I believe that the very first step, even before any of the steps in my free eBook – the 10 Steps to #DefineYourself: How to build Success Despite Your Disability, is to love yourself.
Loving yourself means to accept who you are, where you are in life, and both your abilities and limitations.
I believe that you cannot start making changes in your life if you are carrying the baggage of regrets, resentment, bitterness, for anything that you have done in your past, anything that has been done to you that haunt you, or any diagnosis of a disability that you feel limits your life.
This is different from than just forgiveness if someone has hurt you. I am talking about acceptance. Until you come to peace with who you are, what you can and cannot do because of limitations – regardless of your limitations are caused by a disability that was or was not your fault. You will either never achieve any meaningful success in your life and if you are fortunate to achieve success, it will not be the level of success you could achieve if you first accepted yourself for where you are today.
Loving yourself does not mean to accept who you are today. It also means loving yourself enough to work on changing who you are.
You are bitter, depressed, or curse a lot. These traits will hold you back from creating the success you desire and deserve. How? No one wants to be around someone who is bitter or depressed all the time. I do not know a successful person who has a potty mouth.
If you have personality traits or attitudes that are negative, the first thing you need to do is to accept that is who you are today and that is ok. That is not the last thing you need to do, at the same time you are accepting and loving yourself for who you are today, be saying to yourself that I love myself enough to change those traits, so I can grow into the successful person I dream of being.
If you have any limitations, regardless of if they were caused by a disability or by your own choices, you must love yourself for where you are today. While loving yourself enough to commit to doing whatever it takes to overcome those limitations.
Granted, some limitations you may never be able to overcome and that is why it is so important that you love yourself for who and where you are today. You must also accept that even though you may not be able to fully overcome your limitations, you can commit to finding ways to work around your limitations or make your limit sons work for you.
Remember, God made you the way you are today for a reason. Sometimes that reason may be to teach you a lesson (humility, tolerance of others, etc.) and other times He may have made you the way you are today to challenge you to grow.
The best way to get started on loving yourself so you can start building success is to start each day saying to yourself, “I accept who I am today with all my limitations, and I know I am working on overcoming those limitations so I can become the successful person I desire and deserve to be in the future.”
Join the conversation with your fellow #DefineYourselfers in the #DefineYourself Community on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/dfyscommunity
