Self empowerment is about taking control of your life. This involves developing the self-trust and self-awareness you need to set the right goals, make sound decisions, and understand your strengths and weaknesses - so you can thrive.
Living a life fuelled by self empowerment is a refusal to allow others to make decisions for you.
Instead, it’s claiming your own path - regardless of what anyone else says - because you know that path is right for you.
It’s the harder path for sure. It’s far easier to settle for conventional rules and fall in line. It’s easier to play small and dumb down your goals and your ideas. But if you’re reading this, I know that’s not what you want.
You want to dream bigger and achieve more. You want to explore your full potential and you want to feel empowered to take the actions and decisions that lead to an abundant life.
So if you know there’s so much more out there, this article is for you.
Keep reading and you’ll discover SEVEN powerful self improvement techniques that will help you cultivate the grit, self-trust, and confidence you need to be your best.
1. Journaling
“An unexamined life is not worth living.” - Plato
Everyday you make decisions, ponder over thoughts, and live out experiences. It’s a big melting pot, which contains a host of insights ready for you to pull out.
That’s what journaling helps you to do - it’s a practice that empowers you to examine your life for self empowerment.
By getting introspective in your notebook, you can explore your thoughts and experiences more deeply. You can look for the connections, join up the dots, and get clearer on who you are.
Journaling isn’t just about mulling over the here and now. You can also use this practice to reflect over your life so you can get more clarity on what’s shaped your beliefs and your thought patterns. If you struggle to know what to journal about, ask yourself questions or get your hands on some prompts.
Do what it takes to get more clarity on the subconscious, hidden stuff that’s driving you, and you’ll be able to make more empowered choices moving forward.
2. Make good decisions
“It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.” - Tony Robbins
When you lack confidence and you don’t know yourself, it’s easy to be influenced by the people you admire and respect.
Especially when it comes to those big, defining decisions!
If you don’t trust your own judgement, there’s a good chance you’ll be persuaded.
But what others think you should do isn’t necessarily what’s right for you.
Often, we know in our gut what the right choice is, but we end up overriding that decision because of fear, ‘logical’ thinking, and the opinions of others.
Decisiveness is powerful because it allows you to take control over your life.
Instead of procrastinating, you can choose and act.
So invest in developing your decision making skills.
Train your mind to think widely about the tough choices - considering all angles so you feel confident you’ve chosen well. Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but trusting yourself enough to go for what you think is right is a hugely empowering thing to do.
3. Set goals
"The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score." –Bill Copeland
When it comes to self empowerment, your goals are the drivers.
Set goals and you begin to live your life intentionally. Instead of allowing each day to be like the one before, you set a course that allows you to create the life YOU want.
Goals create focus.
They tell your brain what’s important (and what is less so).
They make it easy for you to prioritize what’s on your plate by putting the things that will take you closer to your targets first.
Goals are the seeds of change and they put you in the driving seat of your life.
What goals do you need to set - in your relationships, your work/career, your personal development, your finances, your hobbies, your health and wellbeing etc?
Set goals that take you closer to the things you want, and take action on them, and you’ll feel more empowered than ever.
4. Manage your time
“The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.” - Stephen Covey
Each day, you wake up with 1440 minutes deposited in your time bank account.
Time is the greatest equalizer. It doesn’t matter who you are, we all get the same time allocation. It’s what you do with your time that counts.
It’s easy to feel disempowered in life when time feels scarce, but the truth is you do have enough time to do it all. It’s simply a case of prioritization and allocation.
Self empowerment is about taking responsibility for your time and ensuing you’re using it wisely. Ask yourself:
Time is too precious to leave it to chance.
Instead, use a planner (such as the Self Journal) to plan your day.
Figure out your daily targets (ensuring they’re aligned to your goals) and schedule in all your tasks in the same way you would a fixed appointment.
Budget your time to get it all done and there’s a good chance you will.
5. Don’t be afraid to fail
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” - Henry Ford
If self empowerment is about taking control and using your life to do the things you want, you MUST get comfortable with failure.
No one likes to fail. It’s uncomfortable, it can knock our confidence, and it makes us vulnerable to the judgement of others.
However, you can’t create a fully expressed life if you never push yourself out of your comfort zone. The things you want require you to take actions and make decisions that you’ve never taken before. It’s just the way it is! You can’t know everything in advance (and if you do, perhaps you’re not thinking big enough).
So give yourself the freedom and permission to get it wrong.
Change your perception of failure and see it as a fundamental part of the self-growth process. Turn ‘mistakes’ into learning opportunities and every time things don’t go as you planned, soak up the rush of fresh insights that will help you do more next time.
You aren’t your mistakes. You are so much more than that.
It takes guts to take a risk and push yourself further than you think you can go.
But prioritize courage over comfort, and you’ll feel more self empowered than ever.
6. Say no without feeling guilty
“Just saying yes because you can’t bear the short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the work.” - Seth Godin
Time is your most precious resource.
So don’t waste it doing things you think you have to do.
I get it, saying no can be really hard - you don’t want to let people down and you don’t want others to feel bad about you.
But every time you say YES when you really mean no, you divert your time resource to activities you don’t really want to do.
Let that sink in…
Saying yes to someone else means saying no to you.
It’s your life and that means you’re allowed to do things your way. You’re allowed to prioritize your needs over other people’s.
Self empowerment involves being more mindful with your yeses and nos.
So next time someone makes a request of you and you want to say no, but feel you have to say yes, dive deeper into your thought process. Grab your journal if you need to.
When you understand your programming, you’ll be empowered to give replies that are true to you.
7. Love yourself
“Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have.” - Robert Holden
How’s your relationship with yourself?
How do you feel when you look in the mirror? Do you like what you see? Do you think you’re worthy of living life to the full and creating everything you desire?
Without self love, everything else becomes so much harder.
It’s why nurturing your relationship with yourself is one of the most powerful things you can do. In fact, self love is the catalyst to virtually everything (including self empowerment).
Make sure your cup is full, and you’ll feel empowered to do so much more.
Self empowerment is a journey, NOT an overnight fix
Your ability to take control of your life and feel good in the skin you’re in is a state that’s constantly evolving.
That’s the beautiful thing about self growth…
The more you achieve and discover about yourself, the more you realize is possible.
That’s why self empowerment isn’t a destination. Instead, it’s an ongoing journey of personal evolution.
And at each stage, you open the doors to bigger and bigger opportunities and rewards.
When self empowerment becomes a driver, you’ll always be growing. You’ll discover more and more truths about who you really are.
And that is a mammoth reward in itself.
How are you cultivating self empowerment in your life?
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