Accepting and Being Happy With Who You Are!

The concept of self-acceptance is pretty basic on the surface. It means recognizing that you're a highly complex individual who is OK just as you are. It requires you to embrace everything about yourself -- including those things that you perceive as your weaknesses or flaws. I feel that this is different from self-esteem, which is a measurement of how worthy we see ourselves or how we think we measure up to everyone else.
According to an article by psychologist Dr. Leon Seltzer, it is said "if deep within us we are ever to feel,  as our normal state of being, happy and fulfilled, we must first rise to the challenge of complete, unqualified self-acceptance". Dr. Seltzer calls it a challenge for a reason; and suggest that when a person struggles with accepting onesself,  that there may be combating of years of feeling guilty, judging and criticizing yourself. We often treat others better than we treat ourselves. One thing that can help in this self acceptance is instead of always emptying yourself on other people, try directing some of that compassion and caring toward yourself. Just because you might fail at something to try,  doesn't make you a failure as a person. You at least made the attempt and that is not failure. If you have honestly given your best at a task and if your best was not good enough at that time, accept that you're doing the best that you can and that you were beaten  at the top of your game. Don't beat yourself, always give your best at all you do.

I am sure that there are those who think that self-acceptance means ceasing to strive for personal growth, but I don't see these two concepts as being linked at all. There's nothing wrong with wanting to learn and become a better person, but accepting who you are is about living in the present, not your past or your future where none of us know what that future will have in store. One final thought about feeling good and accepting who you are is that setting and working toward some personal attainable goals can give you a sense of purpose, and reaching them will always help in the boosting of your own self-confidence. However, there is one major mistake that many people make and should be avoided at all times:  setting unrealistic goals that you can't possible reach. So, instead of feeling gratified and fulfilled, you can end up feeling worse about yourself than before with a possible mindset giving rise thinking, "Why did I even bother to try"! Set reachable short term goals and as you reach goal, you can't help felling better about yourself and you are on your way to better accepting and being happy with who you are.