To Get Things Done Your Way, You First Need Self-Acceptance, Not Confidence

Work on self-acceptance, and confidence will come along.

Do you tell yourself it would be great if you could be more confident? Perhaps you’d muster the courage to ask your boss for that raise. Or even throw your resignation on his office on your way out to a freelancing adventure. Tell your partner you’re done putting up with his manipulative crap. Or go solo on that trip you’ve been dreaming of. You could do so much if only you’d have more confidence, you think.

But what if it’s not your lack of confidence preventing you from achieving any of that?

You’d be surprised by what stands behind your inaction

After all, what keeps you from asking for that raise? Do you honestly believe you don’t deserve it? Or have others suggested you so, making you feel that way? And why don’t you resign? Is it because you don’t know how you’d handle the alternative? Or is it because far too many people have told you how difficult it is to make it on your own?

We could go on, and on, with every single thing on your list of secret dreams. At the root of your lack of action, it won’t be a lack of confidence. It would be a history of others telling you otherwise. People throwing their noise on you, up until you tell yourself it’s best otherwise, just like they’re suggesting.

It looks like your problem is a combination of getting too many discouraging opinions from others and constantly judging yourself harshly. Wouldn’t self-acceptance help you build armor against those external opinions and keep your overly judgy inclinations at bay?

Why self-acceptance should be your superpower

Self-acceptance is embracing who you are. Completely. You’d think we all love and accept ourselves, thus self-acceptance is only natural. That’s not true. We all love and accept our good parts. How about the not-so-good parts? That’s where things get tricky and self-acceptance is a struggle.

True self-acceptance is unconditional. It’s not that easy to attain. But once you do accept yourself wholeheartedly, you’re indestructible. That’s what makes it the most desirable superpower in terms of personal development.

Self-acceptance doesn’t just make you accept who you are. It also protects you from other people’s feelings and opinions. When your self-acceptance is not quite right, your own thoughts are silenced. Your beliefs are distorted. The thoughts and opinions of others will prevail over yours. At some point, you won’t know which beliefs are truly yours and which were instilled by others.

And you know what else can self-acceptance do for you? Spare you from negative self-evaluation and self-talk. I’m dumb. I’m lazy. I’m disorganized. I’m terrible at… I don’t deserve to be loved. I don’t deserve a promotion. I don’t. I can’t. I’m not.

Of course, you can and you will. We all can. We all will. We’re all struggling and we often forget it. We’re all progressing. We’re often not seeing it. Because we focus too much on the outer noise and fail at cultivating inner peace.

Self-acceptance is the shield you need to protect yourself until your roots grow strong.

Self-acceptance looks different in all of us but works the same

Richard Feynman gives us the lens through which we should all focus our self-acceptance efforts when he says “You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.” There. Doesn’t feel liberating?

You often think bad of yourself because you don’t stand up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. Understanding that what others think is just that — their thoughts — and it should have no connection to who you are, what you do, and what you can achieve, will help you turn off the noise.

Make no mistake, though. Self-acceptance isn’t telling yourself you’re perfect! Self-acceptance is telling yourself how you are and not feeling the need to justify yourself to anyone for it. When you look in the mirror and there’s nothing left you’d want to explain, hide, or ignore, you can tell you’ve come to master the art of self-acceptance. And boy, you’ll be a much more confident person too!

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