The 100 Things I Love and Appreciate about Myself (and can use to serve others)

“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked.  Try appreciating yourself and see what happens.”

                                                                                                          - Louise L. Hay

Today marks the 100^th consecutive week that I have published a Mind of a Champion Tip of the Week video and written blog. 

I want to thank all of my readers and viewers of this blog over the past two years who have supported me with your comments, “likes”, “shares” and words of encouragement and appreciation.  I am truly humbled to be able to share these messages with you.

I also want to acknowledge myself for having the vision, persistence and fortitude to create material each week for these 100 installments.  There were certainly times when I did not feel like sitting down in front of the computer to type out another sharing or times that I didn’t want to press record and film another Facebook Live, but I did.

This brings me to the theme of today’s message. 

When thinking of what I could share to commemorate this 100^th addition, several things came to mind.

• Share the 100 things I learned from doing this blog
• Get 100 “likes” and/or “shares” of my Facebook Live
• Do 100 push-ups

Surprisingly, none of those options inspired me.

After some self-reflection, what came most powerfully to mind was an exercise I did earlier this year (thanks, Doug McGhee).  It was process I personally gained great value from and, once I completed it and reflected upon it, began to wish everyone took the time to do it. 

The exercise is to list …………

100 Things I Love and Appreciate about Myself

Ok, be honest, how many of you cringed when you heard that title?

In our society, it is very easy to be critical of ourselves.  For many of us, it has been hard-wired that self-criticism is the most efficient form of getting us to improve.  While we all have had instances where a “heart-to-heart” discussion with ourselves about our lack of effort, poor attitudes or indecision has served us; it is clear to me that continued self-judgment and criticism over time not only doesn’t produce the results we want, it’s actually damaging.

My mom told me once as a young child, when I was being hard on myself, “You need to love yourself, before you can love anyone else.”  Thanks, mom, “I love YOU.”

Truly loving, accepting, caring and appreciating ourselves is also the only true way we can prepare ourselves to serve others.  If we lack in our ability to fill ourselves up with acts of self-love, self-care and self-appreciation we become depleted.  This dramatically impacts our capacity to serve others as we “can’t give what we don’t have”.

However, when we fill ourselves up first, we can give from that overflow and everyone is served.

So, how can this work in our own lives?  Here are three things I learned from listing 100 things I love and appreciate about myself that I think can serve you too.

• Love and appreciate the “good” things about yourself– This is a “no-brainer”. However, sometimes we can get so busy working on the next big thing that we don’t stop to reflect on how awesome we are.  My guess is this hold true for you, as well.  Where do you have an opportunity to recognize the great things about yourself?

• Love and appreciate the “bad” things about yourself – I believe we all have parts of ourselves that we do not approve of, wish were different or wish we hadn’t done. The truth is, until we love and accept these parts of ourselves, we can never truly transcend them.  When we love and accept them (regardless of how “bad” we judge them to be), and use them for our learning, upliftment and growth they then become a great basis for us to serve others.  What “bad” things about yourself is it time for you to love, accept and appreciate?

• Love and appreciate yourself for showing up – Life can be hard, but up until now, you made it – you’re here. Based on what you knew in the past and what you know now, you are doing the best you can.  I believe, when we become adept at looking at ourselves in this way, we open our consciousness to even greater ways to live and serve others.  We are all in this game together and we all have challenges.  When we love and accept this about ourselves, it frees us up to powerfully move forward and serve others at even more profound levels.  Where do you have an opportunity to love and appreciate yourself for showing up?

So, there you have it, my friends.  Are you up for the challenge to list those 100 things you love and appreciate about yourself?  Are you ready to take the time to give yourself this gift so you can share with others from the overflow? 

Who knows, you might just fall in love 😊?

Chris Natzke

Black Belt Leadership Speaking & Coaching