Self-acceptance is to fully accept yourself, characteristics, personality and everything that makes you YOU. We can (sometimes) get so stuck inside our own heads that we forget to take it easy on ourselves. Afterall, we’re still human.
Self-acceptance is important for a whole range of reasons, mostly relating to our mental health and personal wellbeing. However, all of this ultimately ties in with us becoming our best selves and continuously improving and growing as individuals.
What is Self Acceptance?
It should be a no-brainer that self-acceptance is accepting yourself for who and what you are. Self-acceptance also means accepting all your attributes and skills whether positive or negative.
There should be no discrimination from your side about accepting only certain parts of yourself. It’s accepting your whole self and being “okay” with it. Sometimes people feel like they are terrible people and have done terrible things.
I get that too. We feel like we have these terrible traits (along with the good) and we don’t know what to do about them. But that’s just the thing. It’s about accepting reality for what it is. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you like or enjoy that reality.
It’s about accepting yourself and acknowledging what you’ve done regardless if you agree with it or not. By no means do you have to appreciate or celebrate every aspect of yourself.
Why is Self-Acceptance Important?
Self-acceptance is fundamental to our overall wellbeing and mental health. This may be due to a link that exist between mental health and low levels of self-acceptance.
Having a low self-acceptance can have an affect on daily tasks, work, relationships and wellbeing. Here are a few reasons why you should take self-acceptance serious:
Being Honest About Your Strengths and Weaknesses
By accepting yourself you’re also accepting both your strengths and weaknesses. But before you can accept your strengths and weaknesses you have to be honest about them.
Self-acceptance enables us to be open and honest and understanding of our strengths and weaknesses. This in turn creates a more positive attitude toward who we really are creating the opportunity for personal growth.
Improves Self Image
By being honest with yourself about who and what you are, your characteristics and personality, you are taking the first steps toward self-acceptance and improving your overall self-image.
You can gain a more accurate and stronger sense of self image once you accept who you are (fully). It also ties in with a higher sense of confidence. It gives us a better understanding of our perceived negative qualities and that these don’t define us or form part of our self-worth.
Prevents Us From Holding Us Back
Basically, when we accept ourselves we gain a more positive self-image and gain confidence. By being more confident in ourselves we are also more “ready” to take action.
We know where our strengths and weaknesses are, therefore we know in which areas we need to work harder on. We know where to improve and what are capabilities are.
It also means that we have a more realistic view of our goals and will take the necessary steps to reach them. We’re more motivated to reach our goals when we have confidence in ourselves.
We view failures and setbacks as learning opportunities. Self-acceptance teaches us that failure does not define us and should not stand in our way to success.
Greater Self-Compassion
Self-compassion means treating yourself in the same loving way you would treat a good friend (Neff, 2023). It’s commonly known that we tend to be our own worst critics.
When we make mistakes, fail, don’t get it right the first time etc. we tend to talk down harshly to ourselves. We may even talk harshly to ourselves using words like “stupid”, “worthless”, “not good enough”. These are not things we say to our friends or family members when they make mistakes, so why would we talk to ourselves in that way?
Being kinder and having more compassion toward ourselves can make us more resilient in the face of setbacks.
Be Yourself
Since self-acceptance is being honest to yourself about yourself, you’ll naturally feel more comfortable being yourself.
Accepting yourself means you can be and show up as your own unique, authentic self without worrying about the judgements of others. You no longer feel the need to hide or be “in character” around others.
That’s how it’s supposed to be.
Conclusion
Self-acceptance is a circular motion of positivity. The more self-acceptance, the more positive the effect on other areas of your life.
By accepting yourself you’re more honest about your strengths and weaknesses which leads to a more positive self-image. Having a positive self-image means having more self-compassion.
Having more compassion toward yourself means you’re more resilient in the face of setbacks. Therefore, you gain more self-confidence which means you view failure and setback as opportunities to learn.
It also means that the goals you set will be more realistic and in line with who and what you really and truly are. Thus you gain greater independence and have a higher chance of reaching success.