We are not born doubting ourselves.We learn to do it.In fact,we a re usually taught to doubt ourselves.Often we are taught to do so by o therwise well-meaning people who are passing along their own doubts and uncertainties and who believe they are being protective and caring.What these people (usually parents and other significant adults) want are str ong,capable and self-confident people,but they often inadvertently tea ch us thought processes that lead to something else.That's the bad new s.The good news is that we can understand some of these processes and l earn new ways of coping that allow us to become more accepting of oursel ves.Following are six behaviors you may have learned that can be unlear ned and allow you to move toward greater self-acceptance.
One way to really dislike yourself is to always judge yourself in a very moralistic way.People often spend a lot of time and energy labelin g their behavior with moral adjectives such as "bad","hateful" and"mean".When you apply these kinds of words to yourself you make likin g yourself much more difficult.There is a more productive way of lookin g at yourself that will allow you to begin to like yourself more.Instea d of evaluating yourself in this moralistic way,begin to ask questions like:"Did I do what I really wanted to do in this situation?" "How c an I correct the misunderstanding that occurred?" In other words,you c an start to view what you've done as productive or non-productive rathe r than as good or bad.If something is non-productive,you can focus on what you have learned from it and try another approach that might be mor e productive.
Another thing that might cause you not to accept yourself is over-ge neralizing about something you've done that you don't like.So,for ex ample,if you fail a test you might generalize and say,"I'm really a stupid person." When you do this you are making a statement about all o f you all of the time and not just about this one situation at this time.Instead,you might decide that your grade on this test in this subject at this time was indeed poor,and then go on to decide what you want to do about your poor grade,if anything.Getting stuck in over-generalizin g discourages you from taking steps that might allow you to do better on the next exam and builds an expectation of future failure.