A lot of people feel that to get by in life, they’ve got to be perfect. And this automatically makes them think that they will lead a happier life. But this idea of perfection is something completely unattainable. But what is attainable is that we develop a positive self-image of ourselves. When we suffer from feelings of stress or depression in life, it serves to undermine our perception of ourselves. And this is the most important aspect of our own sense of self. When we have a very poor perception of ourselves, this feeds into so many other aspects of our lives, and it can threaten to undermine us, and from then, it can turn into a downward spiral. But, what can we do to learn the essential habits of developing a positive self-image?
The Power Of Language
What can happen is that once we get into a mental rut, or we have setback after setback, that we can start to give up, not completely, but there will be little things that we start to do which imply that we’re just slowing down. Changing our language, and being a lot more negative can be dangerous. Because your brain is unable to tell the difference between what is real and what is imaginary and because we start to feed our brains all this negative language, this is what your brain perceives to be the situation, and as such, these feelings of negativity keep perpetuating. And so, what is the way to get out of this? By altering your language. Making that conscious decision to speak in a more positive sense, rather than constantly filling the air with toxic words, means that everyone will benefit, not just yourself. It’s a very simple thing, but it can be difficult for us to get our heads around it. Instead of being so very negative, by taking the attitude where we start to use more positive and affirmative language, our brain will slowly catch on to this, and as such, you might feel the cloud lifting.
Realigning Your Perception Of Others
By having a specific perception of others can mean that we attempt to compete with those people based on our own perceived notions. This is very unhealthy, not to mention unrealistic. For example, you may have other people in your life that accomplished so many things by the time they were 30, you feel you’ve got a lot to catch up on. And this is further compounded with the Instagram approach to parenting, where everybody, it would seem, provides the absolutely perfect image of their lives online, and this can only increase our FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), as well as our inadequacies. And this means that we will never reach the dizzy heights of “perfection” that our friends seem to have achieved. But we all know, deep down, it’s about ensuring that the feelings of inadequacy or jealousy we have stem from a very unrealistic place. By understanding that no one is perfect and that we really take the time to drill the message into our heads, that we can start to live in our own psyches, rather than constantly thinking away, and looking at what everyone else is doing. From there, we can start to focus on ourselves, because, after all, we are the only ones we have control over.
Make The Little Tweaks
When we have such a negative self-image, we need to do what it takes to make ourselves feel good again. One of the simplest things we can do is to alter our appearance. Of course, there are places like VavaHealth that provides numerous mommy makeovers, but they can also help us to change our beauty habits. This is one little thing; if we spend so long being stuck in a rut, and we just don’t feel good about ourselves anymore, the best thing we can do is to walk past the mirror and make ourselves think “wow, she’s attractive!” This can feel like a very tall order, especially if we aren’t in the right frame of mind, but this is where the little alterations in life can make all the difference. It’s not just about the right beauty regime. In addition to this, it’s about getting into better habits in life. Because if you find that you are burning the candle at both ends, and you have unhealthy coping strategies, especially if you live a very stressful life, this is going to show up on your face and in your mind. And this means that we’ve got to find the best habits that we can maintain every day. Unsurprisingly, it’s the simple ones that make the biggest impact, but what are these?
Developing The Right Habits
The right habits are what you need to make yourself feel more relaxed. This can be very difficult to achieve if we’re so used to being in an emotional funk. But, if we have these constant feelings of stress, the best place to begin is to minimize these symptoms we feel every single day. You might have heard a lot of people talk about mindfulness, and it’s a very important thing to do, especially if you have a very poor perception of yourself. But becoming mindful when we’re busy parents is easier said than done. The one trick to really bypass all of this is to breathe! It’s a very simple thing, but there’s so much research out there saying that proper deep breathing does so much to flood your body with goodness, it can help you feel better, sleep better, and generally be a better person. So, rather than undertaking a drastic overhaul of your life, and attending to building brand new routines where takes a while to settle in, think about starting small. Breathing is one of the best things you can do, and there is a link here to one of the most popular proponents of deep breathing. Because if we feel that we’ve got such a bad perception of ourselves, we’ve got to make massive changes to feel any of the benefits. This isn’t necessarily true. The small habits can be the most effective.
The Power Of Failure
We can be afraid of failure. And when we have such a poor perception of ourselves, that one more failure can mean that we are a failure in life, the universe, and everything! But, when we think about this fear of failure, what is it that we’re actually afraid of? We can look at the reasons that we’re scared of failure, and once we align our perception, these issues can seem very insignificant. We’re so afraid of failure, that we think that it’s going to set us back 30 years or so. But instead, if we are to improve our mindset, failure is one of the best things that we can do. We don’t think it’s good at the time, but failing can do wonders for your feeling of self-confidence. Because when we hit a snag, this can feed into negative self-talk, and, after all, it’s far easier for us to kick ourselves while we’re down. Instead, by learning why something went wrong, we can learn how to avoid this in the future.
Understanding That We’re All Works In Progress
This is one of the biggest lessons we can all learn when it comes to developing a positive self-image. We are all works in progress, none of us are perfect, and for those people that are pushing perfection or we think that they are perfect for absolutely banal reasons, we’ve got to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to life. We are all works in progress, and if we feel that we’ve got to compare ourselves to others, we are truly neglecting ourselves. And it’s important to remember that we can’t get everything right first time, or second time, or even the twelfth! But the more we learn about ourselves, the more we can improve, but also, realize that the supposed failures we have are not negatives at all. As we learn how to improve our lives, and make ourselves feel all the better for the little habits, and make these alterations to our lives, it’s at this point we can be truly relaxed in who we are. The idea of perfection is not attainable, nor do we want to attain it! This is the key to having a positive self-image of ourselves; that we realize that our imperfections are just those things that they make us who we are.
We can spend so long striving for perfection, that we completely lose track of what’s important in life- our children, our families, and all of these things that we should be focusing on, when, in fact, we’ve been preoccupied with getting the perfect version of everything. A positive self-image is about understanding who we are and accepting this. And it’s not to say that we all have frustrations about parts of our anatomy, or that there are things that we could improve on. This is the beauty of being a work in progress.
