How Accepting Yourself Does Not Stop You from Making Improvements

Bust this belief: Self-acceptance will make you lazy and stop you from improving yourself or working towards your goals.

Some people tell me that they are afraid to accept themselves unconditionally because it would mean that they would NOT be incentivised to improve themselves.

They reason that if they are already accepting themselves as they are, there will be nothing to improve on. In their minds, self-acceptance would give them plenty of excuses to not further themselves. Hence, they would prefer not to give themselves the latitude to lax, by laying conditions instead. They may say to themselves, “I’d only accept and approve myself if I have hit my goals”. Some even believe in the use of negative reinforcement. In fact, they feel that the more they use negative reinforcements, the harder they will push themselves. As a result, they have a very strong inner critic. However, these views are not necessarily true. When you are not accepting yourself, you’d likely be in self-rejection. What usually happens is that you can’t get past your flaws, mistakes and imperfections whenever you look at yourself in the mirror. These are parts about yourself that you disown. You would be in constant self-criticism on things that you reject in yourself and also the things that you do. Well, by saying negative things inwards repeatedly, you create a situation of immense stress and struggle for yourself.

When Non Self-Acceptance Isn’t Working

Once upon a time, with an inner critic that has a loud voice, I had felt disheartened, dispirited and lousy. It became difficult to function well. Even though I was enjoying the work I was doing, I had challenges accepting that it was good enough or that I was good enough.

When I started becoming more aware about my inner critic, I realised that self-rejection hadn’t been working well. Increasingly, I was badly bruised by an inner critic that had mostly negative words. What hit me was that I needed to do things differently and courageously!

“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” C. G. Jung

From Self-Rejection into Self-Acceptance

Slowly, I leaned into embracing myself — including the parts that I once had rejected. I learned about accepting that I am human, and that no one is perfect. Also, I practiced self-forgiveness whenever I have made a mistake. By easing things, I was able to relax and be more comfortable with who I am.

I no longer agree to treat myself with disrespect. Every time a self-critical thought comes to mind, I will forgive the Judge and follow this comment with words of praise, self-acceptance, and love. — Miguel Ruiz

Oddly enough, I found myself performing a lot better. I didn’t get lazy or ended up on the couch all day long. On the contrary, my energy levels improved and I was able to work better towards my goals. Needless to say, how much I have benefited changed the way I am and how I perceive things now.

Balancing Self-Acceptance and Improving Ourselves

Self-acceptance does not mean that we no longer work on improving ourselves. In fact, if we truly love ourselves, we are interested in our growth. We want to be the best that we can be and we are keen to align with our potential. Thus, we become willing to invest in ourselves.

Self-acceptance improves our chances of success because we are no longer struggling against ourselves. Even while we are on the journey of progress, we say encouraging things inwards. Through mindfulness, we are able to turn the volume of the inner critic down and we also root for ourselves. Instead of making perfection as the goal, we intend for progress.

Weighing all of the above, I like to suggest balancing the needs of self-acceptance and self-improvement. Self-acceptance without improvement leads to stagnation. Whereas, self-improvement without acceptance runs the danger of harmful self-criticism.

The happy middle shows where healthy and balanced self-love is.

Happy and balanced self-love is the intersection where we accept that we are imperfect, even while we work on improving ourselves.

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