DOES YOUR CHARACTER MAKE YOU BEAUTIFUL?

I was talking to a plastic surgeon recently who said: “Anyone can be beautiful nowadays with the right surgeon.” Now, of course, he was talking about the good old physical beauty that she can control and enhance with a touch of her scalpel and a skillful hand movement. But in a world that’s more and more focused on physical beauty, where we not only want to live forever, but we want to do so looking as if we are still in our 20s, keeping up to date with our moisturizers and sunscreen and never letting one evening go by without removing our makeup and applying night cream.

This in turn got me thinking to how much value we place on character and how many people out there will gladly book a monthly facial, a little botox session or whatever other beautification procedure of choice, yet they would be reluctant to spend the same amount of money on something that beautifies their character or their personality. Now I’m not saying it’s time to ditch your beauty routines, but maybe it’s time you added to character beauty routines as well. Here are some ideas of beauty routines meant to make your character absolutely gorgeous:

Practice Kindness!

Kindness is somewhat easy to practice when everything is going well. When you’re on top of the world, it’s easy to be kind, but when you feel like you’re swimming upstream and the world is against you, it’s definitely not as easy. However easy or hard it is, practice it every day and every chance you get.

Educate Your Spirit!

We learn skills every day to be better at our job or just better at whatever our passions and hobbies are, but we rarely make time to educate our spirit. Take a self-improvement class at least every 6 months. Consider it your detox, your reset, your next step in becoming the person you want to become, not just at a professional level, but also personal.

Set Empathy Goals!

We all have people we need to deal with that really take up all our energy, those people that make us feel exhausted and trigger everything that could be triggered in us. Take small steps, regardless how small they are towards building your resilience. Since we can’t avoid some of those people, we might as well learn how to deal with them. For me every time I see those people and I don’t let them trigger me, it’s a victory. Other times, it’s about standing up to them and not letting them blab away when they are being hurtful towards me or the people I love. It doesn’t matter what your boundaries are. As long as you are clear about them and you are willing to stick to them.

Be Gentle On Yourself!

You will make mistakes, you will have moments when you fail, but that, by no means makes you a failure. Be gentle on yourself. Putting yourself down only breaks your spirit, while being gentle can show you how to do things better next time and make sure you are succeeding.

Do Your Best!

Try to do your best in every circumstance. If it works out, great and if it doesn’t, you will know that you still did your best. Practicing doing your best regardless of the outcome will have you focused on your ethics and your commitment, which are way more valuable than a one time win.

Embrace Your Imperfection!

Brené Brown describes this one the best “Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it’s often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.”

Have Fun!

Whatever you do, however you do it, just have fun, enjoy the silliness of everyday life, the absurdity and the joy of the world around you!