Three Ways to Empower Yourself

When you’re feeling unsure of yourself or your capabilities, your options in life can seem few and far between.  Not only do you have trouble recognizing opportunities to improve your life, you also resist taking action and end up feeling stuck and defeated much of the time.

Empowering yourself is a simple matter of switching your perspective and choosing to believe that you are not powerless or stuck.  For example, you may currently have a perception that you’re not talented or resourceful.  Such a belief will keep you locked in a cycle of fear, futility and inactivity because you won’t see the point of trying to improve your life, or you’ll be too afraid to try.

Regardless of the perceptions and beliefs that may be holding you back, there are specific things you can do to transform them and embrace more empowering beliefs.  Below you’ll find three easy ways to help you switch your perspective from disempowerment to empowerment:

1) Challenge your limiting beliefs and fears.  The most difficult thing about perceptions is that they appear to be undeniable truth in your own mind.  For example, you may have held a belief for years that you’re not good at a particular task or activity, but when you begin to explore that “truth” later, you realize that you never gave it your full effort or didn’t allow time to fully master it.  Once you do, you realize that you’re capable of much more than you ever suspected!

In order to fully empower yourself, get into the habit of questioning and challenging any limiting beliefs, fears and doubts that come up about you or your capabilities.  Are they really true?  Why do you think so?  Have you ever tried to prove them wrong?  By asking questions like this and being willing to expand your perceptions, you quickly realize that you are the only one holding yourself back!

2) Affirm your strengths and capabilities frequently.  Along with disempowerment usually comes a belief that you’re weak and powerless, which is simply another perception!  Begin changing this perception by affirming frequently that you are strong, powerful, talented and capable.  Build up yourself up with encouraging words and thoughts and you’ll begin to believe in yourself more and more each day.  Over time, this belief continues to grow and you’ll be able to do things you never would have believed you were capable of before. 

3) Take action.  Feeling disempowered usually causes you to hold back on taking action, either because you’re frightened, or because you believe it’s futile to try to change anything.  Your first impulse might be to wait until you’re feeling stronger before you take action, but did you know that taking action can make you feel stronger?  That’s right, taking action can empower you!

Be willing to take action in order to build up your confidence, even if you have to take very small steps.  Come up with one small action you can take, push your fear aside and then go for it!  Then keep that positive cycle going by taking small action steps and moving forward bit by bit, and eventually you’ll realize that you are anything but weak and powerless!

Knowledge is Power

Part of being an empowered person is having intimate knowledge and awareness of yourself as an individual, including your strengths, talents, weaknesses, capabilities and limitations.

How well do you know yourself?  You’d be surprised how many people don’t know themselves at all!  If you’ve spent the majority of your time focusing on the people around you, you may not have a clear self-image, which can lead to feelings of inner disconnection and dis-empowerment.

On the other hand, when you know yourself well you are empowered in that knowledge.  You feel confident, self-assured, centered and strong, which enables you to live purposely and make more beneficial decisions.

Getting to know yourself is easy to do with a consistent investment of time and focus.  Basically, you’d start just like you would if you wanted to get to know another person better – you’d spend quality time with them!  By spending frequent quality time with yourself, you’ll gain a clearer idea of who you are.

Start by considering your interests and passions.  Grab a sheet of paper and jot down some of the things you enjoy doing now, or have wanted to explore in the past.  If you’re not sure, think about the things you did when you were younger.  Have you always had an interest in creative activities like art and photography?  Did you belong to any clubs in school?  Have you always wanted to take foreign language classes or travel to exotic places?

Eventually you’ll want to devote time to exploring these activities because they’ll help you to grow more fully into yourself as a person.  However, for now simply explore your dreams, passions and interests on paper.

It’s also a good idea to get an idea of your personal values using this same process.  What is most important to you?  Honesty, love, compassion, service to others, family connections, making a positive difference in the world?  Jot down some ideas about the things that really matter to you.  Through these values you’ll get a clearer idea of the type of person you are.

