Getty, Set, Go!

Do you want to make lasting positive change? Then you need to focus on self acceptance. Common advice is to see what we want to change and change it, sounds legit. However, we first need to accept who we are as we are. THEN we can make changes and get out of negative loops and people pleasing behaviors.

Episode Transcript

Note: The podcast is not scripted and is transcribed using software. The transcript is nearly verbatim but may not be exact and may include minor grammatical errors or edits for ease of reading.

Intro

Welcome to I Can, I Am, I Will. The world’s #1 podcast for confidence and self-empowerment. Today we’re going to talk about acceptance and the important of accepting who you are so you can build your confidence and self-empowerment

My name is Lyndsey, I am a confidence and self-empowerment coach and if you want to build your confidence and self-empowerment then you are in the right place.

Please like, share, comment, leave reviews. It will really help me out. A moment of your time, a lifetime of happiness for me. Thank you!

So the past two episodes we talked about acceptance. I talked about how I accepted my body and I read an exert from Eckhart Tolle’s book “A New Earth”. In regards to acceptance we discussed how accepting things as they are will help us to live in the moment. And it will also help us to relieve stress so that we can work and act from a more confident and empowered place.

Today we’re going to talk about internal acceptance. What I mean by that is when we accept ourselves for who we are. In episode 19 we talked about just be yourself and how to just be yourself, and now we are talking about acceptance. These are very much intertwined and they will work off of each other.

This podcast is designed to help you build your confidence. That is what we’re doing. So when you are accepting of yourself, that means that you acknowledge who you are. This does not mean that we have to like every area of who we are. We all have things that we need to work on. That is a point of life, we just continually grow and learn. That is the human condition. We have the capacity to do it, and that makes us happy to continually grow and learn and build more confidence.

Accepting You for Being You

So if you work on accepting yourself, and maybe you realize, “wow I don’t have that much confidence.” Or “I don’t feel that empowered.” Or you might be thinking that you are more of a people pleaser than you would like.

When you accept that, that is when you can start to work on not being so much of a people pleaser, or work on building your confidence, or work on building your empowerment. If you don’t accept it, then you’re going to be in denial. So you might be a people pleaser but you’re in denial about it. And when you’re in denial you’re not going to change, and you are not going to work on not being a people pleaser. And then you are going to keep going in this continual negative loop.

So we really need to throw a wrench in that loop and the wrench is acceptance. When we accept things not only does it help us to acknowledge or faults and then to build an work forward, it also relieves so much stress and worriment and will free up so much mental mind space. You might not even know what to do with yourself at first! No kidding. You will feel free.

So you want to work on accepting who you are, and it might be difficult because this world is not very accepting. Especially not accepting of people who don’t like what everyone else likes or who don’t look like everyone else. You might not have been accepted, and it may make you feel like you need to try to be something else. Or you may have bad feelings towards yourself because you don’t feel like you’re accepted.

However while you may have previously not been accepted in other social circles, when you accept yourself—and “just be yourself”—when you accept yourself, other people will start to accept you more. Because you will find your people, and you will find people who appreciate you for who you are.

Related Article: 5 Step Technique to Help You Gain Clarity, Build Confidence and Get Unstuck

Acceptance of Non-Perfection

But it would be best for you to have that appreciation first. Because we can sometimes get lucky and find someone who appreciates us when we don’t appreciate ourselves. However, you should not be counting on that external factor. It should really be something you are doing internally for yourself. And a way that you can do this is first by accepting that you are not perfect, and you do not know everything, and there are questions in this world that if you were asked you would say, “I don’t know.” Because you do not know.

And you have made mistakes, and you again are not perfect. I feel like when you hear it that way you might think, “well yeah obviously I’m not perfect.” However, we may think we’re not perfect, but sometimes we try and act like we are. Or we try to act like we have the answers when we don’t.

So if someone asks you a question consider this, are you trying to answer the question even if you don’t have the answer, or are you comfortable with telling someone, “I don’t know”? Because a lot of times—I don’t know why this happens I still I reflect on this a lot I can’t figure it out—I feel like when we get to a certain age all of the sudden we feel like we need to have the answers.

It might be because when we were younger we wanted to grow up so quickly that once we got to like 18 years old we thought that we knew everything and no one could tell us anything different. I definitely thought I was like super smart. And I think I’m intelligent but the older I get the more I realize I do not know. It puts you right back down to earth. So this is something that you can do to work on accepting yourself.

Self-Acceptance and Appreciation of Differences

And then other things you can do is work on accepting the fact that you may have different interests than other people. For instance, I really enjoy a classical music, and on a Friday night I might go have a drink and then go to the orchestra. And I usually bring a book with me. A non-fiction, philosophy book. And I will read before the orchestra starts and I’ll read during intermission while standing in the hall because I like to stand and it feels good to stretch my legs.

Then after the orchestra I might meet up with friends or another drink and I have my book like in my in my bag. And some people think that this is weird. I’ve had colleagues even kind of make fun of me for it. But I just accepted that yes on a Friday night I might be at the orchestra. And I might be only like maybe 5% of the people there that are in their 30s.

It doesn’t bother me. But previously it would make me feel uncomfortable because people would make comments. However when I accepted like yeah I like classical music, yeah it’s not typically something that someone in their 30s enjoys, and go to the orchestra several times per year isn’t something that a lot of people do, however is something that I like so I am going to do it. Once I found that acceptance then I was able to enjoy it more.

I also didn’t feel the need to defend when someone would make fun of me, or make an ignorant remark, or try to insinuate that I thought I was better than them because I chose to go to the orchestra Friday night and they weren’t going. Which was totally their lack of confidence not mine, but it still hurt because I was a people pleaser!

Related Episode: Ep25: Acceptance and Confidence

Self-Accepting our Faults

And not only that, it’s also accepting your faults like your weakness. Because when you accept your weakness, then you are able to move forward. For instance, I accept that when I eat even just like one sugary treat then I want to eat all of the sugary treats in site. I have accepted that I have low self-control in this area.

And what I do now is I work on building that control. I do it by either only buying something small like a little snack for myself and not having anything at home. Or if I do bring it home then I put it away so I don’t see it on the counter. Or something I’ll do is just have strict guidelines and rules. Like, “OK only three cookies tonight.” Which can sometimes be so hard! But I have accepted that I don’t have the best self-control especially when it comes to chocolate chip cookies, and now I can work on it.

Confident Close

This is also acceptance of something you’re not so great at. Maybe if you get into a new relationship and you’re a little clingy, or maybe if you get frustrated easily, whatever the case think about the things that you do that you don’t really like. Then when you accept them you can work on them. And THAT is how you’re going to build your confidence. With that we’re going to end with our I affirming statements. You can say that with me now, you cannot, you can do whatever you want.

I can,

I am,

I will.

Have a great day!

Watch on You Tube

Subscribe for the podcast by using the links above.

Subscribe to the I Can, I Am, I Will Newsletter here.