I may seem confident but it is hard for me to take a compliment – I only focus on the negative things about me. Or I wonder if the person really meant the compliment. Part of this is because I’ve been through a lot over the past couple of years that shattered my self esteem.
Often the person we are hardest on is looking right back at us in the mirror.
Every single one of us has:
- Made mistakes
- Said the wrong thing
- Ignored our intuition
- Not taken a leap of faith because we were scared
- Worried too much
- Listened to other’s opinions about us
- Let the self-critical voice inside our heads take over
- Tried to go at it alone
- Waited too long to make a decision
We try.
We fail.
We get back up.
We persevere. We learn. We grow.
It may be messy, tiring and hard, but we’re so much better because of it.
Every wrong turn and bad decision makes us stronger and more resilient. And as long as we are determined to learn from these mistakes we will grow.
The most important thing is that we don’t continually beat ourselves up when we fail.
I’ve had to work at silencing my inner critic that constantly tells me I’m not good enough or that I am a failure. And that same voice that tells me I’m an imposter.
This is one of the hardest lessons that I’ve had to learn.
What’s the point of beating yourself up over and over again? Wouldn’t it be more productive to learn from your mistakes or find a way to fix something that went wrong? And when you can’t fix something that went wrong can you learn from the experience and walk away with your head held high? Can you accept that some things in life are just not meant to be and that some doors close for a reason even if the reason is not apparent? I often wonder if this is more of a gender thing because I don’t know if men beat themselves up as much as women do.
We talk about having kindness for others a lot but we have to start with ourselves first.
So please start today. Give yourself grace. Silence that voice in your head that makes you feel bad and question yourself.
And the next time you give me a compliment, I promise I will take it and just say thank you.