Increasing Your SelfAcceptance

Your level of self-acceptance, or how much you like yourself and consider yourself to be a valuable and worthwhile person is one of the most important measures of who you are and indicators of everything that happens to you. How much you like and accept yourself lies at the core of your personality.Your level of self-acceptance determines your level of energy and the quality of your personality. How much you like yourself determines how much you like other people and in turn how much they like you.

Your level of self-acceptance determines your self-confidence, courage, and willingness to try new things. It determines the quality of your relationships with others, your family, friends, and coworkers. Your level of self-acceptance determines how successful you are in business.Since your level of self-acceptance is so important to virtually every part of you life, it is a tragedy that so many people suffer from low levels of self-acceptance. There are literally millions of people that suffer from self-doubt, self-criticism, and self-rejection.

This affects the way you do your job, the success of your relationships, and it drains your enthusiasm for the good things in life.How much you like and accept yourself is determined largely by how well you feel you are accepted by the important people in your life. Since your outer world tends to be a reflection of your inner life, your attitude toward yourself is determined largely by the attitudes that you think people have toward you.When you feel that other people think highly of you, your level of self-acceptance and self-esteem goes up. However, if you feel for any reason, rightly or wrongly, that other people think poorly of you, your level of self-acceptance goes down.

But before you begin enjoying the wonderful effects of high self-acceptance in your life, you have to learn to accept yourself unconditionally. One of the best places to start is to do an inventory on yourself. When you do this inventory it is important that you accentuate the positive and minimize the negative.Think back through your life and review your accomplishments. Think about all the things that you have achieved over the course of your lifetime. Make a written list of them.

Think of the subjects you passed and the grades you received. Think of the awards and prizes you have won. Think of the people who you have helped and the kind of things that you have done for others. Think of the goals that you have set and achieved. Look at the material parts of your life; think about all the things that you have managed to acquire as the result of hard work and disciplined effort.

After you have listed all of your accomplishments, make a list of all your unique talents and abilities. Think of your core skills, the things that you do exceptionally well that account for your success at work and in your personal life right now.Once you have listed your unique talents and abilities start to think of the skills that you have developed and the results that you can achieve by applying yourself to the challenges of your world today. Think of your earning ability and your ability to get results. Think of your ability to make a contribution to your family, your company, and to the world around you.Once you have completed your list of all the things you can do and accomplish with your unique skills and talents, then list all the future possibilities for yourself.

Start by setting short, medium, and long range goals and make plans to move step-by-step, progressively toward their realization.There are a variety of things you can do, every single day, to improve you level of self-acceptance such as picking a role model, someone you admire and look up to and want to be like. Many business people and entrepreneurs have risen to the top of their field by selecting role models who had already achieved the level of success they themselves wanted to achieve. Everything you do that you feel is consistent with what someone you admire would do increases your level of self-acceptance.Developing good work habits will raise your level of self-acceptance. You need to always work efficiently and effectively toward the accomplishment of high-value results.

The most respected people in any organization are those who can get the job done. How effective you feel your ability is to do what is expected of you, has a tremendous effect on how much you accept yourself as a good and valuable person.Your image has an important impact on your level of self-acceptance.

You should always be aware of the way you appear to other people. Studies show that 95 percent of the initial impression that you make on someone is made by you physical appearance. If you want to be respected and admired by others, you need to act like a person who is worthy of respect.

When you know that you look good on the outside, your level of self-acceptance goes up.Everything you do or say to another person rebounds and causes the same effect on you. Whenever you are warm, friendly, and courteous to another person, you improve your own level of self-respect and self-acceptance.

Whenever you do something nice for another person, you tend to feel better about yourself. Whenever you do or say anything that causes another person to like himself or herself more, you find yourself liking yourself more as well.One of the greatest riches of life is having a high level of self-acceptance that leads to maximum performance in everything you do.

By doing something every day to raise your level of self-acceptance, you will confidently move forward toward the realization of your full potential.Copyright©2006 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

By: Joe Love