Self Acceptance: Why is it So Hard?
And how do we make it easier?
“Accept yourself for who you are — flaws included”
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that statement — and for the longest time I just didn’t understand it!
Accept my flaws? Why would I accept the things I hate the most about myself?
Shouldn’t I be battling with my flaws in order to defeat them?
And that is exactly what my problem was — I was treating self improvement like a war, and I was constantly battling with myself in my attempt to win it.
Why Battling With Your Flaws Doesn’t Work
Language is powerful. If we tell ourselves we hate ourselves, it sticks.
Many people make the mistake of thinking they can keep control of ‘self hate’ by concentrating it onto one ‘flaw’ —essentially using self hate as a weapon to try and ‘crush’ that part of ourselves.
But this urge to ‘fix ourselves’ tends to become obsessive. And when we obsess over our flaws, they become bigger and bigger in our heads until we feel like they define us.
We look at ourselves and we can’t see the good things anymore, so dwarfed are they by our own perception of our flaws.
And suddenly that self hate that we thought we had under control has taken over.
On some level we don’t want to see the good in ourselves anymore, in case it distracts us from our ‘mission’. We are afraid that if treat ourselves too kindly we will lose control over our flaws and they will get worse.
So we fuel our own self hate, believing that we need it in order to ‘improve’. We label ourselves with cruel words like ‘lazy’ ‘stupid’ and ‘unlikable’. We essentially become our own abuser.
RuPaul (queen of unapologetic self love) has a name for this part of us that thinks it’s A-OK to abuse ourselves. Our ‘inner saboteur’.
Our inner saboteur gaslights us. They won’t let us trust any feelings of confidence or pride. They convince us that those feelings are a trick, a delusion that will prevent us from moving forward.
Our inner saboteur won’t let us trust anyone who loves us. We grow suspicious of them, rejecting their compliments and questioning their motives.
Our inner saboteur seeks evidence to validate our negative self perception. Suddenly we are consumed with negative memories of ourselves, and our inner saboteur convinces us that these memories are what define us. Anything anybody says to the contrary can’t be trusted.
This kind of paranoid thinking leads to us feeling more isolated, and this pushes us further into the self-hate spiral.
The sad irony of the situation is that the whole reason we wanted to ‘improve’ in the first place is so that we could feel better about ourselves.
… Or was it?
Why Motivation Matters
OK — so now we know that using self hate as a tool when we’re trying to feel good about ourselves is… counterproductive.
But — I think we already knew that, didn’t we?
So how did we ever convince ourselves otherwise?
Well, it has a lot to do with motivation.
We’ve all had times when a voice in our head has told us ‘you’re not good enough’. And, naturally, we want that voice to go away.
It is at this point that we basically have two options.
Option A. We can recognise that this voice is not there to help us, but to sabotage us, and use self love and self care to nourish our self confidence until we can firmly disagree with that voice and say ‘No, actually, I am good enough.’
Option B. We can believe the voice, and ask it what it wants us to do. It will tell us that in order to be ‘good enough’ we need to change XYZ about ourselves. We then start obsessing over XYZ and… well, we’ve already covered what happens next.
If our goal truly is to feel good about ourselves, then it’s obvious that option A is the right choice.
But the problem is, even though most people DO want to feel good about themselves, many of them simply don’t trust option A. They don’t trust that they have the power to change their own perception of themselves.
They believe that in order to feel self worth, they have to earn it.
And that motivation is what makes them more likely to lean towards option B and convince themselves that they can (somehow!) make it work for them.
Motivation matters — and there is a subtle but key difference between ‘I want to feel good about myself’ and ‘I want to earn the right to feel good about myself.’
When we use ‘I want to earn the right to feel good about myself’ as a motivator, we are telling ourselves that we do not yet have that right.
Imagine if anyone in your life turned to you and said ‘You do not have the right to feel good about yourself.’ — There is no other word for it, this is abuse.
Stop Viewing Yourself Through Other People’s Eyes
Whoa — hang on, when did other people come into this?
Well, actually, how other people see us (or rather, our perception of how other people see us) is almost always at the root of our problem with accepting ourselves.
Because, at the end of the day, there are a lot of people out there who do not accept us for who we are. And some of us are unlucky enough to have those people in our families.
So accepting ourselves is SUPER HARD when we are in the habit of relying on other people’s validation.
Again, this basically leaves us with two options:
Option A: Stop relying on the validation of other people and discover the magic of giving ourselves that validation instead.
Option B: Do everything we can to gain that validation from other people (on the assumption that once we feel ‘validated enough’ then the ‘you’re not good enough’ voice will go away.)
