You may be saying to yourself, “I accept myself. I love myself! I don’t need this!” and the data shows 70% of women do not believe they are enough, even if they say they feel self-love and acceptance.

These 10 Top Tips to Gain Self Acceptance along with the provided action steps will increase the self-acceptance you feel now and amplify your self esteem so you will have better results in all your goals and intentions.

Now is the time to align your thoughts with actions.

1. Set (and re-set) your intention to accept yourself daily. Remember acceptance is “the action or process of being received as adequate or suitable” and make that your marker. It doesn’t mean bright-shiny-A++ it means somedays a C grade for yourself is more than satisfactory.

ACTION: For extra self-insurance, write a short paragraph in the note section of your phone – a sort of “Text to Yourself!” as you start your day.

2.  Be open to the realities of “negativity” in your life. You will make less than wonderful choices, you will fail, people will disappoint you. This doesn’t mean you are inherently bad, it means sometimes – like the rest of the world, your choices aren’t the best. It means sometimes you will fall flat on your face and stay there a while. It means we don’t always surround ourselves people who are the best for us.

ACTION: Assess who you are spending the most time with both in person but also via texting, facetime and zoom sessions. Are these the people who have your best interests at heart?

3. Be willing to face your what you are afraid of by practicing standing up to your smaller fears first. Once I did a “do something brave every day for 31 days” personal challenge. It was life changing.

ACTION: Create a daily check in system at the end of the day to assess how you showed bravery throughout the day.

Which of these action steps will you take to improve your self acceptance?

4. Release the obsession (or insistence) of perfection. Become a “recovering perfectionist” with small improvements over time. Perfection leads to procrastination and it may lead to losing friends due to being overly judgmental of other people, too – which leads to loneliness which leads back to lowered self-esteem which completes the circle back to the inability to accept oneself.

ACTION: Take note of when you get blocked by perfectionism. Literally, write it down. Begin eliminating the block by taking the first small action towards your goal without the circumstances being perfect.

5. Recognize what is within your ability to control. In 2020, there have been a lot of ordinary activities (before 2020) that we cannot directly impact. Sometimes we have made tweaks because of this. When we recognize the difference between what we control and what we don’t control, we will feel better – and become more and more creative as a result. 

ACTION: When you feel upset or angry ask yourself, “Is this something within my control or not?” If not, let it go.

6. Be as compassionate with yourself as you are with others. As a bonus, be even more compassionate with yourself than you are with others. 

Affirmations & Mantras help improve self talk.

ACTION: Create a list of mantras or affirmations to use when something disappoints you or if someone criticizes you. Repeat “I am enough” or your favorite scripture. Make it a joy to collect these when you are in a good space so you will be ready.

7. Prepare for the voice of the inner critic by having a set of affirmations to repeat. You may also memorize scripture or quotes from people you admire. Bonus: at the end of the day, journal the inner critic’s relentless dialogue with an open mind to see if there is a lesson hidden underneath the lecture. If so, thank the inner critic and dismiss her. 

ACTION: Believe it or not, your inner critic can become an ally. What is she protecting you from? Is there any truth to what she is pointing out to you? Thank her, fix it and move along.

8. Build a network of support. Maybe, like some of us, you do not have a supportive family to rely upon. Pay attention to the people you share a natural affinity for and invite them for lunch or coffee to determine if there is a mutual interest in being supportive to each other. Remember that: mutual network of support. Mutuality is a beautiful thing!

ACTION: Check out meet up groups and specialized active facebook groups & events.

9. Begin taking notes of your essential goodness. Educator BF Skinner is famous for his “Catch ‘em Being Good” approach to behavior change. How long has it been since you have purposefully caught yourself being good? Why not start today? Build your list of essentially good moments and aim to catch at least 5 a day. 

ACTION: Here’s one: you are proving your essential goodness in reading – and using what you read – in this blog post! 

10. Regularly check in with your Highest Self: I use journaling to start this process. I have even named my Highest Self simply because I think it is fun! Your Highest Self is who you are at your core, without negative judgments, perhaps who you imagined you would become when you were a child… who got tangled up in the life that happened when you were busy making other plans (as John Lennon might have said.)

ACTION: Journal using the “Empty Chair” technique. Sit in one chair as your “usual self” and ask your “Highest Self” a question. Move to the second seat and reply as your highest Self. It might sound hokey AND it works.

Before you leave, think a moment about what action steps you will try first.

Now you have not only have the way, you have succinct, direct actions to take in order to increase your level of self-acceptance. Once you grow in self-acceptance and enjoy yourself enough to call yourself “your own best friend” you will naturally attract more exceptionally wonderful people into your life.

Note in the comments what action step you will start with as you begin to feel better about yourself – and act in alignment.

This blog post came from a prompt from 100 Days of Wonderful Words, a service of the private facebook group, the Word Love Writing Community. Join us to be inspired with your blogging, social media posts, fiction writing, etc – the prompts are specific and across different genre.

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, A Social Media Whiz and a Mother of three. One of her greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet.