April 15, 2013

Practical Self-Appreciation Advice

You should always be asking yourself: "What can I do to improve myself?"

One way is through more self-appreciation.¹ That's all well and good, but how do you go from being hyper-critical of yourself, or even ignoring yourself entirely, to all gushy for yourself?

Realization

First, we have to explore what it means to love someone or something. Then, maybe we can get to the root of what it means to love ourselves.

When you're passionate about something you're either actively exploring it or feel like you know everything about it. This is true of people, animals, objects, and ideas. You have a deeper connection with that thing because you somehow see its many facets, or have a different perspective of one facet.

I came to the same realization about self-appreciation. Maybe it's difficult to love yourself, when you hardly know yourself, so I propose that we all get to know ourselves better. You can start by seeing what other people see in you.

Discovery

Don't just take what people say at face value though. Explore what it means when someone says: "I think you have lovely eyes." Go look in the mirror, and stare into your own eyes. That might sound weird, but go try it. Do you think the person meant the color of your eyes, how your makeup (if you're wearing any) complements your eyes, or what sort of stare you were giving at the time? Any one of these could be the reason, and once you find it, you can appreciate and emulate it.

The same is true of your writing style (what aspects of your writing do you think someone was complimenting?), the way you carry yourself (do you stand tall, look confident?), your ideas (are you quick-witted, funny, serious, impressionable?), and every other thing that makes you who you are.

In part, this is an exercise to determine what is good about you, but even more it is about actually appreciating those aspects of your life. At first, it may be easy to notice the things that others see in you, but eventually, you want to start finding the small things that make you truly unique. After all, you aren't defined by what other people see in you, but what you see in yourself.

Perspective

This is where my personal motto comes into play: "Never lose perspective."

We can never fully understand ourselves. That may make it sound like it's pointless to try, but in actuality, we must take it, as all things, as a relative truth. If I know myself "better" than you, then you will see that and might perceive me as being happier. Am I happier? I don't know. It's all relative, but relative to what? I could tell you that knowing myself makes me happy, but that doesn't matter and what's really going on here is that you're losing perspective and your grip on reality.

Take a step back, look at the big picture, and realize that by seeing something you want (to know yourself "better" - better than what?), you now have a goal. Use that knowledge to make you happier rather than self-defeating. Realize that the more you know about yourself, the closer you can get to loving yourself at full capacity. It should be an unattainable goal because you should always be striving to love yourself more. At least this way you'll never get bored with loving yourself. :-)