And once again, even though option A is the clear choice, people don’t trust it, and they go for option B.
And — you guessed it, they never feel validated enough.
Why? Like we’ve discussed, our inner saboteur has convinced us that if we let ourselves feel too good then we lose control — and then our flaws will come back! And then everyone will know we’re a fraud! And all that validation will disappear! And then we will have nothing!
(Our inner saboteur has a habit of spiraling)
Now, many many people tell themselves ‘I don’t care what other people think, I’m doing this for me.’ — but they don’t mean it. They are deluding themselves, because they don’t want to admit that all this grueling self hate they are putting themselves through is actually in service of other people.
When we say ‘I’m doing this for myself’ — we need to be careful to ensure that we are doing it for our true selves, and not a version of ourselves we’ve made up in our heads.
This study shows that when we perceive our ‘future self’ (for example, when we are making a new year’s resolution) we perceive them differently from our present self. Basically, the part of our brain that lights up is the part that thinks about other people.
We create an idealised version of ourselves and we try to ‘become’ them. When we say “I am going to go for a run 3 days a week” — we imagine ourselves as a different person, who finds it easy to run 3 times a week. We imagine our ‘future self’ as someone who is unencumbered with our current barriers and challenges.
And when we wake up and we find that we have not magically become that person, we end up disappointed, and we take it out on ourselves.
So when we decide to ‘self improve’ — we can easily fall into the trap of creating this idealised ‘future self’ in our heads, and letting them run the show.
If we do not live up to their standards, we let them punish us. We tell ourselves that this is OK. It’s OK for this idealised self to bully us, because they are better than us, so we deserve it. If we do what they say, we can become them, and then everything will be better!! Right???
“I’m not doing this for other people — I’m doing it for myself.”
Sounds good on the surface, but if by “myself” we actually mean “an idealised version of myself that I want to become” — then unfortunately, this is just the same as doing it for someone else — ultimately fruitless.
Some of you may be reading this and wondering: is this me? Am I doing this?
How can you tell the difference between the ‘true self’ and the ‘idealised self’?
Well — the ‘idealised self’ is ultimately a fantasy, and as such is pretty weak. Ask some probing questions, and they’ll fall down.
So, if you’re worried that your actions are being dictated by an ‘idealised self’, ask this question:
If my ‘self improvement’ efforts were invisible to everyone else, would I still do them?
Would you still work on your emotional control if no one else could tell the difference? Would you still exercise if it had no effect on the way you look to other people? Would you meditate every day if you couldn’t ever tell anyone that you meditate every day?
Important note: if the answer to any of these questions is ‘no’ — that doesn’t mean you have to stop doing these things. But you should probably find a better reason for doing them. Discover what value these activities bring to you, regardless of how it might change other people’s perception of you.
The main difference between your ‘true self’ and your ‘idealised self’ is simple:
Your ‘idealised self’ wants to be. Your ‘true self’ wants to do.
Being Vs Doing
So I have a whole philosophy on the language we use with ourselves, and to be honest I will probably save most of it for another piece, but let’s take a little look at the difference between ‘being’ and ‘doing’.
I believe that when we talk about ourselves, we basically need to eradicate the phrases ‘I am’ and ‘I want to be’ from our lexicon.
We all know that labels like ‘I am stupid’ or ‘I am worthless’ are toxic and harmful. But what about ‘I am beautiful’ or ‘I am intelligent’?
I believe that these labels are also harmful, because they can still lead to an unhealthy sense of self.
Take, for example ‘I am intelligent.’ How is this measured? How can it be proved? How many other people need to agree with this for it to feel true?
The fact that there are so many questions around this statement makes it quite weak. So if we allow ourselves to become dependent on it for our sense of self worth, we make ourselves very vulnerable.
People who invest too much in the label of ‘I am intelligent’ usually struggle when they get things wrong. Their self esteem takes a massive hit, just because they made a human mistake.
This can effect their behaviour. They might lash out and try and put others down to try and feel superior. They might shy away from trying new things because they are so afraid to look ‘stupid’.
Statements beginning with ‘I am’ are usually an attempt to be absolute. And when we define ourselves in absolute ways, we restrict our ability to grow.
So, my method is to replace ‘being statements’ (like ‘I am’) with ‘doing statements’. (I do, I find, I make, I act, I speak, I can, I have, etc)
So instead of saying ‘I am intelligent’ — I can say a whole range of much more specific things like…
- ‘I process information quickly’
- ‘I think critically about things’
- ‘I have a quick wit’
- ‘I find problem solving easy’
- ‘I can read other people’s emotions’
When we start speaking with statements like these, we stop relying on absolutes. Everything listed above is a skill, and we all know that skills can either improve with use, or deteriorate through lack of use.
