This week and the week before, one of my lecturers, Dr Hunjo talked about self-approval:
“Learn self verdict”, he said. “When you identify your doubt, take note of why it has manifested, so you can eliminate it. Then, replace the factors of doubt with accurate knowledge. The application of knowledge will help you discover if you are confident or not”.
A verdict is a judgment arrived at after weighing facts. To do this to yourself means evaluating the truths surrounding your situation and reaching a conclusion about the reality and effects of your actions. Self-approval is anchored on personal respect, love, and kindness. Here are four ways you can practice self-approval:
- Accept yourself. “I made the right decision today”, “I messed up”, I have tried my best”. These are acknowledgements that you should be comfortable enough to make about yourself. Accept yourself. Know that you are human and are bound to have both strengths and weaknesses. You can be skilled at one thing and awful at the other. When you think that you always have to meet a certain standard, you begin to unintentionally create conditions for you to love yourself. Today, take deliberate steps to accept that not-so-great part of yourself.
- Be unaware of what the world wants. This is a struggle for me. I am constantly alert to expectations. I also do this unconsciously. Every so often, I catch myself in that state and try to drag myself back to unawareness. I tell myself that I don’t need to care about what I imagine others people expect of me. Some reasons are that they probably do not even have me in their thoughts or that they’re just trying to be controlling. But, I know that there shouldn’t be a reason to be oblivious to people’s expectations. It just should not be an option at all. Your life is yours. In the same way, you should commandeer it according to your own desires. This brings me to my next point.
- Chose you and your opinion. Asides from the voice in your head that assumes people’s opinions for you, a few daring persons may reply their thoughts to you unprovoked. Of course, countless people with great intentions give solid advice all the time. However, when a piece of advice tells you to be less than yourself, it is not worth it. In such encounters, let your opinions matter the most.
- Be confident in your abilities/desires/needs/worries... anything, really. Like I always say to myself, “who will sue you?”. Except in some questionable situations, you can’t be sued for being confident. So, send that tweet, talk to that new person, make that presentation, and study for that exam because you sure might ace all four. The worst-case scenario is that you fail. The worse worst-case scenario is that you fail woefully. On the plus side, if this happens, you now know one way, not to any of those asks. Joking apart, your failures should help you to be able to look inwards and become better. Learning from Dr Hunjo, when you identify what made you fail, you have a better chance of eliminating it.
- Don’t ask or wait for permission before you take actions that concern you.
One of the things that I will not stop emphasising is being kind to yourself. Can you ever tell anyone point-blank that, “you are horrible”, “you are a failure”, or “your opinion is trash”? Can you look some in the eyes and wish them a complete failure? If you can be that considerate and kind to someone, what is stopping you from being kind to yourself? The keys to self-approval are self-love, respect, and kindness.
These are 500 words (or more ?)! Talk to you tomorrow!