9 Hacks to Self-Acceptance #6 Will Shock You
In this post, I will share everything I did to accept myself.
Accepting yourself can be hard or easy for some.
But from life experiences and hearing other people’s stories, I know it isn’t easy to accept yourself the way you are.
Because of a society where everyone tries to show this perfect life and whatnot.
But with one intentional step at a time, you’ll be on a journey of accepting and loving yourself.
Let’s dive in.
Tips to accept yourself the way you are
I struggled to accept myself because I was lost in insecurity and negative self-talk.
In short, I was friggin hard on myself.
But for the past seven to ten years, I’ve been on a journey of self-acceptance.
At least you can see that I’ve been on it for a while.
So here’s what I did:
1. Change what you can
To accept yourself doesn’t mean you shouldn’t improve yourself.
Yes, it’s not a journey to change yourself.
But you’ll be shocked what a little change can do in helping you accept yourself.
Like I said, I used to be very insecure about everything.
I gained much weight after having babies and moving to the States.
So, my insecurity was over the roof.
But I wanted to feel good about myself inside and out.
That’s when I started working out and watching what I ate.
Then, the progress, though slow, started showing.
And whether we say it enough or not, working out helps your mental health.
It pushes you to see what your body can do.
So, what do you want to change?
As long as it’s something you can change, take one day at a time and start.
And be friggin consistent.
2. Accept the things you can’t change
Next, learn to accept the things you can’t change.
Now, this has to do with your height or age.
For instance, I started greying in my twenties.
At first, my gray hairs were hiding in my crown amongst many black hairs.
But with time, it began growing on my front hairline.
So, I started coloring to hide my grays.
However, these days, I don’t color my hair.
Because I’m okay with people seeing my gray hairs.
Likewise, there are fine lines on my face.
I’ve accepted that I’m in my forties, and looking my age is normal and okay.
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3. Forgive yourself
Another thing I did to accept myself was to forgive myself for past mistakes.
Maybe things happened in your life that you haven’t forgiven yourself for.
It’s okay; lots of us are still trying to forgive ourselves for our decisions, or things said in the past.
But it’s impossible to go back and change your past.
So, your best bet to accepting yourself is forgiveness.
Forgive yourself and those who hurt you.
I’m not saying to make excuses for our and other people’s behavior toward us.
But dwelling on things we can’t change only leads to more unhappiness.
Yes, it will always be in our memory.
But it shouldn’t affect our today.
4. Spend time with people who love you for you
To accept yourself the way you are, spending time with people who love you for you is vital.
People who genuinely love you will never want to tear you down with words.
Instead, they find better ways to tell you the truth without being an a**hole.
Also, stop keeping friendships based on material possessions.
I see it all the time.
A group of people are only friends because they spend lots of money on material stuff.
But they can’t share their struggles because everyone pretends to have it together.
When in reality, they’re struggling with all sorts of problems, be it emotional, financial, or even mental.
But they know their friendships aren’t deep enough to share and solve each other’s problems.
That kind of friendship is surface-level and can be exhausting.
Because you’re constantly competing and trying to keep up with the Joneses.
5. To accept yourself, stop comparing yourself to others
It’s hard not to compare ourselves to others.
But it’s possible to do.
To accept yourself, you must stop the comparison.
Comparing ourselves to others only keeps us down and makes us feel inadequate.
Instead, compare yourself today to who you were yesterday.
Yes, I know it’s hard to see today as better than yesterday, especially if you’re starting your journey to self-acceptance.
But trust me, you’ll see it one day.
When I feel like comparing myself to others, I tell myself,
Everyone’s journey is different,
I’m beautiful,
I love me,
I’ve got this.
Just saying those words quickly shifts the attention back to me.
To see how far I’ve come.
You can try those words or come up with yours.
6. Stop caring what others think of you
I know it’s hard not to care what people think of you.
Because we’re only humans.
And we want to be liked.
But it’s important to be liked by the right people.
Not just random folks who think you must change who you are to make them feel good about themselves.
So, to accept yourself, you must work to not care about what people think of you.
When I stopped thinking about what people think of me, I started living more freely and enjoying my life more.
When I dropped all that B.S. about what people thought of me was when I started dating someone younger than me.
Both people I know and don’t know had opinions about it.
But I didn’t give a hoot about what they thought.
And I’ve never been happier.
When you stop caring what people think of you, you’ll be more into yourself.
You’ll be more accepting of yourself.
Because you can be your friggin self and love yourself.
And who cares if they judge you?
7. Cut off toxic friendships to help you accept yourself
To accept yourself, you must cut off toxic friendships.
You know those friends that think it’s funny to put you down at all times?
Not just the regular friends teasing.
But the ones that go after your insecurities, downplay your success or get mad when you’re in the spotlight.
Yes, those kinds of friends are toxic.
And you should drop them like a hot pot.
And you’ll be amazed at the peace you’ll have once they’re gone.
Which also gives you room to be yourself and enjoy your wins.
Also, if you’re scared that cutting off friends will make you lonely, don’t be.
Sometimes, we must remove toxicity from our lives and make room for genuine friendships.
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8. Check yourself, but also execute
Sometimes, we can’t accept ourselves because we feel like we’re not doing enough.
I still do that.
I think it’s just life’s way of telling us that we still care about making progress.
Because the moment you stop checking yourself, you’ll be complacent.
And being too comfortable where you are is not always a good thing.
Striking a balance is always better.
So, to accept yourself, check yourself, but not with negative self-talk.
After checking yourself, execute and move closer to your goals.
You won’t believe how much I complain about my blogs not growing at the pace I’d like.
And sometimes, I want to throw in the towel.
But after all that, I returned to reality and did more work to get closer to my goals.
9. Reduce your social media consumption
Another thing that helped me accept myself was reducing the amount of time I spent on social media.
Social media can make you think people have perfect lives, and you start comparing.
Or you start wanting their lives.
Which is unhealthy.
To accept yourself, you must first reduce your time on social media.
Then, also understand that social media lives are scripted.
It’s just people creating content.
And their lives might be completely different from what they show you on social media.
This way, you can enjoy their content without feeling like your life is missing something.
Bonus, weird but valid – stop buying friends with gifts
In addition, to accept yourself, you must stop using gifts to keep friendships.
I know someone who spends outrageous amounts of money buying stuff for people.
So that they’ll be loyal to her.
And the day they’re unhappy with said friend, they’ll quote all the gifts they bought for the friend.
And how the friend is ungrateful, disloyal, etc.
What doesn’t this mean?
The friends don’t like her.
They only stick around because they get free, expensive gifts.
Friendships should be more profound than physical or monetary gifts.
No one is saying you shouldn’t buy your friends gifts.
But never use gifts to get friendships.
It never works.
Because once the gifts stop coming, the friendship approaches its end.
Wrapping it up! 9 tips on how to accept yourself
So those are things I did to accept myself.
It’s a journey.
Take one day at a time as you go on this journey of self-acceptance.
It won’t be easy.
You’ll doubt yourself, and you’ll fall off the wagon.
But pick yourself up and start over.
I hope you find these tips helpful.
If you like this post, please share it.
Thanks for reading.
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