“Why can’t I be more like them?” “I can’t believe how stupid I am sometimes.” “I will never be good enough for that position.” “I don’t deserve my girlfriend/my boyfriend.” If one of those thoughts crosses your mind, you may need to pay attention.

How to know if someone truly accepts themselves? When your self-worth goes up, things start to change for the better. A person who scores high on self-acceptance usually has a positive self-attitude. They are aware of and accept all aspects of themselves, good or bad. They are not self-critical or confused about their identity and they do not wish they were any different from who they already are. They hold awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses. They are realistic yet subjective of their own talents, their abilities and their general self-worth feeling of satisfaction with who they are despite deficiencies and regardless of past behaviors and choices. Some psychological benefits of self-acceptance include mood regulation, a decrease in depressive symptoms, and an increase in positive emotions.

So how to get more self-acceptance in our lives?

1. Practice gratitude. When you are grateful for the things that you have, it forces you to focus on the positive circumstances in your life. The more you are grateful, the less you will focus on the negative things in your life.
2. Celebrate your strengths. Just think about the things you are good at and focus on them, do them more, spend less time on what makes you feel weak.
3. Help others. When we help others, there is a chemical reaction in our body that makes us feel good. So, it helps us both emotionally and physically when we help other people. It also works the other way around. When we are self-accepting, it can make other people happy.
4. Do not take things personally. Realize that when some people judge you or are mean to you, they are the ones who have a problem. You are not the one to blame. Just do not care.
5. Lower your expectations. It is totally fine to have goals, but when your expectations are too high and you fail to meet them, you risk losing self-acceptance. If you are requiring yourself to reach all your ambitious goals to be happy, it may not be to your advantage. Try to reduce or limit your expectations.
6. Surround yourself with positive people. Take inventory of people you use to walk out with. Are there people in your life that are just always negative? Are there people that are just not supportive of you? As hard as it might be, you got to get them out. If that sounds too difficult, consider spending less time with them.

Sources: Psychology Today, Forbes, Anderson University, Mind owl