Author: Kevin Sinclair

Self acceptance is a large factor in the whole self esteem personal issue. Self acceptance is the acceptance of self for who you are. Self acceptance can be described as an agreement between you and you. A condition of this agreement is to appreciate and accept yourself and love you complete with what you may consider faults and also your positive points. Practicing self acceptance also means forgiving yourself, and cutting yourself some slack from time to time.

Lack of self acceptance leads to many self created challenges in life, and typically affects our relationship with ourselves and relationships with others. People who suffer from a lack of self acceptance often have a tenancy to conceal their true good natures and present themselves as something, or someone they are not to other people. Sadly, it becomes evident that the shoes they are wearing don’t really fit, in a manner of speaking.

Lack of self acceptance actually creates a cycle that cements low self esteem. People who suffer low self esteem often feel that people don’t like them. Unfortunately this is only partially true. It’s not the person themselves that isn’t liked; the fact is other people rarely even know who they are. They have never been their true self around other people so they have never had the opportunity to know if they are not as themselves. When people who suffer a lack of self acceptance allow themselves to be themselves, they soon learn that others truly enjoy their company.

A lack of self acceptance and its natural effect of contributing to low self esteem results in a lower success rate in the achieving of success in life. People who suffer low self esteem rarely have the confidence to strive for their desires. Those that do make some attempt to turn their wishes into goals are not usually so successful, they have not visualized a positive outcome in the beginning and will simply give up instead of pushing on when the way forward seems a difficult one. Basically people with low self esteem lack the confidence to succeed.

If you suffer from a lack of self acceptance there is so much you can do to rise up out of your present difficulties, reach the desires you have been denying yourself for too long now.

Learn to forgive yourself. It is a natural part of the human experience that we should make mistakes. Our friends make mistakes, our families make mistakes. We forgive others when they may have acted in a way that might not have been acceptable. We forgive others when they are not so perfect. We owe it to ourselves to forgive ourselves just as we would any of our friends. The truth is that we love many of our friends because of their imperfections.

Learn to view your mistakes as lessons in life. The fact is that there is no such thing as a mistake, unless it is something that has somehow hurt someone else. The more lessons we learn in life the fuller our life experience is. Learn to be grateful of the lessons that gave you the opportunity to experience a richer, fuller life. There are times when we have unintentionally hurt someone along the way; usually this is someone we love. These people forgive us in a heartbeat, as we forgive them. If you may have bridges left to build, now is the time to make amends. Forgive yourself first and move on.

Sometimes people who suffer a lack of self acceptance genuinely do like themselves as people. They know they are a good hearted person, and the people who know them consider themselves lucky to count on them as a friend. For these people their lack of self acceptance lays in the things they don’t like about their body. You might have a strong Roman nose and to you think this looks ugly. You might be taller or shorter; you might be a larger frame than some or a smaller one. Seriously do you think that people see this in you?

The truth is no-one cares what you look like. Most people are so caught up in what they look like they have never had the time to obsess over your lanky legs. And here’s another truth, there is absolutely no such thing as an ugly man or an ugly woman. It’s no old cliche that beauty comes from within, that’s a fact of life. We are made in all shapes and sizes and this is what makes us interesting to others. I believe to be completely uninteresting is a far worse fate than not looking comic book perfect. Once you stop harping on yourself about the way that you look you will learn to see yourself the way your friends see you.

There is no doubt that one must learn to be self accepting to be happy, content and successful in life. The good news is that positive self acceptance is not difficult at all when you learn to like yourself. The first step is understanding that we are very much most critical of ourselves, far more than we are of others. Certainly we are much more critical of us than other people are of us.

To learn to accept yourself, you must learn to see yourself clearly.  Simply look at yourself with the same eyes that other people see you with. Once you do this you can tear up that old contract that you had with yourself and create a whole new agreement, one that starts with “I promise to be nice to me”.

Article Source: http://kevinsinclair.articlesbase.com/advice-articles/learning-self-acceptance-175139.html

About the Author

Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of my-personal-growth.com, a site that provides information and articles for self improvement and personal growth and development.