I am Proud of You

We are our own worst critics. We beat up on ourselves.  We spend time and energy thinking about the things we did wrong. We re-play the mistakes that we made. We get mad at ourselves for not yet achieving all the things that we want to achieve. 

Sure, they tell us that we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves, that we shouldn’t take life so seriously. That we should be grateful for what we have. That we shouldn’t tell ourselves things that we wouldn’t tell our best friends. That we should feel good about how far we’ve come. We live in a society that is privileged, that has literally anything we could possibly ever want. We aren’t starving to death, we have roofs over our heads, clothes on our backs.  

But it’s not that easy. It’s not like we can just snap our fingers and be suddenly happy.

We know intellectually that we can never be perfect and that we would never expect anyone else to be.  But we still get mad at ourselves. We still replay in our minds that time we screwed up, that mistake we made, that chance we didn’t take.

But here’s the deal. We don’t always have to live like this. We can learn to be proud of ourselves exactly as we are.

With that in mind, when we starting feeling the need to criticize ourselves, we can take a beat. A pause. We can stop the negative loop and start to remember all of the reasons why we are a great person. Why we are all worthy of love and respect. When we are feeling down, a boost of pride and self confidence is what we need.  The constant self criticism isn’t making anything any easier. It isn’t solving any problems.

For instance, when’s the last time you called a friend ugly, told them they weren’t good enough, or discouraged them from following their dreams?  Never. You wouldn't say that to anyone, yet we seem to have no problem saying it to ourselves!

​We have to believe in our greatness to inspire us to find solutions to make it all better.  We are more powerful than we think we are.  We are beautiful beyond measure. We just have to remind ourselves of this.
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We can start by writing down a few reasons to be proud of ourselves right now.  Remembering these things the next time we are feeling down can help us flip the script. Instead of being negative toward ourselves, we can inspire ourselves. We can give ourselves the momentum to take powerful action toward our goals.

I am Proud of You

• You have survived some really tough things in your life.
• You have gotten better at a lot of things.
• You have learned a lot.
• You have been a bright spot in so many people’s lives.
• You have made other people laugh and smile.
• You have inspired people.
• You have a unique set of skills and talents.
• You have accomplished a lot and you still have accomplishments ahead of you to look forward to.
• You have never stopped dreaming.
• You have always reached for more.
• You have made a significant impact on all of us.
• You have spread love and kindness with your words, thoughts, and actions.

I am proud of you. You deserve to be treated with respect by everyone, especially yourself. The world needs your special gift that only you have to offer. The next time you are feeling down in the dumps about yourself, I hope that you will stop. Pause. And take a minute to reflect on all the reasons why we are proud of you.