We have all been there. You’re sitting around the house or office one day and just feel stuck with feelings of self-doubt. These feelings can overwhelm you and make you feel hopeless. The good news is that you are not alone. The better news is that no one is born feeling self-empowered. Confidence is learned. There is no question everyone has some insecurities and fears. That is just a natural part of life. No matter how many insecurities you may have, you can take the power back by starting on the path toward self-empowerment.
Start with Positive Affirmations
The most important thing you can do to start on the path toward self-empowerment is to challenge your negative thoughts. The next time a negative thought pops into your head, challenge those thoughts with positive affirmations. Are you nervous for a meeting and think it’s going to go poorly? Tell yourself: “I know what I am doing” or “I know this is going to be a big hit today.”
It doesn’t matter what you say but how you say it. The more affirmation you can provide yourself, the more you will start to believe it’s true. Continue repeating it until you believe it, and with that will come plenty of confidence. Flipping the script on negative self-talk will allow you to bring loads of positivity to your life. More importantly, your mindset will change, and you will feel like you can do anything.
Take Responsibility for Your Thoughts
If someone criticizes the work you do, how you react says everything about how empowered you will feel. The bottom line is that the choice is yours and yours alone about how you allow yourself to be perceived by others. If you allow someone else to rule your thoughts, ruin your day and make you feel like you are not good enough, you will no longer have the power.
Do you want to take the power back? Good. To feel self-empowered, make the decision to brush off the criticism and feel good about yourself and your work. If someone wants to put you down, don’t agree with them. Circle back to the idea of positive affirmation.
Be Prepared to Fail
The last thing you want to do is to create excuses for the decisions you make or the actions you take. The more open you are to accepting you cannot succeed at everything, the more control you will feel. Accept that you can and will make mistakes. Don’t hold yourself to a higher standard, as that can actually make you feel less empowered. Instead, accept yourself as someone who is imperfect, can fail and will fail. Once you start to believe that this imperfection is something that can be embraced, you will feel even more empowered and less afraid to fail. It will feel like a ton of bricks has been lifted off your shoulders.
Relax with Meditation
When it comes to boosting self-empowerment, one of the best and most unappreciated tricks is meditation. To truly feel empowered, you know yourself completely, inside and outside. No matter what type of meditation you choose, connecting back to yourself will help introduce or reintroduce heightened levels of self-empowerment. Meditation is an excellent way to free your body of stress, enjoy silence and boost the levels of serotonin in your brain. Decreasing feelings of stress and increasing feelings of confidence will do wonders to boost your level of feeling self-empowered. The good thing is that you don’t need to meditate for long. Start small. Try 15 or 20 minutes and allow your body to relax. Once you are finished, you should be refreshed and feel empowered enough to take on the whole world.
Share Your Power with Others
One of the greatest gifts you can give is to pass on your feelings of self-empowerment. There are plenty of others like you out there feeling uncertain and lost. Sharing what you learn with others will allow you to feel like you are helping in ways you didn’t know existed. With every instance of help, assistance or friendly conversation, your own levels of self-empowerment will increase. It’s a win-win for everyone. Allow others around you, whether they are strangers or family, to see your newfound confidence, and they, too, can find their own peace through self-empowerment.
Don’t Take on the World
The last thing you want to do is try and take on the world. As your feelings of self-empowerment start to increase, know your boundaries. You cannot take on the world – sometimes you have to say no. Are you in a position where you have to say no to someone or something in order to continue being positive in your own life? Then say no. Do not let yourself get trapped by guilt or anything else that can bring down your newfound empowerment. The word “no” often comes with negative connotations, yet it should not be stigmatized. You cannot take on the world. Repeat that often. Self-empowerment sometimes means you need to be selfish and just take care of you.
Rest assured that success is within your grasp. The more responsibility you can take for yourself, the more you can challenge your inner thoughts, meditate and share your learning, the more self-empowered you will feel. None of these are good enough to do it alone, but together, you can find a path that you previously did not know existed. When you find the path to self-empowerment, you will never want to leave. Neither will anyone around you.