Decide to Accept Yourself

By Lindy Earl

A lot of things in this world tend to break us, a little bit at a time. Sometimes it’s circumstances and sometimes it’s people. They all have the same effect: They make us question ourselves.

As a child, I heard older people tell me to enjoy each day. That life would go quickly and I would blink to find myself much older. They were right.

I did take their advice as often as I could. When my children were young and I was blessed to stay home with them, I made an effort to enjoy every day, even the rough ones. Yes, there are some rough days in everyone’s life.

I hear people say, even now, that age brings wisdom. I also hear the jokes about not messing with women over 40 or 50 years of age, because they’ll take you out. I understand.

There are so many ways we are beat up in life – teachers tend to mark things wrong, not right. We are picked last for teams. Our social life wasn’t what we wanted in high school – and maybe not today. We didn’t get the job, or the promotion. Our marriage, or another important relationship, ended. So many negatives! How do we survive? 

I think it’s a decision that we have to make, to accept ourselves, in order to survive. I don’t think it comes naturally. I have found that it’s easier if I isolate areas of my life.

For instance, physical. I currently dislike my hair, but when quarantine ends that can be fixed. I can work on my body, and that’s a daily decision, and in my case, battle. I just enjoy milk chocolate way too much! Not even the bittersweet stuff that at least has antioxidants. Nope. The overly sweet stuff for me. So, even during quarantine, I exercise the best I can, and look forward to the gym opening.

I can’t do much about my looks – the Lord gave me what I have. But, in my case, I was told for a while that I was “cute at best” and “really not attractive.” It is too easy to believe comments like this, almost as if we are preprogrammed to believe the negative. At least women get make up to enhance what we have. I have spent years telling myself that I am okay and to accept what the Lord gave me. It is a daily decision to accept myself the way I am.

We can decide our education level and we can do this at any age. I am past the point of formal education, but a friend and I were just talking about how we still enjoy learning. You can pursue whatever education you desire. My doctor started med school at 48 years old. Wow! Good for her. I think she’s a better physician for having waited to pursue her passion.

We can also choose our career, where we live, what we drive. I get all that. Of course, those decisions are often based on each other. Our education often determines our career which determines our income which determines our house and car choices. It’s all intertwined.

Let’s get very personal and talk about who we are on the inside and some commonalities. First, except for the very few and far between, we are insecure. At some point in everyone’s life, they have dealt with insecurity. In addition, we all share fears. Of what we are afraid may differ, but we all have fears.

How we respond to things like insecurities and fear can determine our personalities. Some people get kinder and some get meaner. Some get submissive while others get aggressive. Life has turned a lot of people I know, mostly women, into alphas – the Git-‘er-done type of person who has learned to fight for whatever they need. These people get more tenacious if their children are in the picture. I know it’s true of both men and women that we fight for our young.

So at some point, and now is a great time to choose that point, we need to look at ourselves, our situations, and our lives, and choose what we like and what we don’t. We need to proceed the way we are, maybe tweak a few areas, or do a complete overhaul.

If you have a great life, then by all means, keep going just as you are! The only thing you might change is how often you remind yourself of how great your life is.

If your life is pretty good, you may still have some things to tweak. We’ll get back to that because I believe that’s most of us.

I do know some people who have chucked their entire lives and started over. They quit their jobs, changed careers, and started all over again. I have seen people do that in some area of their life, like a hobby that they didn’t want any longer, or a hobby that they had always wanted so gave up other things to pursue it. In a few situations I have seen people do a complete overhaul of their lives. Wow! That took courage.

But for those of us who just need to make some tweaks – where do we start? First, take an inventory of who you are. Get a friend involved if necessary, but truthfully (painful though it may be), make a list of who you are.

The demographic information is easy – gender, age, income, height, etc. Do not fudge when it comes to numbers. You are lying to yourself if you do, and that hurts you in the long run, because it means that you are not accepting yourself, and we are only at the first step.

Make a list of your traits and characteristics. Do not think of them as positives or negatives. For instance, I am not musical. That’s not really a big deal now, but growing up in a family of incredibly musically talented people, it was an issue when I was younger. I finally learned that my job was to applaud. What good is an entertainer without an audience, right? It turns out, I played a vital role, I just didn’t know it.

Once you have your list, you need to choose, which characteristics you will choose to accept and which ones you will change. I hope you choose to accept them all and change nothing. That you truly accept yourself the way you are.

For instance, I have a strong personality. It took me years to accept that. Once I became aware of it, I did everything I could to fight it. I don’t want to be an alpha female! I want someone who wants to take care of me, even while I take care of them. I want an interdependence. I didn’t see that this was possible if I was an alpha.

So for years I have fought this central part of my character. You know what? I lost. Either I ended up speaking up anyway, and realized that I should have just handled the situation from the beginning. Or, I kept my mouth shut, but was miserable, especially when things didn’t go well and I knew that I could have influenced a better outcome. 

I also learned that when I am myself, alpha or not, people like me. When I pretend to be someone I’m not, I don’t even like myself. Further, somehow, people can tell that I’m not being real. 

So, know who you are, and live your life. Be the shy person in the room if you’re naturally shy. Somebody out there is looking for a shy person. If you’re boisterous and fun, then go entertain the world. If it bothers some people then don’t allow them into your inner circle. At the end of the day, you’ll be comfortable being who you really are.

Will people talk about you and say rude things like, “I can’t believe that you said that!” Of course they will. These people are naturally rude and believe that everybody should think like they do. That’s who they are. They are possibly judgmental as well. But, they also probably deal with insecurity and fear.

So, let them question, comment, and sneer. The important thing is that You have accepted yourself, and you don’t need, or care, if others do or not. It’s a decision that you will have to make daily until it becomes a habit (which takes a lot longer than three weeks, by the way. I don’t know who put that untruth out there.). But the more you accept and learn to be comfortable with yourself, the easier it is to accept and be comfortable with others.

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Lindy is a Consultant, Speaker, and Writer, currently living in Atlanta, GA. She is The Business Coach focusing on Relationships through Communication, Leadership, and Corporate Culture. You will be more successful with Lindy on your team. Please contact her