Eventually you’ll want to be sure that the majority of your daily activities are in line with these values.  For example, does your job support your value of honesty, or are you required to “fib” or act in ways that are contrary to your values?  This is important because you will never feel truly empowered until you are living in alignment with your core values!

Another great way to get to know yourself better is through journaling.  When you journal, you are connecting with a deeper part of yourself: your authentic self!  Start by writing down some of your inner thoughts and insights about yourself.  If you’re not sure exactly what to write, try asking questions like these:

• Who am I?

• Why am I here?
• What is my life purpose?
• What am I here to contribute to the world?
• What do others think of me?
• Is that who I really am?

Don’t worry about getting the answers right – the important thing is to explore your personality and get a clearer idea of who you are.  Open your mind and let the answers spill out onto the page.

Getting to know yourself is a process that will continue throughout the rest of your life, but the more connected you become with your inner self, the more confident, self-assured – and empowered – you’re going to feel.

Empower Yourself with Positive Self-Talk

The way you speak to yourself mentally and verbally has a powerful impact on your self-image.  Berating or belittling yourself, minimizing your achievements or doubting your capabilities will most definitely create a sense of disempowerment, limiting your potential in virtually every aspect of your life.

On the other hand, positive and encouraging self-talk will contribute to inner strength and self-respect, which will drastically alter the way you see yourself and your potential in life.

Self-talk is like a recording that constantly plays in your mind, and much of the time you’re unaware of it because it occurs on a subconscious level.  The messages you receive from this recording can include limiting beliefs that were formed throughout your lifetime, as well as negative or derogatory input from your present environment.

The good news is that these recorded messages CAN be changed!  It’s even quite simple to do, but requires commitment, determination and consistent effort.

Below are a few simple ways you can use positive self-talk to change your mental recording and empower yourself:

Build yourself up.

If you’ve gotten used to tearing yourself down, you may not even notice how harshly you speak to yourself – but you’ll find yourself feeling sad, frustrated or guilty without understanding why.

To turn this around, you simply need to begin making a conscious choice to build yourself up as often as possible.  Get into the habit of speaking encouragingly and expressing positive thoughts about yourself.  For example, rather than saying, “Oh, you are such an idiot!” when you make a mistake, say, “Hey, that’s all right, everyone makes mistakes!  Next time you’ll do better.”

Look at yourself in the mirror daily and find three positive things to say about yourself.  You can compliment your physical features, personality traits or accomplishments – but be sure they are genuine compliments because your subconscious mind will know if you’re “lying.”

Most importantly, make it a daily habit to speak to yourself like you would a good friend who is in need of support and encouragement.  You’d never say horrible, mean things to them, so don’t say them to yourself either!

Cheer yourself on.

Rather than dreading a difficult task and doubting your capabilities, become your own best cheerleader!  When you’re getting ready to tackle something challenging, take a few minutes to scream and shout mentally that “you can do it; you can do it; you can do it!”

Also, be sure to regularly praise yourself for a job well done.  These don’t have to be big accomplishments – just something to which you gave your best effort.  For example, you could say to yourself, “I’m really proud of the way I handled that rude customer.  I kept my cool and remained professional while I handled the problem.”  Or, “I’m so proud of myself for finishing that project before deadline!  Now I’ve got a couple of hours I can devote to myself, and I definitely deserve some downtime.”

Love, love, love yourself.

We often have the perception that self-love will happen naturally once we change something about ourselves (like losing weight or achieving a goal) but self-love has to come first!  Begin expressing love for yourself exactly as you are on a regular basis.  Love yourself not for the things you’ve done or plan to do, but WHO you are.  Love your uniqueness, your personality, your character traits and everything else that makes you who you are.  The more you love yourself, the stronger and more positive you’ll feel about your life.

You may feel silly following some of these suggestions at first because they’re likely different from the way you normally treat yourself.  But the more you work with them and focus on having fun with them, the more effective they’ll be in erasing those old, negative messages and replacing them with more positive, empowering messages.