Self Acceptance may be the hardest thing we face in life. It’s a constant battle to keep the opinions of society from convincing us we are not good enough to be anything.
There were a lot of things I didn’t like about myself. I didn’t like my poor memory, my slight stutter, how I get anxiety when I’m in a crowd or how my interests are very different from others, to name a few. Sometimes I have wished I was someone else.
We must accept who we are now and find excitement in the small changes we are making for tomorrow. Accepting yourself is learning to love those things about you that are not perfect. Our imperfections make us beautiful when we stand up proudly despite them. Our flaws will in time help us shine above the crowd when we learn to think more for others instead of the flaws we think are holding us down.
“fake it till you make it.” I think this phrase used too often and sometimes isn’t the best solution, however in the case of becoming more self-promoting it’s the only way to get started. In high-school, I wanted to be confident. I wanted to shake off the old me, always doubting and was scared to speak up, but how to go about doing that I just didn’t have the faintest idea. Sometimes I would astound myself and step out of the old me for a time but was never quite sure how I did it. It wasn’t until after High-school things started to make sense.
People who are confident in themselves think completely different than someone who is shy and carries such self-loathing. In fact, confident people don’t think, At least not as much of a self-loathing person. They think like a man of action, their thoughts are about the people around them and how they can help. On the other hand, someone who is shy thinks a lot. They think of how uncomfortable they are, how they don’t know what to do something, and how others could be thinking about them. They have thoughts that are all pointed inward, about themselves. While confident thinkers have thoughts about their environment and how they can help others, their thoughts are pointed outside themselves.
To switch from shy to confident is a matter of forgetting about all your imperfections so you can focus your thoughts on helping the people around you. You have to fake you don’t care before you can truly forget to worry. When you can forget to worry about your imperfections you start to see who you are and you grow to love who you are becoming.
Your goal is to connect with others and grow friendships try not to worry about things you can’t control. When you drive to the grocery store do you worry about the cracks in the road or the graffiti on the stop sign? Do you stop what you are doing to fix the street? No, The street isn’t your problem to worry about. Your goal is to go grocery shopping not fix the road that gets you there. If you want you could call the city or take a scrub brush to wipe away the graffiti on the sign but you’re not going to do that when you are at the grocery store. You should have accepted those imperfections as a part of your world and so you shouldn’t give them a second thought.
When you are in a social setting don’t stop to fix yourself, you can’t do anything about your imperfection then anyway. You are there to learn about others, to share your joys and gratitude. If you believe in a higher power then it’s your higher power’s job to take care of things you can’t control. If you don’t believe in a higher power than you at least know that nature takes care of its own. Flowers grow in the crack in a rock because it can. Give worry and fear back to their parents, the Unknowns, They don’t belong to you no matter how much you like to believe they do. They don’t help you become any better and you are much better off without them. Remember why you are here and what you want. You want to be social, you want to make friends, you want to connect with others in meaningful ways.
Knowing and approving yourself is forgetting about your imperfections. It’s looking for what you love and how you can share those things with others. It’s being aware of your strengths and values so you can build your world around them. Next week we will cover Step 2: Rely on your strengths to bring value.
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