As a woman I completely understand how hard it can be to find self-empowerment. We are taught at a very young age to idolize this idea of what it means to be a woman, and little do we realize then that, that idea is so unrealistic. Of course, this unrealistic ideal does not only apply to women.
I wish I understood more about a man’s experience with living up to expectations but the truth is I don’t. I could never truly understand the pressure and the burden they must feel because I am not a man. I am a woman. However, since I am a woman and can only speak from a women’s perspective, that is what I am going to do.
And as a woman I understand what it feels like to constantly seek approval from others. How it feels to not feel worthy of others. What it means to place such a high value on yourself just for others to look down on you for it. I understand what it means to not feel empowered, which is why one of my biggest missions in life is to help women feel empowered.
We as women have to get better at trusting our own instincts. Knowing that we know what is best for us. Trusting that we have the knowledge to know when something is bad for us, or when we can improve a situation we are in as a means to improve ourselves overall. We have to get better at feeling empowered in order to truly life our happiest lives and reach our full potential.
All too often we place this trust, this confidence, and this ideal of what makes us great in the hands of others. We very rarely ever trust that all the answers are hidden within ourselves.
I made a vow 6 years ago to stop looking to others, both men and women alike, to know what is my worth. I promised myself that I was no longer going to rely on outside forces to identify my strengths. Instead I was going to start searching within, and trusting whatever power I found hidden inside to be my guiding light.
I was going to start empowering myself from that day forward and no longer looking for others to spark the flame for me. It took some time to figure out the formula that works best for me but after many years of trial and error, I finally found one that’s working best for me right now.
I’m still finding the perfect recipe but so far, I’ve got a pretty solid flow in motion. Today I’m sharing with you my top secrets for empowering yourself.
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1. Read empowering books
Reading is one of my favorite pastimes. I love to read books of all genres so long as they’re interesting and inspiring. However, these past couple of years I’ve been getting into reading books that reflect my life goals. Books that make me think more critically about my goals, where I currently am, and where I want to be in the near future.
There are tons of books out there to read that can help you empower yourself. I believe the key to finding a good book is to find one that relates to your life at in the present moment and time. Or at the very least to find books that speak to the kind of life and goals you have for yourself.
Naturally our minds might wander to books such as autobiographies, or self-help books. While these options are valid and helpful, you most certainly can find inspiration and clarification in books whose genre are fantasy or fiction. It’s really all a matter of what drives, interests, and motivates you to do better.
Here are some books that I personally have either been reading or looking forward to reading as a means to continue to empower myself.
A book that I absolutely love is Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. I love this book because as a woman I believe it speaks to having the courage to unlock your true potential so that you can soar in the way you desire to. This book is filled with tons of great viewpoints about how we may be holding ourselves back from living our happiest and more productive lives.
It’s really eye-opening and inspires you to take a hard look at your life and acknowledge changes that you can make in order to better yourself right now.
A New Model by Ashley Graham is a book I have been dying to read! I love Ashley for many reasons but the main one is because her body looks a lot like mines and she’s so successful and confident which empowers me to love myself in the same way. What I love most about Ashley is her power and confidence about who she is and what she has to offer despite the fact that she doesn’t look like most women. And by most women I mean “desirable” women.
This book comes across as being empowering for others, specifically women, in regards to loving who you are and the way you look from the inside out, and not letting that stop you from achieving your dreams.
Finally, We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union. Again, a book that has been on my reading list for a while now and I’m so excited to dive into. I’ve read and listened to bits and pieces of this book and what makes me feel most empowered by it is Gabrielle’s vulnerability with her truth. It can be so easy to bottle things inside, keep them a secret from the world, and take it to the grave with you. But when you do so you lose the power and the strength to grow from that pain and experience into who you were meant to be.
This book comes across as raw, honest, and very relevant to most women’s lives. I also love that all the topics talked about in this book are issues in the world that are starting to get more attention so that there are more solutions being created to avoid these problems.
(To check out any of these books got to Barnes and Noble.com and search for the title).
2. Practice self-love
I cannot say this enough. A huge part of self-empowerment is truly loving who you are. There will be many people who will try to de-value you, make you feel worthless, or make you feel silly for having confidence in your ability to do things. You cannot let that negativity get to you. The second you do it can so easily create a downward spiral of depression fueled by self-hatred and negative coping habits to go along with it.
