How To Start Accepting Who You Are

Do you fear accepting the person you are? I used to not be able to wrap my mind around the idea of self acceptance. I couldn’t accept myself because then it would make everything I hated about myself okay. I would lose my motivation to want to change myself.

The real reason self acceptance is so important is it allows you to be motivated from a place of compassion instead of a place of hate or fear. The main reason I decided to start a personal development journey is because I didn’t want to feel sad anymore. I was stuck in this negative cycle of wanting to change, trying to change, failing, beating myself up over it, and then starting all over again. Self acceptance is what helped me break out of the cycle.

Build Awareness of What Areas You Resist

To practice self acceptance start by building awareness around the areas of yourself or your life you want to change. This will include things you hate about yourself. Things you get jealous or envious of when you see other people have it. Things you constantly overthink or beat yourself up about.

A perfect example of this is my body. For the longest time even when I was “thin” I HATED my body. It was never enough. I would create these crazy workout plans and eating plans. I would then maybe do 1 day of it and then “fail.” And of course everytime it was my fault or my body’s fault that I “failed.” Can you relate? I was trying to force my body into looking a certain way by hating it. Not realizing that hating myself into a certain body type was making me miserable, not necessarily my actual body.

Ask Yourself How You Can Be Kind

Now that you are aware of the area of your life or yourself you want to change. It is time to ask yourself what it would look like to be kind in this situation? What does talking to myself with compassion sound like? How can I learn how to enjoy this process or have fun during this process?

Most of the goals we are trying to achieve take time. There is a process involved when we are achieving them. This is the step where you are starting to learn how to change the process so it is enjoyable. How can you have fun while changing instead of trying to hate yourself into changing.

When it came to my body I started to think “I accept myself.” Anytime I looked in the mirror, anytime I thought about my body. Whenever a negative thought about my appearance popped up it was all met with “I accept myself.” I naturally started to treat my body better. I started to wear cuter clothes. I started to have fun again with movement. I realized I no longer had to hate myself.

Accept What Is

The last step is to continue accepting. Make it your new mantra. When you open up to the practice of self acceptance you open up to possibilities and for things to be different. Instead of hating you open yourself up to be curious and compassionate. Instead of resisting you open yourself up to let go of control and go with the flow. The action you take feels more exciting and easier. You start to enjoy change instead of fight against it.