotaging yourself no matter what you try to do – and it will trap you in a self-hating downwards spiral.
Before you move forward in life, you need to develop self-acceptance. All you have to do is start at step one!
- How your self-acceptance can be affected by low self-esteem
Every time you do something, you have a choice to make. You can appreciate the good and improve its flaws or fixate on the bad and blind yourself from anything else.
There’s no in-between: it’s all about a positive attitude or a negative one – and, remember, it’s a choice you make.
When it comes to how you perceive yourself, make that choice. How you perceive yourself is how your self-esteem is determined. And your self-esteem will determine how you judge everything you do!
Let’s say you finished a project, and it’s a little rough around the edges:
- If you have positive self-esteem, you will appreciate the good and work to perfect the rest – and in doing so, you will perfect yourself!
- However, if you see the project as one big flaw (because of your low self-esteem), you will destroy it and stay stuck on square one – forever unable to move towards your goals!
- How to develop self-acceptance
You have features and flaws – everyone does! You need to learn to appreciate the good stuff and build upon that amazing foundation you have. If you do that, little by little and brick by brick, you’ll have rock-solid self-acceptance – one that will allow you to try (and accomplish) any goal you set.
Your self-acceptance needs to be solid. Otherwise, when the wind blows, it’ll fall apart.
You need to be strong to understand you define your value alone – what others say about you is not what defines you. If others have the strength to destroy your self-acceptance, it’s not solid enough. Keep in mind it takes more than a day to build something.
- Accept your mistakes and move on
In life, lessons are paid upfront: You err, you learn, and life keeps going!
Unless you are unwilling to move forwards. Feeling guilty over a mistake you made will prevent you from learning. You need to appreciate your mistakes – they made you the better person you’re today, and there’s no guilt in that.
Be happy you erred before, you’re now ready for bigger challenges because of it!
Be willing to make mistakes: fear of failure will keep you stuck where you are. You need to walk forwards if you want to be anywhere in life. Being afraid of mistakes is like being afraid of walking.
If you trip and fall, you simply get up and keep going. Being depressed and ashamed over past mistakes is like staying down on the ground after falling. Laugh it off and walk it off.
- Challenge yourself to try these methods to increase your self-acceptance
- Take responsibility for your mistakes: Your mistakes are yours to make and accept. If you keep blaming someone else for every mistake you made, you won’t be able to understand where you failed and how to grow from the experience. There’s no shame in making a mistake, but there’s some in not taking responsibility.
- Practice positive self-talk: Your self-talk defines who you are. If you refer to yourself as a failure, you will do nothing but fail. Instead, see yourself as someone who has failed but is working to improve. That will give you room to build yourself into someone you like.
- Be accepting and considerate with yourself, just as you are with your friends: Whenever you’re struggling with something you did, picture what would happen if a friend of yours made that mistake instead. How would you react to it? You’d be gentle and understanding, so be like that with your own mistakes as well!
If you’re trapped in the confines of low self-esteem, the key to escape that situation is self-acceptance.
Self-acceptance is not about becoming a narcissistic egomaniac who can do no wrong – instead, it’s about seeing yourself as human: someone who makes mistakes and grows from mistakes. It’s a choice you make between appreciating the good in you and improving from the bad or blinding yourself and seeing your flaws alone.
To accomplish your goals, making the right choice is the first step!
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