How to practice self-acceptance

Do you accept yourself?

What does that even mean?

Self-acceptance is not an automatic given. To accept yourself means to acknowledge both your flaws and your strengths. It means embracing who you are without conditions or qualifications.

It might be easy to accept the good and positive parts of yourself, but you might struggle to accept the uglier parts of your personality and mind.

If you’re struggling with depression or mental illness, you may also have the opposite problem – you readily accept what is ‘bad’ about yourself, but struggle to see anything good.

True self-acceptance comes from acknowledging that you have undesirable traits. You may be able to change and improve over time, but only if you first accept who you are right now.

Self-acceptance and self-esteem

Self-acceptance is similar to self-esteem. The key difference is that self-esteem is how you feel about yourself, and self-acceptance is a simple acknowledgement of yourself.

Psychologists believe the two go hand-and-hand, and one is important for the other. Seltzer (2008) says, “Whereas self-esteem refers specifically to how valuable, or worthwhile, we see ourselves, self-acceptance alludes to a far more global affirmation of self. When we’re self-accepting, we’re able to embrace all facets of ourselves—not just the positive, more ‘esteem-able’ parts.”

Studies from Vasile (2013) show that a lack of self-acceptance is related to lower levels of general well-being, and may be a symptom of mental illness. Self-acceptance is also valuable for addiction recovery.

How to build self-acceptance

There are many ways to improve your self-acceptance. Common suggestions include:

• Positive self-talk. Read our article on practicing positive self-talk.
• Affirmations. These are statements you say to yourself to affect the outcome you want. Read more about affirmations.
• Forgive yourself. Let go of self-blame for actions you’ve done in the past.
• List your positive and negative traits. Include more positive than negative.
• Journal examples of your positive qualities.
• Explore the beliefs you have about yourself and where they came from. Many of our beliefs about self are formed in our childhood, influenced by our parents, siblings, teachers, friends, media, and other children. Ask yourself if any of these messages still dominate your life, and if it’s time for them to change.
• Remind yourself that a bad situation or flaw does not take away from your good qualities.
• Treating yourself to a fun activity you enjoy.
• Celebrating your successes.

Thoughts to increase self-acceptance

Positive Psychology recommends practicing these thoughts every day to improve your self-acceptance:
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• I’m not a bad person when I act badly; I am a person who has acted badly.
• I’m not a good person when I act well and accomplish things; I am a person who has acted well and accomplished things.
• I can accept myself whether I win, lose, or draw.
• I can be myself without trying to prove myself.
• I am not a fool for acting foolishly. If I were a fool, I could never learn from my mistakes.
• I have many faults and can work on correcting them without blaming, condemning, or damning myself for having them.
• Accepting myself as being human is better than trying to prove myself superhuman or rating myself as subhuman.
• I can itemise my weaknesses, disadvantages, and failures without judging or defining myself by them.

Are you practicing self-acceptance? How can you improve?