Give Yourself Permission to Be Proud of Yourself

Do you know how awesome you are? Do you realize just how much you have achieved? Do you see everything you have? Or do you tend to get so caught up in focusing on what you think you’re lacking, that you don’t ever give yourself permission to let go of your quest for perfection for long enough to simply acknowledge all that you have already accomplished or see yourself as the exquisite person that you are?

Do you think that if you let go of the belief that you are lacking everything you want, that the goals you wish to accomplish might just go on without you? Perhaps ending up in someone else’s hands, other than your own? Do you think that you’ll forget to follow your heart if you allow yourself to reflect back on what you’ve already become and achieved, or that you’ll fail if you let yourself be proud of yourself for each success you’ve enjoyed along your journey? Have you even allowed yourself to enjoy any of your successes?

“It’s not good enough.” “It has to be perfect.” “I have to be perfect.” “I can’t enjoy it until it’s just right.” Sound familiar? Do you ever hear yourself repeating any of this over and over in your mind? These are extremely limiting and self-sabotaging programs of the ego-mind, all there for no other purpose than to convince us that we are the exact opposite of the perfection that we already are. We all strive for perfection. We all want to personify excellence. We tend to think that to allow ourselves to believe in a concept such as “good enough” is to fall short of this perfection and excellence that we so idealize. But is it really?

Every time you fall slave to the belief that you have to be perfect before you can enjoy any of your achievements, you reinforce the programming that nothing is ever good enough – and as long as you believe nothing is good enough, nothing ever is. You will always be striving for more, for better, and disallowing yourself to feel joy and satisfaction along your journey.

When you are a baby, just learning to walk, each step you take is a victory. Why do we forget that? We get so focused on the big picture of our ideal, that we begin to see all the details – the content of the big picture – as “just details” and take no pride whatsoever in their accomplishment. We expect to just jump into the big picture without allowing ourselves to enjoy the steps of the journey there. And when that happens, we never get to the big picture we want to be in.

What happens when you go through life without joy or satisfaction? You attract misery and frustration. You feel like a failure when you don’t give yourself permission to be proud of yourself for all of your victories. We begin to think that if we lose sight of our big picture, we will never get there. We dig ourselves into a rut that we don’t know how to get out of, stuck in the beliefs of “never enough,” “never good enough,” and “oh I’m such a failure.” And none of it is even true. You are good enough! You are more than good enough! You are awesome and incredible; you are already perfect, and you don’t even know it, because you don’t allow yourself to see it. Wake up! Believe in yourself!

Do you know that Spirit believes in you? Do you know that God sees you as perfect? And if the Highest Power in all existence believes in you, why can’t you? Who are we to believe we’re not good enough? Who are we to believe we are not perfect? Do we, in the 3% of the mind that we actually use, believe we know better than Spirit does? Do you realize that to judge yourself as imperfect and not good enough is the very epitome of egocentric thinking? The very opposite of true humility. Being proud of yourself is to be humble. Each step along your journey is a gift from Spirit. Give yourself permission to be happy and proud of yourself for each and every thing you achieve, for all that you have, and most especially, for who you are.

See yourself where you want to be. See the big picture. But understand that you cannot get there if you cannot allow yourself to be grateful along the way for each thing that you do, for all the little things, for everything you have, and for the person that you are. If you need for someone else to give you permission to be proud of yourself, then ask Spirit to give it to you. And in asking, you shall receive. Whatever you do, wherever you go, take Spirit with you. Spirit is you. And once you know this, once you feel this, you’ve got your permission. You can only be proud of yourself. You can only be joyful, because Joy is what you are.

So what do you have to be proud of? Please take a few moments and think back to your achievements. Think of the things you have learned, even as steps along the way. If you perceive any failures, then dig into those for the amazing lessons you have learned from them, and I assure you, you have learned something valuable. Think of something you have that you like. See yourself. And make yourself a list of everything you’ve done, things you have learned, everything you have, and everything you are – and you will find that you have so very much to be proud of, so very much to enjoy and give thanks for. Love yourself. Believe in the miracle that you truly are. Allow yourself the praise you deserve.