Since being confident and empowering yourself isn’t always the easiest thing to do, I’ve found that really putting in practice self-love rituals can help greatly. When it comes to practicing self-love there are a ton of things you can do. Some self-love activities or rituals include:
- Meditating
- Exercising for your health
- Treating yourself to something special when you accomplish something small
- Journaling as a way to keep your mind free of clutter
- surrounding yourself with healthy people
- setting goals for yourself to achieve
And so much more. Something I like to keep in mind when practicing self-love is to not overthink it. Self-love is very much like self-care in two important ways. The first is in the act of doing something positive to better yourself overall. The second is that it’s very personal and will look, feel, and be define in many different ways. So, you have to do what feels right and most effective for you personally.
None the less a great way to feel empowered and to nourish that empowerment is to engage in acts of self-love daily. As a way to not overthink this, just simply take your favorite self-care practices and turn them into a daily thing so that you’re not scrambling to find activities or rituals that work best for you.
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3. Eliminate toxicity
This is super important! Feeling empowered is something that starts from within, but one way we can nourish that empowerment is by taking in energy from those around us. If you are not surrounded by positive energy fueling people you need to change this now!
It can be very exhausting trying to be the light in a world of darkness when you are surrounded by people who have days when they want to dim your light, and days when they want it to shine just a little bit. This is because these types of people do not engage in acts of self-love regularly, and therefore are already operating from a space of emptiness, defeat, and negativity.
While we want to ensure that we are giving a helping hand if and when we can, we are being nice to others, and treating others as we wish to be treated, we also need to make sure that we are protecting our space. Your personal space is where your store all your energy, dreams, ambitions, greatest wishes, and everything else that makes you uniquely you.
So, you have to protect it at all costs. Sometimes this means removing people from your life who are not contributing positive energy to that space. It’s never easy letting people go, especially the ones you truly do care about, but it’s so necessary if you want to empower yourself fully. Toxic people carry negative energy with them, and if you let them stick around long enough, they will eventually drain you.
4. Create your ideal environment and lifestyle
Something that I’ve been working hard at doing these past couple of years is creating an environment that is ideal to what makes me feel empowered. This may seem silly but there’s a lot of power in doing so. I’m a firm believer that we are all a product of our environment.
Everything we expose ourselves to, things we allow to enter our space, the way our space is decorated, and the kind of messages we are sending ourselves daily all have a direct impact on how we feel about ourselves. More importantly our environment directly impacts the things we set out to achieve, and how we ultimately live our life.
If your environment is bursting with positive messages and positive vibes, chances are you’re more likely to be a much happier person, and you have tons of goals that you set out to achieve. If your environment reflects the opposite, well the opposite of what it feels like to be empowered is more likely to occur.
It’s such a small detail but a very important one that has a such a huge impact on how we view ourselves and engage in self-love and self-care practices. The good think is that for the most part creating this positive and empowering environment often times is a quick and easy fix.
Think about what takes up the space in your environment and ask yourself if its reflective of what you truly want out of life. Does your environment and currently lifestyle make you feel empowered? If you answer no to any of this, adjust as necessary and watch how your confidence, the goals you set, the way you carry and present yourself, and the way you feel about yourself changes.
It’s truly magical and will make you keep coming back for more.
5. Practice what you preach
Finally, practice what you preach. It took me a really long time to get to this point mainly because I was so insecure about empowering myself. I was raised to always put others before myself, and to stick something out until the very end even if it no longer served my higher purpose.
I’m telling you do the complete opposite!
While being of service to others is a very great characteristic to have, you don’t want that to be your narrative. You have to find the balance between your morals and values and what it means to serve others in a way that is not going to degrade or deplete you.
A big part of empowerment comes from truly knowing your worth. This means knowing what you are and are not capable of doing, and even what you are and are not willing to do. You have to know your potential and believe in it in order to truly grow into the best version of yourself. You have to trust that you know what your higher purpose is and use that are your guiding light.
That all starts with hearing your voice loud and clear, and choosing to let it speak louder than those around you. When we learn to trust our intuition, we have a better understanding of what makes us feel empowered and how we can best nourish that feeling.
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Conclusion
All too often we as women just follow the status quo of what makes a woman amazing. But guess what! We have our own thoughts, ideas, and goals that we want to achieve. We are just as talented, creative, and ambitious as any other sex/gender on the face of this earth.
So why stick to the out-of-date status quo about what makes a woman great when we can define in our terms what that looks like? There’s nothing more empowering than taking your own narrative and being the voice behind it. So, trust that you know what’s best for you and what your higher purpose is.
There is nothing more empowering than empowering yourself first, so that you can be strong enough to do the same for others.
-Xo
Kimora