So by using ‘doing statements’, we acknowledge that all the different components of ourselves are fluid, flexible, and may change.
For extra clarity, add ‘often’ into the mix. Eg. ‘I often think critically about things.’ This further clarifies that these statements are not absolute.
Now, this whole article is about accepting our flaws, so let’s give this a try on the things we might not like about ourselves.
For flaws, it is very important to use the ‘often/sometimes’ prefix, so that we keep them grounded in reality.
Unhelpful label: “I am a bad friend”
Helpful alternatives:
- I sometimes lose my temper
- I often judge people harshly
- I often struggle to stay in touch with people
- I sometimes take my insecurities out on others
Now, it may not be easy confronting these parts of ourselves, but it’s a lot more constructive than bashing ourselves over the head with ‘I am a bad friend’. This realistic assessment of our personality gives us a solid place to work from.
We move away from the absolute of ‘I am’, and see the truth: just like the things we like about ourselves, the things we don’t like about ourselves are fluid, flexible, and open to change.
But How Can We Accept Our Flaws and Still Want to Change Them?
Ok, so even when I could see clearly that battling with my flaws was both unhealthy and unhelpful, I still always used to struggle with this question.
Isn’t the desire to grow/change/improve something about myself contradictory to the idea of ‘Accepting myself as I am’?
Turns out — no!
Because ‘accepting our flaws’ doesn’t mean thinking that we’re perfect, and that we can do whatever we want regardless of the consequences.
It doesn’t mean becoming one of those toxic ‘If you can’t handle me at my worst then you don’t deserve me at my best’ memes.
Accepting ourselves means accepting that our flaws are a part of our journey, and that what we do with them next is our responsibility.
It means accepting that we will never be ‘finished’. We are constantly in a state of growth, and we will continue to be so until the day we die.
When you think about it that way, your relationship with your ‘future self’ completely transforms. No longer are they a perfect being who is allowed to bully and abuse you because you can’t live up to their standards. No, instead your ‘future self’ is a person who wants to be nurtured by you.
Your ‘future self’ is not your master. They are your child, and you are their caregiver.
So ‘self improvement’ stops being about how you change the ‘you’ of today, and becomes how you look out for the ‘you’ of tomorrow.
And to do that, you need to put faith in yourself. Accept yourself, nay, embrace yourself completely as you are, faults and all.
Because at the end of the day, that is the only person who has the power to make your future wonderful.
Still Struggling? Here Are Some Quick Thoughts That May Help.
Ditch the Word ‘Improve’ if it Doesn’t Serve You
If you have been down an unhealthy path in the name of ‘self improvement’ then the phrase itself might be triggering for you.
Instead, try alternatives like ‘growth’ ‘development’ ‘evolution’ or ‘expansion’. These words can feel better because they indicate moving forward without implying that there is anything wrong with where you’re at right now.
Reframe Your ‘Faults’ and ‘Flaws’ as ‘Barriers’ and ‘Challenges’
Similarly to ‘improve’, words like ‘faults’ and ‘flaws’ may be getting in your way. You may feel judged by yourself and this can lead to getting defensive.
So, instead — think of them as ‘barriers’ and ‘challenges’.
A really easy way to do this is repeat the being vs doing exercise, but make sure you use phrases like ‘I struggle’ and ‘I find it hard’
And of course — remember the sometimes/often prefix to keep it grounded.
For example:
“I sometimes struggle to keep my cool”
“I often find it hard to see the best in people”
Using this language makes your position more empathetic. You stop seeing yourself as ‘flawed’ and start seeing yourself as a person who faces a challenge — one which they can overcome!
Don’t ‘Push’ Yourself
Another key language trick here. Don’t ‘push’ yourself.
Encourage, nurture, support, assure, boost, inspire, hearten, cheer…
There are so many better words than ‘push’.
Take a Leap of Faith
Look, I can present logical arguments as to why you need to accept yourself, but ultimately, the only thing that will quiet those doubting voices in your head is action.
I was skeptical about self acceptance for a long time, but at the end of the day, nothing else was working. So despite my doubts, I gave it a go. And now I have experienced the magic of self acceptance, and I have the know-how required to write this article.
So, maybe you still believe it won’t work for you. But all I’m really asking you to do is act kindly towards yourself.
Really, what’s the worst that could happen?
And, importantly, what’s the best?
