On a scale of one to ten how would you rate your self confidence? How would your life be different if it were a 10? What if you could believe you are incredible ALL the time! What if you could shift into I love myself as I am! I’m incredible! I’m amazing! I’m figuring things out! What if I told you it was possible and how to make that happen. You can learn to make your life better than you ever imagined because it’s one hundred percent possible and it all starts with you. Accepting yourself where you are is a complete game changer.
The most important relationship you have in your life is the one you have with yourself. Why is this the most important relationship? Because you are always with yourself. You don’t get to jump out of your body and take a break from being you. You are always you. The way you choose to think and talk about yourself helps define who you are.
How do you see yourself? What are you telling yourself? Do you have rules of what you should say or how you should act? Is your opinion of you based on what other people think? Some people have fallen into the trap of thinking they need acceptance and validation from external sources in order to feel good about themselves. They doubt their abilities and they compare themselves to others. They aren’t comfortable with themselves. They aren’t happy with who they are. They apologize a lot and can’t accept a compliment and then beat themselves up for feeling this way.
So how do you improve your self image? The goal is to learn to love yourself for who you are and drop the expectations. Choose to spend your time loving, encouraging, and acknowledging yourself, instead of arguing with who you are, beating yourself up or putting yourself down. Here’s a few tips for doing this.
Question your thoughts. I like to set a timer for 5 minutes and see how many thoughts I can get onto paper. And then I question them. How do these thoughts make me feel? What stories am I telling myself? Are they true? Is there evidence? Are they serving me? This is especially helpful if you are feeling frustrated, anxious, depressed, stuck, overwhelmed, etc. You can see how your thoughts are creating your feelings which affects what you do or don’t do. Being aware of your thoughts and knowing that you have a choice to change them is key to moving forward. It increases awareness and makes it easier to choose words that don’t lead to self-sabotage.
Change your self-talk. Letting go is one way to change your negative self talk. This allows you to move forward. Driving a car with your foot on the brake makes it impossible to get where you want to go. If you’re not letting go of the negative self chatter about yourself or about other people, you are keeping yourself stuck and often playing the role of victim. Let go of experiences in the past, beliefs that aren’t working for you, and all expectations. Let go of the need to be right. Instead of thinking of ways to prove you are right start changing your self-talk to “Maybe? Maybe I’m right and maybe I’m not.” Letting go helps you move forward into a space of love where there is progress that you can see and feel and enjoy.
Talk back. Learn to talk to yourself more than listen. Realize that negative thoughts want to be in control but you don’t have to give them that power. Just notice them and thank them for what they are trying to teach and tell them to get in the back seat because you are the driver. Our brain is good at finding evidence for whatever we are telling ourselves. For example, if you are saying, “Losing weight is hard”, you will start finding reasons to prove this true and will feel discouraged. The result is that you don’t care about what you’re eating and you don’t lose weight. When you are aware of what you are telling yourself you can talk back. You could say, “Losing weight is possible and I’m figuring out what works for me.” You feel hope and ideas start coming for what you could do to lose weight. Talk back to yourself and notice the difference in what your brain finds and how you feel.
Remember you are 100% lovable. If you don’t love yourself, it’s a reflection of your choice, not your lovability. You get to decide. Do I love me? Why or why not? And remember, love is a choice so why would you chose not to accept yourself if acceptance feels amazing?
Having a good relationship with yourself frees you up to pursue so much more in life. Your relationship with others improve. You love them for who they are because you love you for who you are. You won’t judge others because you aren’t judging yourself. And you will have more happiness in life because being worried, thinking or obsessing about how unhappy you are will be gone. You can focus on so many other beautifully important things and enjoy the moment of each day. You can be satisfied with being you.