Day 16 — What Do You Like About Yourself?
Perhaps you accept all your personalities, but does that mean you like everything about yourself? Liking yourself is a very personal thing. If you don't like yourself, or all of yourself, you could have a miserable life.
Clarify Your View of the World
What you like about yourself will define what you like about other people. Maybe you don't like other people, that's a sure sign you have issues with yourself. To clarify your view of the world, and your view of others, it's helpful to know what you do like about yourself. Coming to terms with this can open up your relationships.
This is different from the need to love yourself. Love is blind, they say. Love is not judgmental, love accepts people as they are. To like yourself it is necessary to judge yourself, to work out the good and the rest. Take care and go gently with this.
Success is liking yourself, liking what you do,
and liking how you do it.
A more Rounded Person
When I was young there was a period when I didn't like much about myself.
I didn't think I had much to offer other people and I didn't think I was much use to the world. I found that I had little connection with other people, I was shy and reserved. I didn't think I was at all interesting, so I didn't feel I had anything to say to others. When people were friends with me, I wasn't really sure why.
In the course of time this disappeared as I slowly developed my relationships with others. This happened as I started to like parts of myself. I started to appreciate my humour, my ability to understand and talk about complex concepts and my passion for what interested me. As I appreciated more of myself I became a more rounded and interesting person.
As I grew to like myself more I grew to enjoy what I did and enjoy the relationships that grew up around me.
Challenge
- Have you thought about how much you like yourself? Have you ever carried out an inventory of your qualities and attributes?
- What do you like about yourself? What qualities do you have that you think are impressive or enjoyable?
- How do you capitalise on these qualities, how do you develop them? Do you exploit them in your dealing with other people.
- What other qualities could you develop to increase how much you like about yourself? how could you take this subject a lot further?