New You

“How would your life be different if…You stopped allowing other people to dilute or poison your day with their words or opinions? Let today be the day…You stand strong in the truth of your beauty and journey through your day without attachment to the validation of others” ―Steve Maraboli

I do it.

You do it.

All of us do it.

Each and everyone of us self evaluate our own worth and value as humans. Researchers say this has to do with the various parts of our human make-up; self-esteem, self-image and simply knowing that we exist.

In an article by Leon Pomeroy, Ph.D., George Mason University, he asks the question, "Must we be habitual self-evaluators? Cultural conditioning makes it likely! However, we have a choice! We can choose to go through life striving to be a success for all the wrong reasons; or we can accept that we are unconditionally worthwhile, and strive for success for all the right reasons."

The hardest part for many is to simply accept we are worthwhile in and of ourselves. We struggle with a constant inner voice berating and putting us down. For each of us to overcome is to find out the reason for the voice and destroy it. Maybe it was a very poor parent, teacher or person of authority in their life that engrained it so much the voice lives on. Those with this voice feed it daily and keep it strong in their life.

One needs to learn how to choke off the life of that negative voice and find a new inner voice to feed. But just how does one do that? In several articles I have read over the years, it tends to boil down to these basic ideas to turn your world around

1. Take inventory of yourself: It is said, "You can’t fix what you don’t know." Take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle and on one side write: “Strengths” and on the other write: “Weaknesses.” Make a list of ten items in each column. Now you know what things you have to change and those you need to work on. Just make sure you do something with the list; strengthen the strengths and weaken the weaknesses.

2. Explore Yourself: You may know about yourself due to step one above, but you must also open yourself to new opportunities, new thoughts, a new way of doing things. This could be new opinions, new friendships or new vision of where you want to be in life.

3. Set Realistic Expectations: Nothing harm your self-esteem more than setting unrealistic expectations. Setting attainable and stretch goals will help you end negative thinking about yourself that reinforces negative self-esteem.

4. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others: Nothing hurts our self-esteem more than unfair comparisons. this can be difficult to do, but stop comparing yourself to others. You are them and they are not you. Challenge yourself to be the best you can be by raising a BAR of expectation in your life.

5. Set Aside Perfection, Grab a Hold of Accomplishments: Perfection is not attainable despite all of the air-brushed models in advertisements or perfection of families on television may seem. None of us are ever going to be perfect. Take those accomplishments (large or small) and revel in each one of them as you achieve them.

6. Be Willing to Adjust: Self-esteem is useless if it’s based upon an older version of you that no longer exists. Keep adjusting your self-image and self-esteem to match your current abilities and skills, not those of your past.

For me, there is a God factor in all of this as well. Yet it is for you to find that aspect of your existence. Additionally, all of this is going to take time. There will be points of great strides forth and times of falling backwards. The point is to move in a positive direct and over time you will find yourself like yourself a lot more.

Stay inspired my friends.