You Aren’t A ‘Before’ Picture, You’re Worthy Of The Life You Want Right Now
The thing about self-esteem is that nobody is going to come along one day and convince you that you’re enough.
In all of our magical healing fantasies, we imagine that one day, we’ll cross a finish line. We assume that when we finally look the way we always wanted, when we finally make as much as we think successful people must, when someone comes along and makes us feel so high from their love — we’ll be convinced of our goodness.
This is a dangerous trap to fall into, because of course, the goal post is always moving. We reach one milestone, and then we’re hungry for the next.
Nothing convinces us of our worth until we make an intentional, daily commitment to seeing it.
You are not a “before” picture.
You’re not in a purgatory stage of your life that you just have to get through until you can be good enough to have what you want.
Your life is not on hold until you’re in better shape, wearing different clothes, or have more money in the bank.
Your life is happening right now — you’re in it, or you’re not.
The first and hardest step of real self-improvement is the willingness to see and honor yourself exactly where you are. Because though it is much easier to point out all the ways we might want to change, real change only happens when we come from a place of acceptance.
We can’t hate ourselves into the life we want.
We can’t bully ourselves into being better.
How we achieve the goal is what we achieve in the end.
If we try to ridicule ourselves into changing, we end up with lower self-esteem, not a better.
When we truly love ourselves as we are, right here and right now, something actually magical happens: we begin to rise up into everything we possibly could be. Self-hate is not a motivator, it’s what’s holding us back.
When we get out of the idea that we’re trying to earn our way into the life we want, we start doing the actual important work of building that life right here and now.
When we stop waiting for something outside of us to cue us to feel worthy of our own existence, we start appreciating what we have, and where we are.
When we stop trying to change ourselves into what we aren’t, we can lean into emphasizing and expanding what we are.
In that, we find, was the answer all along.
We never wanted to be someone else. We never needed to look different. We never required someone else’s love. We only failed to realize that we could consciously and actively choose to do better for ourselves, and we could unlock all the worth we ever wanted to feel.
It always seems like the love story is when you finally meet the right person and everything falls into place, but it’s really when you recognize that you are the right person and start putting it in place yourself.
You are not going to live in an “after” picture one day.
You are not going to get to a point where everything is magical and perfect and changed, even if many things are indeed magical, perfect, and changed.
You either meet yourself where you are today, or you spend your entire life running from who you really are.
How much longer are you going to continue to fight to be worthy of your own life?